Gatorade/Powerade or Hydrite

Sorry I've been off grid for the past few months, I was infected with shingles which disallowed me to bike for some time.

Since I started mountain biking, I've been using Hydrite (oral rehydration salts) for my hydration needs. It's much cheaper than buying Gatorade/Powerade, and it's more effective. I've been reading a thread in PMTB about the merits of Gatorade and there was one post which said that you would need 8 sachets of Hydrite in your hydration bladder. I thought to myself, wait a minute, there's something wrong with that assumption so I did some computations based on the indicated nutritional facts on a bottle of Powerade and a sachet of Hydrite.


Here's what I wrote in response to that thread:

"Wait!! You don't need 8 packs of Hydrite for your hydration bag. Remember, Hydrite's target concentration is intended for the treatment of dehydration due to severe diarrhea.

I'm comparing the sodium and potassium content of my generic oral rehydration salts (generic name of Hydrite) vs. Powerade. If you follow the recommended 250ml of water per hydrite sachet, you'll get the ff:

Hydrite (1 liter or 4 sachets):
- Sodium Chloride (Salt) 3,500 mg = 1,400mg of Sodium
- Potassium Chloride 1,500 mg = 720mg of Potassium

Hydrite (1 sachet):
- 350mg of Sodium
- 180mg of Potassium

Powerade (1 liter):
- 248 mg of Sodium
- 140 mg of Potassium

So if you were to mimic the efficacy of Powerade, you would need to dilute 2 sachets of Hydrite in your 3 liter hydration bladder, more or less."

So there, if I were to make a 3 liter hydration fluid, I would spend roughly 28 pesos on Hydrite vs. 168 pesos for Gatorade (more expensive for Powerade). You can go even cheaper if you buy the generic ORS (9 pesos per sachet I think). But Gatorade/Powerade tastes much better than Hydrite. You choose.

BTW, here's the thread in PMTB in case you're curious.