If you are looking for a cheaper or healthier sports drink to use in races and training then you may be surprised how simple it is to make something as good and perhaps even better than most commercially available products.
The Science
Key Ingredients and Ratios
The basic science around sports drinks is for then to be a 7% carbohydrate solution. They should also contain around 0.8g of sodium per litre (a little less for less salty sweaters).
Which Carbohydrate is Best?
Current scientific thinking around sports drinks is to have a mix of fructose and glucose as this provides two different pathways for carbohydrate to be absorbed. Previous recommendations were for around 60g/hr of a glucose and/or maltodextrin drink, as this was about the limit of absorption in the gut.
Now the literature is pointing to a mix of both fructose and either glucose or maltodextrin, as this can increase uptake of carbohydrate to more than 90g/hr.
NOTE: You should trial any food/drink type and volume in training to be sure you don’t get gut issues.
Since must of the carbs come from your sports drink (e.g. a 700ml bidon provides 49g of carbs) then choosing the right sports drink can make a significant difference. Consideration of the carbohydrate content of food and gels is also important.
Why Make A Homemade Drink?
Less Processed and Better for Your Gut
Highly processed sugary drinks are more than likely to be unhealthy in the long run. A lot contain sucrose (table sugar) as the main ingredient as well as other highly processed products like maltodextrin. The whole industry is set up to mass produce things quicky, efficiently, accurately and in bulk, but this does not always provide the healthiest of products.
So perhaps there is a way to make a sports drink out of whole and natural foods, reduce processed ingredients and be better for your health and gut.
Easily Available Whole Food Ingredients
This got me thinking, glucose, fructose and salt are in a lot of natural products and can be sourced completely unprocessed. So here is my recipe…
My Science Based Sports Drink Recipe
(This is basically a lemon honey sports drink)
Per 700ml bottle
- 70g honey (use mild, not creamed honey like Molesworth honey from “Bushes Honey” on old Renwick Rd, Blenheim…trust me you don’t want strong honey flavours when you are on the rivet!)
- 55g lemon juice
- 1.4g Salt (1/4 teaspoon or 1.62ml)
Per 100ml (7%)
- 10g honey
- 8g lemon juice
- 0.2g salt
Instructions
- Dissolve salt & honey in a cup boiling water
- Combine above dissolved salt, honey with the lemon juice in the drink bottle
- top up with water
- Shake well and regularly
Notes
Honey
- Honey has 80g of carbohydrate per 100g (The carbohydrate ratio of honey is 1:1 glucose to fructose. It also has trace amounts of maltose 1.5%, sucrose 1% and galactose 3%)
Lemon Juice
- Lemon juice has 9g of carbohydrate per 100g (Lemon juice carbohydrate ratio is – 2:2:1 Fructose:Glucose:Sucrose)
- Lemon juice also has 138mg potassium per 100g
Salt
- Salt has 39g of sodium per 100g
- The salt quantity above is for a relatively salty sweater. You can reduce salt a little if you are less salty or sweaty (calculating if you are a heavy and or salty sweater is a topic for another day!)
- Use a good quality organic salt like Himalayan pink salt or Marlborough sea salt
