BRT Insights - WW Kayaking & Hiking

Homemade sports drinks help prevent dehydration and maintain your best muscle performance! Here are my results from testing a wide range of juices for use in the Hydration Fruit-Ade Natural Sports Drink recipe.

I'm drinking a lot of Hydration Fruit-Ade both at home and on whitewater paddleboating trips. When their sugar contents are diluted to the necessary level some juices still taste fine, although the flavors are of course more subtle and less sweet. Other juices are bland to awful when correctly diluted, but all of the ones I've tried so far turn out OK with addition of a little stevia for sweetening and flavor enhancement. Be sure to follow the recipe exactly to end up with the correct sugar concentration that is critical for rapid absorption of the drink into your body. DO NOT dilute your fruit juices based solely on taste or color because you will probably end up with the wrong sugar concentration and defeat the purpose of the sports drink.

Fruit & vegetable juices that still taste great after dilution. • V8 Splash - Berry Blend or Tropical Blend. • V8 V-Fusion - Acai Mixed Berry. • R.W. Knudsen - Just Black Cherry. • R.W. Knudsen - Just Tart Cherry • Ocean Spray - Cran-Raspberry. • Northland - Cranberry Raspberry. • Dole - Paradise Blend. • Dole - canned Pineapple Juice. • Santa Cruz Natural - Red Tart Cherry. • Arizona - Pomegranate Green Tea. • Arizona - Half Tea & Half Tropical. • Eating Right - Peach Mango Vegetable. • Welch's - 100% Grape Juice, and Grape/Cherry Blend.

Fruit & vegetable juices that need flavor enhancement after dilution. • orange juice from frozen concentrate. • V8 V-Fusion - Peach Mango. • Kern's - Mango Nectar or Guava Nectar.

• Also see: Adding tea to the Fruit-Ade recipe makes PowerT Hydration Juice - a healthy, homemade energy drink!!

Tart Cherry Juice may be valuable as a natural sports drink.

Some preliminary evidence suggests that drinking tart cherry juice may help to reduce muscle pain after vigorous exercise.
• Cherry juice as a sports drink eases pain after running - Telegraph newspaper 30may2009.
• Cherry juice may reduce exercise-induced muscle pain - NutraIngredients news service 21june2006.
• Tart cherry juice: A lip-puckering pain remedy? - Los Angeles Times newspaper 06july2009.
• Tart Cherry super fruits are packed with antioxidants - health benefits - CherryPharm.
• Cornell Univ food scientists create sports drink using tart cherries - Cornell Chronicle News.

(Update: A number of colorful fruit juices decrease muscle soreness in athletes. Natural pomegranate, cherry, blueberry and grape sports drinks may be useful both for hydration and for recovery after extreme exercise.)

If you use these colorful fruit juices during exercise as a sports drink, then they should be diluted as described in the Hydration Fruit-Ade natural sports drink recipe. As a recovery drink for use after exercise you might want to continue hydrating with the sports drink throughout the day, or possibly drink a smaller amount of the undiluted juice.

Please post a comment to say what you think of Hydration Fruit-Ade Natural Sports Drink.

What commercial fruit juices have you used in the Hydration Fruit-Ade recipe? Let us know if you have a modified recipe or a different sports drink recipe that you like better.

More about:
• Hydration Fruit-Ade natural fruit sports drink - BRT Insights.
• Paddle boaters need good hydration for optimum performance - BRT Insights 09sept2009.
• Food & Drink for Outdoor Activities - BRT Insights.

Tags: kayaking, hydration, sports drink.
Tags: whitewater, river, kayaking, paddlesports, paddle boating, rafting, canoeing.

Labels: food-drink