Originally Posted by
Miele Man
You're really luck that works for you. The trouble with using just salt is that the body needs potassium in order to use the salt properly. If I'm using a DIY energy drink I mix up the dry ingredients and put them into small zip-lock type bags. that way I'm carrying water if I need just water and I can add the mix if/when ineed it.
I stopped buying Gatorade powder when it became a bit of sodium and potassium with a LOT of sugar.
Cheers
Actually, sodium and potassium are absorbed into the body by independent mechanisms, which don't affect each other. You may be referring to the Na/K ATPase, which maintains the charge and concentration gradients for Na+ and K+ across cell membranes, but you would die in ventricular fibrillation long before your potassium could get that low enough to affect that.
Both, Na and K, however, are made significantly more efficient in the presence of glucose. This is one reason there is sugar in electrolyte drinks. The other is that potassium salts taste horrible. There probably is an excess of sugar in most of the commercial stuff.