DIY Electrolyte Mix?

[Mike Islander]

I just use the WHO simple ORS recipe. I work in my warehouse, which averages about 100 degrees and 70%+ humidity all summer. Works a peach and is dirt cheap.

1 liter water
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

 

[TimberRunner]

A couple of years ago mixed up a gallon bag of lmnt recipe. Still working on it, flavorless.

 

[5MilesBack]

Zero strawberry taste and not a hint of sweetness.

I used the raspberry flavoring from above and it has no taste or color in the water. I ended up using the entire bag for 100 servings and it's still colorless and tasteless in the mix. I definitely need some kind of decent flavoring that's not lemon-lime. All the other stuff in the mix without flavoring makes me want to puke. Of course even the flavored LMNT makes me want to puke. Maybe I should just add my new mix to my coffee twice a day.

I also added vitamin C powder, glucosamine, and L-glutamine to my mix. Maybe Tang would add enough flavor to it.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

Anyone making your own electrolyte mix? (Lmnt, tailwind, liquid IV, drip drop…) the ingredient lists are pretty simple and it seems like you can buy pretty much all of the raw ingredients online.

I was thinking about doing:
Salt (any difference between himalayan vs sea vs iodized?)
potassium chloride
magnesium (malate, oxide, citrate?)
sugar
either citric acid or powdered lime

Here’s LMNT’s and Tailwind’s ingredient list for reference:
View attachment 745986
View attachment 745987

Anyone tried it?

The trend with these drinks seems to be to see who can put salt the other company. The liquid IV stuff is fairly pleasant to drink, somebody gave me a box of the LMNT and holy crap it like drinking salt water, apparently there are some that have even more salt/sodium in them.

 

[Jason Snyder]

The trend with these drinks seems to be to see who can put salt the other company. The liquid IV stuff is fairly pleasant to drink, somebody gave me a box of the LMNT and holy crap it like drinking salt water, apparently there are some that have even more salt/sodium in them.

Yeah it’s pretty salty. I think I’m going to cut the sodium in half. I used a LMNT packet for a whole liter and it was about right.

 

[5MilesBack]

Yep, I only put 250mg of salt in each serving of the stuff I made. And during elk hunts I'll normally use 3-4 servings a day. The LMNT IS saltwater.

 

[Ferrulewax]

I think it’s going to be heavily dependent on your activity level and how/how much you drink. I do a bottle of mix I sip on to supplement my water intake. If all of your intake is mix then less sodium is probably preferable. I would only do like 1 bottle of LMNT a day most likely.

 

[BA_Crosho]

I don't understand the math on those magnesium containers. It says 300g per container which is 300,000mg. Serving size has 420mg of magnesium, and shows 143 servings per container. That equals 60,060mg leaving the other 239,940mg of "something else" weight. BUT the container also says "Other ingredients: None". So if there is nothing else in the container than magnesium malate, shouldn't there be 714 servings?

It's 300g of magnesium malate, not magnesium. The element magnesium (Mg) has a mass of 24.3 g/mol. The compound malate is 4 carbon molecules, 4 hydrogen molecules, and 5 oxygen molecules, with a mass of 132 g/mol. Magnesium malate is the sum of the masses, 156.3 g/mol. So you need to consume 156.3 grams of magnesium malate to get 24.3 grams of magnesium. Scale that to the container size and that explains the discrepancy, plus a little rounding error.

 

[Alaska92]

Interesting thread. After reading through the aforementioned ingredients, my challenge to those willing, would include a study of human biological science from the correct sources. Sugar (of various sources), Sucralose, Maltodextrin and various other “condiments” will never be a good idea in an electrolyte supplement. A very short list of natural sweeteners are available, that do not have the repercussions of those listed. Absorption rate and volume into the cells via receptors, involves more science than most understand without study. Insulin resistance, which is what a majority of the western population has to some degree, will certainly play a factor. Chemistry experiments that are arbitrarily concocted are just that, arbitrary. Various high glycemic sweeteners will likely make you feel wonderful at a time when you don’t feel so wonderful and one will think that their given product is very helpful. Albeit, in reality, it will likely be acute with many ill effects on the back end with no true chronic help to cellular function. Sodium has been mentioned and is certainly a required mineral for correct cell function. The proper source of sodium is very important and needs to be researched and not acted upon “Willy Nilly”. Magnesium and potassium are also required for proper cell function, with the “correct” source and mix critical. At times, when chemistry projects are the topic, it can be prudent to leave it to the “correct” professionals. If one is deterred by expense, then not unlike congress, the overall budget likely needs to be scrutinized and priorities reevaluated.

 

[mt terry d]

My wife makes something called "Haymaker" which dates back to the 1800's
(you can find the recipe on Algore's innerweb)
All natural and tastes good.
Not to be confused with Haybag, made at the Phillipsburg MT brewery
Also natural and tastes even gooder

 

[BA_Crosho]

Sugar (of various sources), Sucralose, Maltodextrin and various other “condiments” will never be a good idea in an electrolyte supplement

This is entirely context dependent. In endurance athletics (e.g. cycling), combining the hydration, carbs, and electrolytes into a single drink mix is the standard. If someone is spending their days sitting on a riding lawnmower in a hot climate, sure, they're probably better off taking electrolytes without the sugars.

