Hammer Gel
BY STEVE BORN
Vivek Wadhwa once said "The fact is that you are never too old to innovate," and that's true with Hammer Gel. When fuel has been around as long as Hammer Gel, you know that it's both high quality and highly effective. Still, we never rest on our laurels when it comes to working to improve an already outstanding product. When we have the opportunity to make improvements - even those that some may seem as somewhat minor - we jump on it.
One of the things we had been wanting to do for a while was to find a better preservative than potassium sorbate. While this food-grade preservative has been given generally recognized as safe (GRAS) status, and though its toxicity is extraordinarily low - about the same as table salt - we were looking for even more-natural alternatives that would provide the preservation properties that are required and that were also FDA-approved. We found just the thing in MicroGARD CS1-50 cultured dextrose - it's all-natural and it's equal-to-more effective than potassium sorbate. And although the word "dextrose" appears in the name, once the dextrose is altered by the culturing process it is no longer the same as a simple sugar. Lastly, the amount of MicroGARD CS1-50 cultured dextrose required to provide potent preservation benefits is extremely minimal (less than 1% needed per serving), so if any sugar content did exist it would be negligible and virtually imperceptible.
Another change that we made that we're very pleased about is being able to meet the FDA's processing acidity requirements by replacing a large portion of the citric acid/malic acid/sodium acid sulphate components in Hammer Gel with ascorbic acid (Vitamin C). Now, one Gel serving will contain 60-200% of the Daily Value for Vitamin C, a powerful antioxidant. We have no doubt that reducing the content of these other components with vitamin C is a significant upgrade in the product.
A third change we made was swapping the potassium chloride to potassium carbonate. This allows us to standardize the potassium content for all of the flavors of Hammer Gel at 35 mg per serving without taking up as much space.
Lastly, we are now using even more-natural flavors in Hammer Gel (more naturally natural, so to speak) to replace any processed natural flavorings that may have been used.
The term "we sweat the details" is definitely applicable when it comes to the tweaks we've made on Hammer Gel, making an excellent product even better.
