Favorite Electrolyte Replacement?

[AaronRDavis]

I buy Magnesium citrate in bulk on Amazon, which I mix with Morton's LiteSalt and a little Stevia for sweetness. At home I'll add some lime juice as well. This is far cheaper and zero sugar compared to pre-made mixes.

[neil d]

Pickles and nuts. That's it.

[MichaelRPetrick]

I buy Magnesium citrate in bulk on Amazon, which I mix with Morton's LiteSalt and a little Stevia for sweetness. At home I'll add some lime juice as well. This is far cheaper and zero sugar compared to pre-made mixes.

Bumping this thread.

I was looking at my Nuun sticks and thinking how little I get out of them given the sticker price. Methinks it's time for some homemade stuff.

Am curious what ratios folks use on this if they do homemade. Any trick to mixing it/keeping it, or do you just toss all the powders together?

I'm thinking of just getting some Countrytime Lemonade mix, adding table salt, and a little bulk magnesium citrate, and potassium chloride. Doesn't seem like rocket science?

[Wandering Daisy]

Maybe I am wrong, but I thought electrolytes had to be balanced. If you have too much of one, it may upset the balance and then you have problems with the other. However, if they are all water-soluble, it seems you would just pee out the ones that are over represented. I am a bit cautious about mixing my own with the thought that it may unbalance my system. There are many kinds of "salts" so I am not sure just adding table salt (sodium chloride) is the best option. It seems that part of the purpose for electrolyte drinks is to make you drink more water, because simple dehydration causes a lot of the problems. Salt makes you more thirsty so salty snacks such as jerky should also serve that purpose.

I used to work outdoors all day in 100F + temperatures and once I started drinking Gatorade, I felt much better. I used to take it backpacking but it added significant weight to my rations because of the sugar. Not that sugar is necessarily bad for you if you are working hard, but between the sickening taste and weight, not the best for backpacking. If I watered it down, then I also watered down the electrolytes. Then I switched to Cytomax - much better but quite expensive. Now I just use one packet of Emergn-C at the end of the day and drink more tea. I too am always looking for something better and less costly. Lots of good suggestions here that I will try. Thanks.

[bobby49]

I drink Cytomax or maybe Gatorade, but diluted in each case. I generally drink it at one-third strength, or maybe one-half strength at the most. As was mentioned, you need the water more than anything else, and I consider some of the drink powders as flavoring to induce me to drink more water. I've mixed in other chemicals, like citrates, but soon that turns into a lengthy experiment. If you feel like you need more drink energy than the diluted forms, then just use a pinch of the powders plus some maltodextrin (which is sort of a slow-burning form of sugar). You can even add in some unsugared Kool-Aid for extra flavor.

[BSquared]

Thanks, Bobby, this is quite helpful. I, too, treat my powders partly as inducements to drink more, and it does seem to work.

[bobby49]

The other thing I found was that it is impractical to mix up, say, 4 pounds of your dry powder mix before you head out on a long trip. The reason is that your tastes often change. One of my favorite combinations with maltodextrin is excellent, but only for three or four days. Then I wish that I had added in a touch more of one thing or another. So, once I have developed my magic formula for the long trip, I carry the components separately so that I can fiddle with the mixture later on.

On a related subject, some of us used to drink (orange) Tang. Then a light version of it came out, and I think it was Tangerine flavored. For a while, I thought it was good. Then suddenly it disappeared from the store shelves. That's when I started mixing my own flavors using unflavored Kool-Aid.

Once I was in Argentina, getting ready to head out for a peak climb of two weeks. In a supermarket, we found all sorts of great powdered drink flavors that I had never seen in the U.S. stores (grape, grapefruit, apricot, peach, etc.). The only trick was that we had to be fluent in Spanish language to decipher the flavor.

[bobby49]

Years ago I discovered that I had a slight tendency toward a Potassium deficiency, so instead of using ordinary Sodium Chloride as a trace additive to my drinks, I switched over to Potassium Chloride (commonly called dieter's salt).

[BSquared]

So, one can just buy KCl in the grocery store as "dieter's salt?" I had no idea! Thanks!!

[bobby49]

Yes, Morton sells normal salt and dieter's salt. I believe that the dieter's salt is 90% Potassium Chloride and 10% Sodium Chloride.