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Food Talk: Drink Options On The Trail

By Jen Schaeffer

Looking for something to add to your water on the trail? What are you most interested in? A few considerations to keep in mind: taste, nutritional value (including ingredients), dissolvability, weight, availability and price. Also don’t forget your primary goal which is to stay hydrated, so I would put “wanting to drink it” at the top of my list.

Taste is a very personal issue and you are on your own there. Nutritional value is something that would be nice to have in a drink mix, especially if you are on a long distance hike and you are trying to maximize your nutrition, although I think this is beneficial for a hike of any length. I have not studied the relative benefits of the various additives to sports drinks, but there are some things I would watch out for. Be sure to read the labels and look for artificial colorings and flavorings, and especially take a look at what sweetener (if any) is used in the drink mix. Some of the products are loaded with highly processed sugar (fructose is the prime example here) or sugar substitutes, which some folks will not care for, and frankly aren’t doing you any good on the nutrition front. Many health researchers will advocate plain old white sugar over fructose or a sugar substitute like aspartame or saccharin. You might want to opt for unsweetened varieties that you can sweeten to your own taste and with your own sweetener. Because I like to avoid sugar, I use stevia concentrate (a very sweet tasting herbal plant). A little of it goes a long way and I rather like the licorice-like taste, but some folks really don’t like it (feel free to email me for more information on stevia).

Dissolvability is another key item (unless you like chewing on drink mix chunks) that you will only discover with trial and error. Weight can be a bit of an issue with some drink mixes – be sure to read what the manufacturer considers a serving and then test it out. You might be able to dilute it and get more for your carrying efforts and your money. Also, don’t overlook liquid concentrates – they don’t have the issues of dissolvability and depending on the weight of your favorite powder mix, they might actually be lighter for the volume of drinkable fluid. On the other hand, depending on the product, the time of year, and how long you’ll be out, liquid mixes may not hold up for long under high heat conditions.

Finally, drink mixes may not be readily available (except by mail order) and can be quite expensive for their volume and what you are getting. Just like energy bars, many of the commercial drink mixes may be a dollar or two per serving. However, with the demand for sports-specific nutrition (e.g., energy bars and the like), there is also a demand for beverages. A quick internet search will bring up a host of manufacturers touting their products. Like any piece of new equipment, try it out before you take it on the trail. I’ve listed a few products that I’ve tried, but this list is by no means exhaustive. If you are interested in commercially available products, do a little internet searching and I would suggest researching through magazines that cater to sports folks like any of the weight lifting magazines, Bicycling, Outdoor Magazine, Runner’s World, etc.

-Emer’gen-C – available at any health food store, these packets come in a variety of flavors, are conveniently sized, and are loaded with vitamin C and some other vitamins and minerals; you can also get them with added calcium and other nutrients, and they also offer an electrolyte product; unfortunately sweetened with fructose (www.emergenc.com)

-Lemon/lime juice or juice concentrates – a little goes a long way

-Instant tea mixes – a product I haven’t tried but looks nice is an instant green tea that is available in flavors and unsweetened by TeaTech (www.teatech.com)

-Brew your own tea – either make some extra tea in the morning to put in a water bottle or do the “sun tea” thing during the day; a favorite tea of mine for this is a product called Sportea that has a great lemon flavor and little caffeine; this product has been around for at least 10 years (www.sportea.com)

-If you like licorice, try licorice extract, which you can find at your local health food store. If you can find one extracted into vegetable glycerin rather than alcohol, it will have quite a sweet taste.

multi-level marketing firms that I like. One is a liquid cholorphyll drink that is flavored with peppermint oil and the other is an instant tea type of mix. If you are interested in either of those, email me for more information (I’m not trying to sell you on anything, I just like the products).