Your Mass Gainer Is Mostly Sugar. Here Is the Label Maths.
We read the declared panel on nine mass gainers sold in India. One serving carries 94.6 g of sugar, a 100 g scoop can carry 27.8 g, and the zero sugar lines are not what you think.
One 485 g serving of GNC Pro Performance Weight Gainer carries 94.57 g of sugar. The World Health Organization suggests an average adult stay below 25 g of free sugars in a whole day.
You do not need the biggest tub to get there. A single 100 g scoop of MuscleBlaze Weight Gainer carries 27.84 g, which uses that entire allowance before you have eaten anything else.
We read the declared nutrition panel on all nine mass gainers we track in India. Two of them declare no sugar at all, and a third prints a 0 g line while carrying the most sugar on the shelf. Those three are the most interesting rows in the table.
- ·Declared sugar across nine tubs runs from 0 g to 94.57 g per serving
- ·Two tubs declare zero sugar, and one of them carries 250 g of carbohydrate a serving, mostly maltodextrin
- ·GNC prints 0 g of added sugar and 94.57 g of total sugars. Read the total line
- ·Read total carbohydrate on a gainer, not the sugar line
- ·Traditional gainers are 10 to 16 percent protein by weight. Whey is 61 to 90
- ·You are paying 7.55 to 11 rupees a gram of protein, while whey starts at 4.54
Nine tubs, nine labels
| Tub | Scoop | Sugar | Total carbs | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GNC Pro Performance Weight Gainer | 485 g | 94.57 g | 405 g | 1,860 |
| MuscleBlaze Weight Gainer | 100 g | 27.84 g | 72 g | 387 |
| MuscleBlaze Mass Gainer XXL | 100 g | 21.5 g | 75 g | 375 |
| ON Serious Mass | 334 g | 20 g | 254 g | 1,243 |
| MuscleBlaze Super Gainer Black | 100 g | 19 g | 78.95 g | 375 |
| MuscleTech Mass Tech Extreme 2000 | 281 g | 10 g | 232 g | 1,062 |
| Labrada Muscle Mass Gainer | 333 g | 0 g | 250 g | 1,244 |
| Avvatar Muscle Gainer | 60 g | 0 g | 26.7 g | 221 |
Values as declared by each brand on its own nutrition panel, per the serving size the brand states, recorded in our database and last rechecked on 2 October 2026. ON Serious Mass appears once because its 1 kg and 3 kg tubs carry the same panel. Declared figures describe what a label claims rather than what laboratory testing would find.
The scoop size is doing half the work
Before comparing anything in that table, notice the second column. The scoops range from 60 g to 485 g, which makes per serving figures almost meaningless on their own.
MuscleBlaze Mass Gainer XXL looks only slightly worse than ON Serious Mass on sugar: 21.5 g against 20 g. But its scoop is a third of the size. Per 100 g of powder, Mass Gainer XXL is 21.5 g of sugar and Serious Mass is about 6 g.
It cuts the other way too. GNC Pro Performance tops the table at 94.57 g, but that is spread across a 485 g serving. Per 100 g it is 19.5 g, less sugar than either 100 g MuscleBlaze scoop above it.
Always convert to per 100 g before you compare two gainers. It is the only way to see the powder rather than the portion the brand chose. The same trick runs through whey, which we took apart in why two tubs both say 60 servings.
Zero sugar, 250 grams of carbohydrate
Now the most interesting rows. Labrada Muscle Mass Gainer declares 0 g of sugar.
It also declares 250 g of total carbohydrate per serving.
That is not a contradiction and it is not a lie. Sugar declarations cover mono and disaccharides: glucose, fructose, sucrose, lactose. Maltodextrin is a polysaccharide, a starch derived carbohydrate of longer glucose chains, so it is correctly declared under total carbohydrate rather than under sugar.
Maltodextrin is not sugar, and that is not reassuring
Maltodextrin's glycemic index is usually quoted between 85 and 105. Table sugar sits around 65. So the ingredient that lets a tub print zero sugar raises blood glucose faster than the sugar it replaced. A zero sugar claim on a mass gainer tells you about the labelling rules, not about what the powder does.
The other zero belongs to Avvatar Muscle Gainer, which is a different kind of product: a 60 g scoop with 26.7 g of carbohydrate and 24 g of protein, closer to a diluted whey than a gainer. Its carbohydrate is also maltodextrin, so the same reading applies, just at a much smaller dose.
Then there is GNC Pro Performance Weight Gainer, which shows 0 g of added sugar and 94.57 g of total sugars per serving. Both lines are true at once. Added sugar counts only what the manufacturer puts in as sugar, while total sugars counts every sugar in the powder, whatever ingredient it arrived with. Glance for a zero and you will read the wrong line.
