On Cloud 9 with Chocolate #9

Choco­late #9 Agave Nectar

I first learned of Choco­late #9 online. I for­get the exact web­site, but the prod­uct caught my eye because it had agave in it. I had recently switched to agave for all of my in-home sweet­en­ing needs because of its low glycemic qual­i­ties. Com­pared with refined sug­ars, agave syrup digests much more slowly into the blood­stream result­ing in pro­longed energy rather than a spike and then crash. As I looked for an energy bar I could take on the trail I real­ized it would be harder than I thought to find some­thing that met my needs. Luck­ily, that’s when I dis­cov­ered Choco­late #9 energy gels.

While on a visit to Zom­bieRun­ner in Palo Alto, CA, a Mecca for ultra­run­ners and enthu­si­asts alike,  I dis­cov­ered they car­ried the prod­uct in amongst the GUs and energy shots. I bought a few packs to give a try. As I checked out at the counter one of the employ­ees said she enjoys Choco­late #9 on ice cream as well as on her long runs.

A month or two later I was lis­ten­ing to a pod­cast inter­view on Ultra­run­ning News with John Sam­ple, the founder of Choco­late #9 (what a great name for the pack­aged food indus­try). At the end of the pod­cast the inter­viewer men­tioned that John was run­ning a spe­cial for lis­ten­ers who call him on the company’s toll-free num­ber. I grabbed the phone and dialed the num­ber. And John answered. The oper­a­tion is still quite small – launched in early 2009 – so John han­dles most if not all aspects of the business.

I talked with John for awhile, ask­ing a few ques­tions about the com­pany, prod­uct, and the spe­cial men­tioned on the pod­cast. Once John found out that I ran Run­ning Quest he said he’d like to send me a box for free to test and review. I hap­pily accepted his offer.

Pure and Simple

I was first impressed by the fact that Choco­late Agave #9 only has two ingre­di­ents: choco­late and agave. How many pack­aged foods only have 2 ingre­di­ents, both of which you can read and under­stand what they are?! The agave is organic and the choco­late 100% Bel­gian. I love how sim­ple it is. No chem­i­cals. No preser­v­a­tives. No refined sugar. And all vegan to boot!

Trail Test

I took a pack of Choco­late #9 on my next trail run and gave it a try. The packet has a tear top that made it easy to rip open even while run­ning. As I squished the choco­late out into my mouth I was afraid that the sub­stance would be rather sticky and ren­der me look­ing like a dog fight­ing peanut but­ter. I was pleas­antly sur­prised at how easy the choco­late went down. The con­sis­tency is between a pud­ding and a thick sauce. Not too runny, not too thick or dry.

Taste Test

What pleased me even more, though, was how good the prod­uct tasted on the way down. The choco­late had a nice dark fla­vor. While the agave made the choco­late sweet, it wasn’t too sweet. I was glad there wasn’t an after­taste, either. It only took a swig of water to leave my palette cleansed. I felt good know­ing I was giv­ing my body real food, not overly processed and treated food.

Low Glycemic Index

Together, the choco­late and agave reg­is­ter a low 46 on the offi­cial Glycemic Index (the prod­uct has been offi­cially tested). For those of you aren’t too famil­iar with the Glycemic Index, it’s a scale of how quickly food is absorbed into the blood­stream. Sugar is used as the base­line at 100. Many energy gels score way higher on the Index. Choco­late #9 is the only cer­ti­fied low glycemic energy gel on the mar­ket. There might be oth­ers, but they haven’t been offi­cially tested and certified.

Ultra­run­ners and Choco­late #9: A Match Made in Heave

John Sam­ple, founder of Choco­late #9, orig­i­nally had the idea to tar­get dia­bet­ics. This made good sense as they’re a group that has to be very con­cerned with sugar uptake and there­fore the Glycemic Index. How­ever, as often is the case, another group embraced the gel because it met their sim­i­lar needs. Endurance ath­letes have become John’s best cus­tomers as the gel pro­vides pro­longed energy with­out the bonk­ing. It also tastes a lot bet­ter than the other stuff on the market.

John recently changed the company’s web­site address from Chocolate9.com to Choco­late Energy Gel, sig­nal­ing a full repo­si­tion­ing strat­egy. As you can see, the pack­ets resem­ble the GU on-the-go packs so are are already suited for con­sump­tion while on the run. John shared that 90% of the run­ners he hears from rave about the prod­uct. In fact, he con­sis­tently hears from run­ners who have achieved a new per­sonal record after using Choco­late #9 dur­ing endurance events.

Future Prod­ucts

With such a great prod­uct straight out of the gate I can’t help but think about the future and won­der what new prod­ucts John might cre­ate. Some obvi­ous next fla­vors would be Mocha and per­haps Mint. I’d also love to see a banana fla­vored one. A mar­riage with super­foods such as Acai, Goji, and Maca Root would be a great move as well. Fur­ther down the road I think it would be good to see the suc­cess­ful incor­po­ra­tion of chia seeds into the mix. In my mind this would make the prod­uct a com­plete super­food for ultrarunners.

What’s with the “9”?

The name was cre­ated by John to help peo­ple remem­ber his com­pany. He knew num­bers stick in people’s minds so tagged the num­ber nine onto choco­late and voila, a mem­o­rable name was born. The num­ber nine has no sig­nif­i­cance. I do think a cool answer would be that it means, just say “no” (in Ger­man) to high GI energy gels.

Prices

From com­pany web­site.
Sin­gle packet:
Trial Pack (3 pack­ets): $4.99
Box (24 pack­ets): $32.49
Case(4 boxes): $99

Want to try some? FREE Giveaway!

I want to give every­one some Choco­late #9 energy gel to try. Alas, I can only send a trial pack to one per­son. If you are inter­ested in receiv­ing 3 gel packs for free (I’ll pay the ship­ping), leave me a com­ment below on why you want to try Choco­late #9. Make sure to leave your email address so I can con­tact you if you are the lucky win­ner (leave it in the com­ment sign-up sec­tion, not your actual comment).

That’s it. You just have to leave me a com­ment. I’m not going to make you jump through hoops (though I wouldn’t object if you wanted to post about this on face­book or twit­ter). I will pick one win­ner on Decem­ber 10 and announce the win­ner in this post, on twit­ter, and notify them via email. Good luck!

1. Lave a com­ment now on why you would like to try Choco­late #9.
2. Remem­ber to leave email address (in com­ment sign-up sec­tion).
3. Cross fin­gers (and toes, if you can).

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