TESTED: Skratch Labs Nutrition

Words: Imogen Smith

Photos: Mike Blewitt

Skratch is a US nutrition brand founded about 10 years ago by an exercise physiologist known for his work with pro road teams, Dr Allen Lim. Skratch products are based on two values: natural ingredients that taste good in ratios that are proven in the lab and on the bike to work.

Back in the days when he worked with the pro teams, Lim was known for questioning the staunchly traditional practices of the European road scene (like, pasta for breakfast). He developed a product he called the ‘Secret Drink Mix’, whose reputation spread among the pro peloton to the point that he had to borrow a paint mixer to blend the stuff and the side hustle quickly outgrew his garage. 

The drink mix was unique in those days. Lim hated seeing athletes guzzling sugary, multicoloured drinks flogged off as ‘sports beverages’, then struggling with upset stomachs during important rides and races. Lim also had an issue with the artificial ingredients and weird unfoodlike concoctions that had made their way into athletes’ nutrition (gels are still notably absent from the Skratch range). “You don't sweat Red Dye #40”, says Lim “so why drink it?"

When you’re exercising, water and sodium need replacing to keep your fluid in balance. And if you’re active, you need carbohydrates too. There’s no doubt that sports drinks are the answer, but commercial brands can contain far too much carb, not enough sodium, and too many weird ingredients to permit water and nutrients to pass from your small intestine into your bloodstream quickly, resulting in sloshing and upset stomachs. 

Everyone’s sweat is different, but it usually contains 400mg to 1200mg of sodium per litre and in hot conditions you can lose that much in an hour. Some salty dogs out there can lose up to 2,000mg of sodium an hour in their sweat! 

Lim’s solution? Drink a sports drink that replaces your sodium and less concentrated than your blood. (Like the Secret Drink Mix.) Need more carb (and you will): then eat real food.

A lot was going on at around the time Lim moved the secret drink mix out of his garage. The pro cycling teams and star athletes he’d worked with (think Armstrong and Landis) tumbled into scandals of drugs and doping. In the ground zero of professional cycling, demand for natural alternatives that really did enhance performance were sky high. 

It was time to start from scratch.

The Secret Drink Mix was rebranded, a website launched, and Lim emerged in a whole new business – natural, science-proven sports nutrition.

Skratch’s range has grown to include rice cakes, chews, various drink mixes and bars. I tested four products: the Sport Hydration drink mix, Anytime Energy Bars, Sport Energy Chews, and high-calorie Superfuel drink mix.

Skratch Labs Sport Hydration drink mix 

440g (20 serves) $34.95, 1320g (60 serves) $89.95

The rebranded flagship Secret Drink, Skratch Hydration mix has a very simple list of ingredients. It’s nothing but sugar, electrolytes, and natural fruit flavouring. The simplicity of the ingredients, however, belies some pretty complex chemical and physical processes that optimise this product for maximum hydration. I used this mix under immense heat duress at a stage of the Cape Epic that reached 42 degrees and I honestly believe that it saved me from dehydration and meant I not only had a good stage – I had a great one. I’ve also used the product in a range of training and racing from Queensland summer humidity to freezing Tasmanian conditions and it’s by far the best product I’ve ever tried. With 800mg of sodium and 40g of carbohydrate per litre – representing more and less than most drinks respectively – throughout testing I’ve learnt that if you get your hydration balanced then most aspects of fuelling flow pretty easily from there.

It comes in six flavours, all of them from natural ingredients that taste great. 

NUTRITION: Should you eat or drink your fuel?

Skratch Labs Anytime Energy Bar

$5.95 each

The name says it all. I’ve eaten these literally anytime: they’re super practical if you’re travelling to ride or just really busy – and great on the bike, too.

As a long-distance mountain biker I’ve tried a lot of different bars, most of them VERY difficult to eat, from space-food-like power bars to cakey things, to confections a bit like raw cookie dough, to dry creations that could have been made from the scrapings left behind in a juicer. I’ve tried cheap muesli bars, sandwiches with the crusts cut off, rice cakes, muffins, pizza rolls and dried fruit, with varying success. 

The thing is, if you want to eat a bar, you need to be able to chew it pretty easily, and it can’t be too dry or you won’t be able to swallow it. Then it’s got to taste good or the whole effort just isn’t worth it. These bars were a bit tough to bite in cold weather, but pleasantly chewy, and not too sweet – in fact – very tasty. I loved that just by looking at the bar I could tell it was real food – you can see the fruit, nuts, seeds and they taste completely wholesome. They’re the kind of food most of us would enjoy off the bike – that makes a real difference on the bike.

Anytime Bars have half as much sugar as the leading energy bar… but they are anything but bland. Fruit flavours really pop and the chewy mouth feel of nut butters and coconut nectar stand out. They are non-gmo, gluten free, dairy free, vegan, and kosher too. Anytime Bars come in four flavours: Raspberries and lemons, peanut butter and strawberries, chocolate chips and almonds, and cherries and pistachios.

Skratch Labs Sport Energy Chews

$3.50 per pack

Skratch energy chews are designed to provide a natural alternative to the garishly coloured blocks and chews on the market. The difference is, of course, that these are all natural (including their colours) and formulated to hang together long enough to empty from your stomach in a gradual way, reducing any possibilities of gut distress. I tasted every flavour and they’re intense and super fruity, slightly chewy (but less so than competitors), all tied up with a pleasant dusting of fine sugar like old-skool lollies had. For an extra bit of focus try the matcha green tea and lemon flavour with a modest 6mg of caffeine, and for a pick-me-up try the sour cherry with 50mg of caffeine (these have a slightly bitter-sour taste so you really know they’re working). Other flavours are orange or raspberry.

Skratch Sport Superfuel drink mix

1kg $84.95

Sometimes you’ll be riding rough or technical terrain for prolonged periods (think gravity events or racing) and there’ll be no time to unwrap and chew food. Superfuel drink mix is one of a new breed of next-gen nutritional drinks that provide whopping amounts of carbohydrate in liquid form (100g of CHO in one serve) – all but removing the need to eat while you’re riding. While all are pretty similar in terms of the amount of CHO they can fit into a bidon, Skratch claim their ‘Cluster Dextrin’ carb formula, through complicated molecular processes, can provide slow release carbs without causing gut distress. Apart from Cluster Dextrin, the ingredients list is familiarly simple: natural flavours, sugars, and electrolytes.

Mixing involves shoving a scary amount of powder (seven scoops!) in your bottle but it dissolves surprisingly well and tastes far milder than I had expected given the quantity of sugar. A word of warning though, this is only designed for hard, intense, or long rides and remember to stick to around 90 grams of CHO per hour max – more than that and your stomach won’t handle it, no matter what product you’re using.

From: Skratchlabs.com.au

Hits

• Great flavours
• Real food
• Delivers on promises

Misses

• On the more expensive side of the market