This is why total carbohydrate is the number to read on a gainer, and sugar is close to decoration. On that measure, GNC Pro Performance at 405 g per serving is the heaviest tub in the table by a wide margin, and Labrada's zero sugar line sits on top of 250 g.
What that does to a normal day
The WHO guideline on free sugars recommends staying below 10 percent of daily energy, which is roughly 50 g for an average adult, with a further conditional reduction to below 5 percent, roughly 25 g.
One caution before the table. A label's sugar line is total sugars, which can include lactose from milk ingredients that the WHO does not count as free sugar. So treat these percentages as the most the shake could be adding, not an exact free sugar count.
| One serving of | Sugar | Of the 25 g figure | Of the 50 g figure |
|---|---|---|---|
| GNC Pro Performance | 94.57 g | 378% | 189% |
| MuscleBlaze Weight Gainer | 27.84 g | 111% | 56% |
| MuscleBlaze Mass Gainer XXL | 21.5 g | 86% | 43% |
| ON Serious Mass | 20 g | 80% | 40% |
| MuscleTech Mass Tech Extreme | 10 g | 40% | 20% |
Most people using a 100 g scoop gainer take two servings a day, because that is what the label suggests when you are chasing a calorie target. On MuscleBlaze Weight Gainer that is 55.68 g of sugar from the shake alone, which is above the looser WHO figure before you count your chai. A single serving of GNC Pro Performance gets past it on its own.
None of this means a gainer will harm a healthy person. It means the sugar is not incidental, and if you were already watching it, this is a large addition.
You are paying whey money for maltodextrin
Here is where the label maths turns into your bank balance.
The traditional mass gainers in our catalogue are 10.3 to 15.6 percent protein by weight. Whey runs 60.6 to 90 percent. So the bulk of a gainer tub is carbohydrate, which is the cheapest ingredient in the supplement industry. Avvatar Muscle Gainer, at 40 percent protein, is the lean exception.
And yet, on cost per gram of protein, those traditional gainers come to 7.55 to 11 rupees against 4.54 to 9.75 rupees for whey. Every one of them delivers protein at a higher price than the cheapest whey.
You are paying a protein price for a powder that is mostly carbohydrate. If the calories are what you are after, calories from your own kitchen cost a fraction of that. The economics of the shelf are in cost per gram of protein, and how brands inflate protein numbers on a panel covers the rest of the label games.
The shake you can make for less
A gainer is calories, carbohydrate and some protein, blended. A kitchen version is the same thing with fewer steps between you and the ingredients.
Milk, a banana, oats, peanut butter and a few dates gets you to roughly 600 to 700 calories with real food, for well under what a single scoop of most tubs costs. Add a scoop of whey to that and you have a gainer with protein you can actually account for.
It is not as convenient, and convenience is a real reason to buy things. Just be clear that is what you are buying.
If you are buying one anyway
Read the panel in this order:
- 1Total carbohydrate per 100 gNot per serving, and not the sugar line. This is the number the scoop size hides.
- 2Protein as a percentage of the powderProtein per serving divided by serving size. Under 12 percent is a lot of carbohydrate to pay for.
- 3Where maltodextrin sits in the ingredient listFirst means it is the main ingredient by weight, whatever the sugar line says.
- 4Cost per gram of proteinIf it is above the whey you could buy instead, ask what the carbohydrate is doing for you.
You can see live mass gainer prices across 19 retailers with cost per gram of protein worked out on each one.
Do you need a gainer at all?
Three conditions, and you want all three before a gainer makes sense. You are genuinely underweight rather than just wanting to be bigger. You have tried eating more real food for at least a couple of months and could not sustain it. And you are training consistently, because a surplus without training is just fat gain.
If you fail any of them, whey plus more food is cheaper, cleaner and easier to control. That argument in full is in mass gainer or whey protein. If this is your first tub of anything, buy whey first if this is your first tub.
- ·You have diabetes or prediabetes, or a family history of either
- ·You have PCOS, or any condition involving insulin resistance
- ·You have kidney or liver disease
- ·You are under 18, or buying it for someone who is
- ·You are pregnant or breastfeeding
- ·You are on medication that affects blood sugar
How we read these labels
Every label figure in this article is the value the brand declares on its own nutrition panel, for the serving size the brand states, as recorded in our product database and last rechecked on 2 October 2026. Prices behind the cost per gram figures were checked on 16 September 2026.
We did not test any powder. A declared figure tells you what a label claims, and independent testing of Indian supplements has repeatedly found gaps between the two, which is the subject of what FSSAI approved actually means.
