How To Drink Gatorade (2011) | Hacker News Reader

How To Drink Gatorade (2011)

wired.com

15 points001sky14 comments

Writer is thoroughly confused between "pleasure" and "unconscious detection of carbohydrates".

I used to do distance running. I figured out that both apple and grape juice have approximately double the calcium, potassium, magnesium (electrolytes), and calories as Gatorade.

So I started drinking juice diluted with 50% water. Way more natural, and fructose is much healthier than sucrose. It worked pretty well for me; YMMV.

I also was a distance runner. After a long, hot run, Gatorade tasted good so I drank it. As far as I can tell, it's not killing me in a very obvious way, so I'll continue to drink it as long as it keeps tasting the same.

There's plenty of sucrose in fruit[1] (juice). Sucrose is the sweet tasting element of fruit.

Fructose, or fruit sugar, is a simple monosaccharide found in many plants, where it is often bonded to glucose to form the disaccharide sucrose[2].

[1] http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-009009000000000000000.ht...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose

Yeah, I don't see much difference between 50% apple juice 50% water, and Gatorade. They're both great. I'll drink whichever is on hand.

After all, they both do the same thing: give you sugar and water, in a good balance for during- or post-workout. (Soda is too fizzy, too sweet.) Obviously, the fruit-juice version is probably healthier.

Gatorade isn't about your mental state, I don't know where the author got that idea. It's about water and energy in the form of instant calories.

"Gatorade isn't about your mental state, I don't know where the author got that idea."

Well, the author claims he got that idea from the studies that showed 1) a better effect when gargling with Gatorade than drinking it, 2) a better effect when gargling with sugar water than with fake-sugar water, and 3) mental state differences between the two sets of garglers. Presuming the studies were conducted well (and, to be fair, it's quite a presumption), it would seem to be a compelling case.

Did you read the article? Studies show gargling with gatorade improves cycling performance more than swallowing. Therefore you have to accept it is indeed about mental state (or mouth moistness anyway).

If I remember right, sucrose = fructose + glucose

The experiment was insufficient to prove that the "salts" did not benefit the athletes.

And, a simple fact was conveniently neglected -- if you don't swallow the glucose, no matter how you tricked your brain, you're still not getting that energy, which will kill you if you're running a marathon, for example.

So why hate Gatorade? After all nobody stops you from putting glucose and whatever you feel "scientific" into water. Or tricking your brain using whatever chemicals.

P.S. I like honey.

>I’d rather drink a Coke and eat pork rinds

That would be an even worse way to get electrolytes than Gatorade. Less hydration for the same amount of sugar, and to get the same amount of potassium, you'd have to eat enough pork rinds that you'd hit 30% of your sodium and fat RDA in one shot. You'd probably need to sit down from your workout for a while until the nausea passed. And all that salt is not going to leave you in a mood to exercise any more.

I was going to comment on some inaccuracies and general misunderstandings in the article. Then I found this at the top of the page: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/violations-of-edit...

_Wired_ doesn't want his stuff anymore because, well, it's kind of crap journalism.

Although I recognize the hyperbole in the last sentence, I think it would be interesting to see an experiment comparing the performance of cyclists (or any athletes) who've gargled with Gatorade to those who've gargled with ice cream. I just wonder if the ones who gargle ice cream would mentally feel their performance hindered (and then potentially not perform as well) as ice cream is deemed unhealthy before physical activity, even though their brains are receiving more utility from the actual sugar than the ones who gargle Gatorade.

What about gargling cream? Objects are difficult to gargle when they're below their solidification point.

Off-topic: Would it be accurate to describe non-frozen ice cream as "molten"?

They could gargle fro-yo instead, which is somehow perceived as being healthy.

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