Magnesium and potassium are required, but the large majority of lifestyles would get enough through through diet alone as long as they eat a decent variety of foods. Sodium is important to take in if you're sweating cause that's most of what's lost in sweat, but

The proper source of sodium is very important and needs to be researched and not acted upon “Willy Nilly”.

no, the source doesn't really matter. Plain old table salt gets the job done. If you need it highly concentrated for some reason and don't like the taste, there are alternatives. But at the end of the day, a Na+ ion is a Na+ ion.

I think most people that aren't trying to win the TDF etc are overthinking electrolytes. Just eat a decent diet and if you're out in the sun and/or working out a lot, have some extra salt. Willy Nilly gets the job done sometimes, not every aspect of your health needs to be optimized by professionals. The marathoners at the start of the 20th century had no idea what electrolytes were and they drank brandy mixed with rat poison and egg whites with minimal water in 90F heat and they managed to finish faster than 90% of people today with modern tech and science. Bad example cause they're Olympians and all, but point being the human body doesn't need to be babied.

 

[Alaska92]

This is entirely context dependent. In endurance athletics (e.g. cycling), combining the hydration, carbs, and electrolytes into a single drink mix is the standard. If someone is spending their days sitting on a riding lawnmower in a hot climate, sure, they're probably better off taking electrolytes without the sugars.

Magnesium and potassium are required, but the large majority of lifestyles would get enough through through diet alone as long as they eat a decent variety of foods. Sodium is important to take in if you're sweating cause that's most of what's lost in sweat, but

no, the source doesn't really matter. Plain old table salt gets the job done. If you need it highly concentrated for some reason and don't like the taste, there are alternatives. But at the end of the day, a Na+ ion is a Na+ ion.

I think most people that aren't trying to win the TDF etc are overthinking electrolytes. Just eat a decent diet and if you're out in the sun and/or working out a lot, have some extra salt. Willy Nilly gets the job done sometimes, not every aspect of your health needs to be optimized by professionals. The marathoners at the start of the 20th century had no idea what electrolytes were and they drank brandy mixed with rat poison and egg whites with minimal water in 90F heat and they managed to finish faster than 90% of people today with modern tech and science. Bad example cause they're Olympians and all, but point being the human body doesn't need to be

This is entirely context dependent. In endurance athletics (e.g. cycling), combining the hydration, carbs, and electrolytes into a single drink mix is the standard. If someone is spending their days sitting on a riding lawnmower in a hot climate, sure, they're probably better off taking electrolytes without the sugars.

Magnesium and potassium are required, but the large majority of lifestyles would get enough through through diet alone as long as they eat a decent variety of foods. Sodium is important to take in if you're sweating cause that's most of what's lost in sweat, but

no, the source doesn't really matter. Plain old table salt gets the job done. If you need it highly concentrated for some reason and don't like the taste, there are alternatives. But at the end of the day, a Na+ ion is a Na+ ion.

I think most people that aren't trying to win the TDF etc are overthinking electrolytes. Just eat a decent diet and if you're out in the sun and/or working out a lot, have some extra salt. Willy Nilly gets the job done sometimes, not every aspect of your health needs to be optimized by professionals. The marathoners at the start of the 20th century had no idea what electrolytes were and they drank brandy mixed with rat poison and egg whites with minimal water in 90F heat and they managed to finish faster than 90% of people today with modern tech and science. Bad example cause they're Olympians and all, but point being the human body doesn't need to be babied.

The large majority of lifestyles are likely not going to get enough magnesium and potassium with the common western lifestyle and diet. The source of sodium certainly does matter. There are sources of sodium that should be avoided for various reasons. Table salt is highly processed and stripped of a lot of its minerals. How about sodium nitrate? Sodium nitrite? Longevity and long term health are the premise of my studies and not acute performance. How long did the marathoners at the start of the 20th century live? How did they die? How was the quality of their life? Mark Sisson was a marathoner years ago. He’s the first to admit they had many physical ailments in the name of performance. Science has taught us a lot since then.

 

[ztc92]

My sister started making a copy of LMNT last year and has shared it with my wife and I. We’ve done lemon, lime, lemon-lime, raspberry and raspberry-lime. Of those lemon-lime is my favorite. We all found the raspberry she bought to be gross, used it up by adding a lot of lime to mask it.

One thing we struggled with was how to sweeten it and offset all the salt. We tried white cane sugar and sugar in the raw. Of those I prefer the white sugar as it dissolves easier. Even so, we would sometimes end up with sediment in the bottom of the bottle when we used mix that included sugar. No sediment issues if we added the LMNT by itself and added sugar later on. Not sure what that’s about but it was frustrating to need to mix it twice.

 

[canyonhunter47]

I just use the WHO simple ORS recipe. I work in my warehouse, which averages about 100 degrees and 70%+ humidity all summer. Works a peach and is dirt cheap.

1 liter water
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

View attachment 750038

I do similar but add a little nosalt (in addition, not in place of regular salt). Taste isn’t great but works both for the heat and for sick kids

 

[Mike Islander]

I do similar but add a little nosalt (in addition, not in place of regular salt). Taste isn’t great but works both for the heat and for sick kids

I'm guessing about 1/8 teaspoon per liter?

 

[BBob]

I'm guessing about 1/8 teaspoon per liter?

Less ~1/16 tsp. See post #5