Whey2Much sells nothing and earns nothing from a click. No brand in this table paid to be included or excluded.
The bottom line
Sugar in Indian mass gainers runs from nothing to 94.57 g a serving, and the zeros are the least useful numbers on the panel. Labrada's sits on 250 g of carbohydrate, and GNC's is the added sugar line, not the total.
So ignore the sugar line and read total carbohydrate per 100 g. Then check what percentage of the powder is actually protein, and what that protein is costing you.
On our shelf, every traditional gainer delivers protein at a higher price than the cheapest whey, while being 10 to 16 percent protein instead of 61 to 90. That is the whole case, and it is made entirely out of numbers printed on the back of the tubs.
This article is general consumer and nutrition information rather than medical or dietetic advice, and it has not been written or reviewed by a medical practitioner or registered dietitian. Nothing here says that any product causes diabetes, weight gain in a specific place, or any other health outcome, and nobody should start or stop a supplement on the basis of it. If you have diabetes, prediabetes, PCOS, kidney or liver disease, are pregnant or breastfeeding, or are under 18, speak to your doctor before using a mass gainer. All sugar, carbohydrate, calorie, protein and serving size figures are the values declared by each brand on its own nutrition panel as recorded in our database, last rechecked on 2 October 2026, with prices from our live tracking across 19 Indian retailers checked on 16 September 2026. Declared figures describe what a label claims rather than what laboratory testing would find, and no product in this article was independently tested by us. The free sugars figures refer to the World Health Organization Guideline on Sugars Intake for Adults and Children, 2015, which recommends free sugars below 10 percent of daily energy with a conditional further reduction below 5 percent. Glycemic index values for maltodextrin and sucrose are published ranges and vary by product and measurement method. Whey2Much sells nothing, takes no commission and accepts no payment from any brand or retailer for inclusion, ranking or placement.
Common questions
It ranges enormously. Across the nine mass gainers we track in India, declared sugar per serving runs from 0 g to 94.57 g. The highest is GNC Pro Performance Weight Gainer at 94.57 g in a 485 g serving, and per 100 g of powder the highest is MuscleBlaze Weight Gainer at 27.84 g. Two tubs declare no sugar at all, and one of them still carries 250 g of total carbohydrate per serving, which is the number that matters more.
It is at the lower end of the range we see, and it is still a lot in the context of a day. The WHO conditional guideline for free sugars is below 25 g a day for an average adult, so 11 g from one scoop uses about 44 percent of it before you have eaten anything else.
Of the nine we track, two declare zero sugar: Labrada Muscle Mass Gainer and Avvatar Muscle Gainer. Read that carefully though. Labrada declares 250 g of total carbohydrate per serving, mostly maltodextrin, which is not counted as sugar on a label but behaves similarly in your blood. Avvatar is a different kind of product, a 60 g scoop with 26.7 g of carbohydrate and 24 g of protein. Do not read GNC Pro Performance as a third: its 0 g is the added sugar line, and its total sugars are 94.57 g a serving.
Chemically no, practically it is close for blood glucose purposes. Maltodextrin is a starch derived carbohydrate made of longer glucose chains, so it is not declared as a sugar. Its glycemic index is usually quoted between 85 and 105, which is higher than table sugar at around 65. So a zero sugar claim on a gainer tells you about the label rather than about the carbohydrate.
Sugar declarations cover mono and disaccharides such as glucose, fructose, sucrose and lactose. Maltodextrin is a polysaccharide, so it sits in the total carbohydrate line rather than the sugar line. That is correct labelling, and it is also why total carbohydrate is the more useful number to read on a gainer.
That is a question for your doctor, not for an article. Mass gainers are built to deliver large amounts of rapidly absorbed carbohydrate, and one serving in the tubs we track ranges from 26.7 g to 405 g of carbohydrate. If you have diabetes or prediabetes, discuss any supplement with the doctor managing your treatment before you use it.
Mass gainers do not cause fat in any one place. What they do is make a calorie surplus very easy to reach, and a sustained surplus adds fat as well as muscle. A single serving of ON Serious Mass is 1,243 calories, so two servings a day on top of normal meals is a large surplus for most people.
Food first is the sensible answer for a teenager, and any supplement decision for someone under 18 should involve a doctor. A growing teenager who wants to gain weight usually needs more regular meals and more consistent training rather than a 1,200 calorie shake.
For most beginners, whey plus more food. Across our catalogue, traditional gainers deliver protein at 7.55 to 11 rupees a gram while whey runs 4.54 to 9.75, so the gainer is also the more expensive way to buy protein. A gainer earns its place only if you genuinely cannot eat enough.
Written by
Whey2Much
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