#I do know that most people don't actually need electrolytes in the form of sports drinks all the time every day

[willowcrowned]

one of the greatest modern miracles is the fact that the the electrolyte drink mix industry managed to successfully market a product that tastes like the worse version of children's medicine to a bunch of image-conscious masculinity-obsessed gym bros. unfortunate that they didn't use that miracle on making an electrolyte drink mix that tastes good

[blueskrugs]

Referring to one of your tags, are any sports drinks actually good? Aren't they just... Sugar water?

ooh anon i love you for letting me talk about this lol

*important caveat: I am not a dietetics major/an expert/etc, but I am in a sports nutrition class right now that i've been highly enjoying

for the most part and for the average person, you're right! sports drinks are generally excessively sugary. most people aren't doing a lot of heavy exercise, and can easily replace any lost electrolytes (the important things, like sodium, calcium and potassium) with something like gatorade zero/powerade zero/propel. if you're not exercising for over an hour or sweating excessively, you probably don't really need all the sugar.

if we're talking high intensity exercise (over an hour, or, for our relevant interests, hockey!), small amounts of sugar are actually necessary! carbs are your immediate form of energy for exercise, which is going to be depleted with high intensity work. having carbs in a drink will give you a little boost of energy and it allows the sodium and other electrolytes to enter cells and be absorbed faster. (I was told ideal amount is 6-8% carbs, but when I was doing some quick searches to make sure I was getting words right, the page I was looking at said no higher than 3% -- gatorade falls in about 7%)

biosteel boasts that they're zero sugar, and they even have a graphic comparing the amounts of sugar in biosteel to gatorade, powerade and body armour as a "gotcha!" type thing. again, for the average person, zero sugar is best! but it's...maybe not the best sponsor for the nhl, where we know these guys are sweating a ton and skating their asses off (even if technically they all play less than an hour each game, they are pretty much exhausting their short term energy for every shift, which is pretty high intensity).