Episode 188 - Creatine Gummies vs Powder: Which One Actually Works?

Creatine Gummies vs Powder: Which One Actually Works?

Creatine is having a serious moment right now! From bodybuilders to busy mums, we’re all being told to jump on the creatine bandwagon to  improve our strength, muscle mass and performance.

And to sweeten the deal, creatine is now available in the form of convenient and tasty gummies  that claim to give us the same muscle boosting powers and benefits as the powder. 

But is that actually true?

And should everyone really be taking creatine?

Links:

NOW testing: Testing programme identifies creatine gummy failings

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Episode Transcription

Episode 188: Creatine Gummies vs Powder: Which One Actually Works?

Welcome to the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. The show designed to serve you up evidence-based sports nutrition advice from the experts. Hi, I'm your host Taryn, Accredited Practicing Dietitian, Advanced Sports Dietitian and founder of Dietitian Approved. Listen as I break down the latest evidence to give you practical, easy-to-digest strategies to train hard, recover faster and perform at your best. You have so much potential, and I want to help you unlock that with the power of nutrition. Let's get into it.

[00:00:00] Taryn: Creatin is having a serious moment lately. It is being recommended by everyone, for everyone from bodybuilders all the way up to busy mums, and it's turning up in different forms like lolly, like gummies, that claim to give you the same muscle boosting powers and benefits as the powder. Is that actually true?

[00:00:20] Are creatine gummies worth all that extra money, or are you literally chewing through your supplement budget for nothing? In today's episode, I'm diving into one of the common questions I'm getting asked lately, and it's whether you should take creatine as a powder or creatine as the gummy form.

[00:00:38] I will walk you through what the science says, the pros and cons for both forms, and a concerning issue that I've been seeing lately around creatine, gummy testing. That could definitely leave you shortchanged.

[00:00:51] So if you're thinking about starting to take Creatin or you already do take Creatin and you just wanna be sure that you're not wasting your money, then this episode is for you. Let's get into it.

[00:01:22] Creatine is one of the hottest supplements at the moment, but what is it and why could it be beneficial?

[00:01:28] Creatine is naturally found in our muscles, and long story short, it helps to generate energy or a TP for short bursts of high intensity exercise. It is not so helpful for the long slow zone two training that we typically do quite often as triathletes. It is one of the most research supplements and it is effective for improving strength muscle mass and high intensity output performance.

[00:01:57] It is not a magic pill though, and [00:02:00] it works best with consistent use and aligning it to the right training and the person because who actually needs creatine when a lot of people are sping it. Its benefits for everyone. There is a lot of messaging at the moment that everyone should take creatin for all sorts of reasons, and I disagree with that messaging that everyone should be taking it because we need to be far more strategic and not a one size fits all approach when it comes to supplementing with things like this.

[00:02:31] Recently, I did a entire masterclass on Creatin supplement use for my triathlon Nutrition academy athletes I dived into all of the evidence behind creatine, how it works, who specifically would benefit and how to use it properly because some of that information is not even available on the internet.

[00:02:50] But with this increased marketing of creatine lately has come a wave of other new products on the market to get creatin.

[00:02:59] The two main forms are the gummies. They're little lolly, ju things that come in all different colors, shapes and sizes, and creatine powder, which is an innocuous white powder that doesn't taste that great.

[00:03:11] Let's be honest. It doesn't really have too much of a taste, but lollies are way more sexy. And one of the questions that I've been asked a lot lately and even by my TNA athletes is I've been taking these creatin gummies, are they the same as the powder? So, we're gonna dive into that today.

[00:03:26] I can totally see why the gummies have become popular. They have a lot of pros. They are convenient little portions. You only need, a couple of them to meet your requirements. Three to five, depending on how much is in a gummy, but that's typical. Sometimes it can be way more than that, but yes, super convenient little portions that you can take with you on the go.

[00:03:48] They're very easily portable. They're pretty tasty and palatable. They are kind of like eating lollies or candy, and they can be flavored with a whole range of different flavors to [00:04:00] make them more palatable and more appealing as well. Compared with the powder that doesn't taste that great. It's all right.

[00:04:10] You can muscle through it, but it doesn't have that same palatability as a little gummies that have been sweetened,

[00:04:17] and the powder's also less convenient. I guess you need to take a serve of the powder with you if you're taking it with you throughout the day. You can take that dry in a shaker or you can mix it into a smoothie, but it is less convenient having a random white powder lying around in Ziploc bags.

[00:04:34] Cons though for the gummies is they are bloody expensive, so much more expensive than the powder. As an example, one brand here in Australia called Push Gummies, they're a dollar 67 per serve compared to a creatine powder. They range from anywhere from 20 cents a serve up to about 80 cents at some of the most expensive brands, So gummies are up to eight times the cost compared to a powder for the same thing. There's nothing magic about gummies. So if you were to supplement creatine for a year, powder versus gummies powder is gonna cost you around $73 for an entire year's supply.

[00:05:17] Compared to the gummies, it's going to cost you over $600 for a supply. So it's $537 that you can either save and pocket or spend it on something else because we know that there's always things to buy as a triathlete.

