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GO Cubes: Caffeine in bite-sized gummies without the need for coffee

GO Cubes are an alternative way to get a boost as these chewable gummies offer similar amounts of caffeine as a cup of coffee but in bite-size form.

GO Cubes

Caffeine without the liquid. @gocubes are chewable coffee jellies, compact enough to take on runs and easy to travel with!

A photo posted by canadianrunning (@canadianrunning) on

Not a big fan of drinking coffee but want a bit of a caffeine boost before a race or during a training run? GO Cubes are an intersection between gummies and coffee. For runners, that means there’s another option for fuelling on those longer runs or for that mid-day pick-me-up.

GO Cubes ship to Canada and come in four packs including pure, mocha and latte flavours. The three, from Canadian Running‘s experience, are nearly indistinguishable and are very strong in terms of taste. GO Cubes are by no means the only alternative for caffeine. There are caffeine pills, energy gels and other options if coffee upsets your stomach.

RELATED: The perfect cup of coffee: Three simple brewing options.

The packaging reads, “GO Cubes combine finely-brewed taste with a special blend of ingredients that enhance caffeine for focused energy on the go.” Put simply, they’re jelly cubes with caffeine. GO Cubes are vegan and gluten-free.

RELATED: Recipe: Electrolyte Jello.

GO Cubes are made by San Francisco-based Nootrobox.

One positive we found from having GO Cubes is that, since they’re gummies, there’s little to no associated mess with consuming them whereas gels sometimes can be sticky. Unfortunately, GO Cubes come in tougher-than-normal plastic packaging making it trickier to open while on the go.

GO Cubes

GO Cubes are bite-sized gummies convenient to take on a long run, for that mid-run caffeine boost, in your purse or backpack or tucked away in your office desk. Each cube contains approximately half the amount of caffeine as a regular cup of coffee.

In terms of nutritional facts, two GO Cubes (22 grams) contain 70 calories, 15 mg of sodium, 12 grams of sugar and 17 grams of carbohydrates. The cubes also contain a vitamin B complex and L-Theanine, which is found in some teas, in an aim to eliminate the anxiety associated with a coffee buzz.

GO Cubes

A box of 20 packages, which include four jellies each, retails for US$59 plus an extra US$5 in shipping. Since an entire box contains 80 jellies, the price per cube is about $0.80, more than the cost of an average cup of coffee if one was to brew it themselves – two cubes equals a cup of coffee – but significantly less than buying a coffee in stores.

RELATED: Frothy coffee.

Six packs of gummies come at a cost of US$23 plus shipping. The founders, a pair of computer scientists, came up with the idea for chewable cubes because they thought the taste of coffee was inconsistent from one cup to the next.

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