Do you know the difference between a Natural Flavor and an Artificial Flavor? Sounds easy enough to decipher and most answers lean to petroleum... which is mostly correct. It turns out that the main difference is the fact that natural flavors are just a good way of enticing customers, whereas the term “artificial” definitely makes most of us run for the hills! But nutritionally, they are the same thing. Let me say that again, artificial and natural flavors, are the SAME THING nutritionally!
Natural flavors are complex mixtures created by specially trained food chemists known as flavorists. In addition to their original flavor source, these mixtures can contain more than 100 different chemicals, including preservatives, solvents and other substances. These are defined as "incidental additives." However, food manufacturers aren't required to disclose whether these additives come from natural or synthetic sources. As long as the original flavoring source comes from plant or animal material, it is classified as a natural flavor. (healthline.com)
Listen, they’re probably such small doses of synthesized, lab grown material, that it won’t make a huge impact to your critically honed, trained at 5AM, struggled up that hill, one last push, kick it into high gear, runners body right? Wrong.
And never wanting to be the “same”, MUIR Energy accepted the challenge of creating a totally clean food for athletes and adventurers alike. Both our gels and hydration are composed of just 3-6 real and clean foods. MUIR’s packaging will never say “contains natural flavors or artificial flavors” because our nutrition is built from the ground up, where roots first quenched for thirst.
We use real foods, from real farms, with clean flavors.
This is the basic principle, our Audacity of Simple, of not using synthesized, lab grown, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, ingredients that separates MUIR Energy from the rest of the pack. Not one single ingredient in either our hydration or our energy gels is fake, in fact, each of the MUIR nutrition supplements are vegan, organic, gluten-free, paleo, and non-GMO. Even the simple ingredient of Pink Himalayan Salt is widely regarded as the cleanest, purest, and most mineral dense salt available on the planet - and proves to be the perfect compliment to our plant-based recipes.
All said and done, you like what you like, your body does, and will, react differently to every product on the market. But we urge you to go simple, fuel your body with clean and real food, much like the hunters and gatherers before us. And perhaps it’s outside your comfort zone, but consider MUIR Energy gels and hydration from start to finish… morning, noon or night.
