Sports Drinks Hardly Better Than Soda

Reporter Caroline Hilbert of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution offers an excellent article following up on the soda industry's new vending policy, which restricts or pulls sodas out of the schools but permits sports drinks and juices in middle schools and high schools and juices in elementary schools.

One of the important points journalist Hilbert raises is that some nutritionists call into question the value and nutritional quality of sports drinks and juices, a concern I raised yesterday.

For example, if you examine the ingredients in Gatorade, you won't be impressed.

Indeed, this popular sports drink -- while lower in calories than soda at 50 calories per 8 ounces --still contains 14 grams of sugars coming from sucrose syrup and glucose-fructose syrup.

What's more, it includes other questionable chemicals and even artificial dyes. Gatorade Raspberry Lemonade, for instance, includes citric acid, natural and artificial flavors, salt, sodium citrate, monopotassium phosphate, ester gum, sucrose acetate isobutyrate, red 40, and blue 1.

The big question is this: Why is this sports drink so much preferred over soda for schools? Is it really much different -- other than that it's a little lower in calories and includes 30 mg of potassium?

As I mentioned previously, when it comes to juices, many nutritionists and doctors say eating the whole fruit is the way to go, because you get fiber and the sugar takes more time to process in your body.

Comments

[Diane]

Great post. I had just Googled "Gatorade" to demonstrate to some people that it's not a "health" drink and doesn't contain electrolytes but instead is basically concentrated sugar water with dyes. Believe it or not some people recommend giving this to dogs to bring up their electrolytes!!! It causes glycemic shock, in dogs for goodness sake. Diane http://dogsnaturally.blogspot.com/ http://www.dianeschuller.com/Dog_Life_column.html

[Wendy Dubit]

I am in favor of keeping "sodas" of any stripe out of school, in the spirit that even a "sports" one could lead to "...." (not wanting to incriminate with brand names that load with sugar or artifical sweeteners, or to make students more soda-dependent than they already are). That said, I'm outta school. And last week, for the first time in years, I bought....A SODA! Granted, it was the only healthy-seeming thing in an I-95 rest stop in NJ. And the packaging/line was fascinating to my mind (and therefore tax-deductible for my branding business). But what really got my attention was NutriSoda's names, ingredients and nutritional values -- more than 100% RDA of A and C in IMMUNE (tangerine + lime flavored), beaucoup B in CALM (wild berry + citron), vitamins B, D and an impressive array of minerals in RADIANT (pomegranate + blackberry). Truth be told, I would of course rather get my nutrients from whole foods, and make every effort to do so. And of the three sodas I mention above, I bought them all but only enjoyed the flavor of IMMUNE. But I applaud the concept, enjoyed the company's site -- www.nutrisoda.com (especially since they have a section on different cocktails and elixirs you can make with their "sodas"), and was wondering what your thoughts are.....