[00:05:33] Another con for me with the gummies is the presence of other ingredients. And that can range depending on the brand, but they typically have added sugar and or sweeteners. And typically artificial sweeteners, they have gelatin or pectin as the base to form them into a gummy as well as a variety of flavors.

[00:05:53] And sometimes they have extra amino acids and vitamins added to them as well. So you can turn the packet around, have a look at the label, [00:06:00] and have a look at the list of ingredients to see what is actually in your gummies because they do range and is highly variable depending on the brand.

[00:06:08] Now, the major con with gummies that cannot be overlooked is the creatine content of them is not consistent. 

[00:06:16] Creatine as a powder is very stable, but when you mix it with a fluid, it breaks down to an inactive byproduct called creatinine. So to make gummies, you need to mix them with some sort of fluid and then heat them to set the gel into the gummy form. Now Foods in 2024 did some independent testing of 12 brands of creatine by high performance liquid chromatography or HPLC to see how much creatine is actually in gummies compared to what is on the label now, out of the 12 brands tested, six of them didn't contain the amount of creatine that was claimed to be on the label.

[00:06:57] So as an example, one brand said that each gummy contained a thousand milligrams of creatine, but when independently tested, one gummy only contained 8.7 milligrams.

[00:07:10] Three of the brands didn't contain any creatine at all. Zero milligrams. So you were literally throwing money down the drain and just buying expensive candy. Another brand claimed to contain 250 milligrams of creatine per gummy and only contained 28.3 milligrams

[00:07:29] Of those other 50% of brands that did contain creatine as per the label, they actually contained more creatin than they had. Written down. So as an example, batch of Bare Balance claimed that they had a thousand milligrams per gummy. It actually contained over 1,001 thousand 165 milligrams of creatine per gumming.

[00:07:50] So you're actually getting better bang for your buck there. When now foods tested different brands of creatin, they did test specific batches and you can see the [00:08:00] batch or the lot number written down so that you can have a look at which ones did actually contain the right amount of creatin. But unfortunately, that's not going to guarantee that every batch of that brand will be okay.

[00:08:13] It is literally the wild West out there. I'll link that data in the show notes if you wanna go and have a look at it. So you can have a look at some of the brands that just contained nothing in them, which is really unfortunate. But the bottom line with gummies is that I wouldn't waste your money. You could just be buying really expensive lollies or candy for your hard-earned cash thinking you're doing yourself a benefit, and you are literally getting no creatine whatsoever.

[00:08:39] For gummies to actually be a useful form of the supplement. companies will need to mitigate that risk by third party batch testing to confirm the creatine content and being really transparent about that their labeling, like how much creatine per gummy is in this specific batch, They're going to need to update their labeling and be really clear on that, and also update their website information with some sort of certificate of analysis so that you know what you're getting is correct. Now, to my knowledge, I don't know any company that is doing that currently. Please let me know if you do come across somebody though, because that is the direction where they all need to head.

[00:09:21] Otherwise, I don't really see the point in making that.

[00:09:24] And it's too hard for a consumer at this point to know that that bag of gummies that they've bought has actually got the right amount of creatin in it. So I honestly just would leave it for a while and in time there will be somebody that does a good job of this.

[00:09:41] So there you have it. Creatine is one of the most research supplements for high intensity performance and muscle strength, but not everyone needs it. Please don't take this episode as I need to now take Creatin because it is not a blanket. Everyone needs it. You really need to understand who would [00:10:00] benefit and why, and not all products are created equal when it comes to Creatin gummies.

[00:10:06] When it comes to gummies verse powder, the bottom line is they could be effective if they contained. What they claim to contain on their label, but gummies are significantly more expensive. Obviously they're underdosed, some are actually even overdosed, and that forms a risk as well, and they just haven't been properly tested enough for the consumer to have confidence in them at this point.

[00:10:32] If you are going to invest in creatine, my advice is stick with a reputable brand of powder. It's way more cost effective. It is stable, and you know exactly what you're getting on the label in the product And if you wanna dive deeper on all things creatine, how it works, when to take it, and who really needs it, I've got a masterclass inside the Triathlon Nutrition Academy available exclusively to my athletes. Our next cohort begins in July, so you can register your interest for that if you wanna join us.

[00:11:05] At dietician approved.com/academy, thank you for tuning in today. If you found this helpful, please share it with your training buddy or share it with anybody that is currently using CREATIN gummies, or better yet, leave me a review. It helps more triathletes find the show and fuel smarter, not harder.

[00:11:23] I'll see you next week. 

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. I would love to hear from you. If you have any questions or want to share with me what you've learned, email me at [email protected]. You can also spread the word by leaving me a review and taking a screenshot of you listening to the show. Don't forget to tag me on social media, @dietitian.approved, so I can give you a shout out, too. If you want to learn more about what we do, head to dietitianapproved.com. And if you want to learn more about the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program, head to dietitianapproved.com/academy. Thanks for joining me and I look forward to helping you smashed in the fourth leg - nutrition!