Powerade vs Gatorade vs Water – Nutrition Facts & Sugar

Sports drinks are by far the most ubiquitous refueling option presently used.

They usually contain carbohydrates in the form of sugar, as well as minerals and electrolytes, and occasionally vitamins, protein, or caffeine.

There are well-known options, like Powerade and Gatorade, plus many different lesser-known competitors.

Powerade vs Gatorade vs water – which is better?

Powerade

This brand is owned by Coca-Cola and it was released in 1988 to compete with PepsiCo’s sports drinks brand. Since that time, Coca-Cola has captured around 20 percent of the sports drinks market.

Ingredients for white cherry flavor – high fructose corn syrup, water, sodium chloride, citric acid, potassium citrate, natural flavors, coconut oil, modified food starch, calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, niacinamide (vitamin B3), potassium phosphate, cyanocobalamin (vitamin B12), and pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6),

Sugar – the sugar content usually comes from high-fructose corn syrup.

Electrolytes and vitamins – electrolytes are charged metallic “ions” which control the pH of our blood and help balance fluid pressure inside your cells.

Electrolytes are actually minerals and include – calcium, chlorine, phosphate, potassium, magnesium, and sodium, and affect how well your muscles function and allow other essential processes in the body to occur.

One bottle contains vitamin B3 (0,5 mg), vitamin B5 (0,1 mg), vitamin B6 (0,1 mg), vitamin C (1 mg), vitamin K (0,5 µg), calcium (2,4 mg), iron (0,1 mg), phosphorus (24,4 mg), potassium (36,6 mg), and sodium (95,2 mg).

Flavor types – there are many interesting flavors that are available, such as grapefruit, lemon, blackcurrant, blood orange, white cherry, blackberry, blue raspberry, melon, lemonade, tropical mango, kiwi, and pineapple.

Gatorade

This brand started in 1965 at the University of Florida ( which is the home of the Gators) and is the epitome of sports drinks.

The formula of this drink was discovered when a coach realized that his athletes were tired after long days of practice.

It is owned by PepsiCo and has around 70 percent of the sports drinks market. It claims to provide the perfect formulated drink and has a catchy slogan – “Is it in you.”

Ingredients – sugar, water, citric acid, dextrose, artificial and natural flavors, sodium citrate, salt, ester gum, monopotassium phosphate, color, and modified corn starch.

Sugar – it contains sucrose, commonly referred to as table sugar or simple sugars, which is made up of two monosaccharide sugar units. It is produced in large amounts mainly from sugar beets and sugarcane. Moreover, it contains dextrose, a simple sugar which is chemically identical to blood sugar, or glucose.

Electrolytes and vitamins – one bottle contains vitamin B1 (0,1 mg), vitamin B3 (1,3 mg), vitamin B5 (0,3 mg), vitamin B6 (0,1 mg), vitamin C (2,1 mg), vitamin K (1,2 µg), calcium (6,1 mg), iron (0,3 mg), manganese (0,1 mg), phosporus (61 mg), potassium (91,5 mg), sodium (237 mg), and zinc (0,1 mg).

Flavor types – some of the most popular flavors are – cool blue, blue cherry, arctic blitz, glacier freeze, strawberry lemonade, orange, strawberry watermelon, fruit punch, riptide rush, nuestro sabor, green apple, and lemon-lime.

Water

Water is the most important nutrient for people.

Your cells need water in order to transport essential nutrients and produce chemical reactions.

Without water – you will die. Drinking plenty of water after practicing physical exercise is important for replacing the fluids you lose.

According to the American College of Sports Medicine, if you’re running for 60 minutes or longer, drink 2 to 4 ounces of water every twenty minutes.

If you happen to feel you need extra electrolytes due to your excessive sweating, you can combine your own electrolyte cocktail using 1 cup orange juice, 1 cup plain water, and a pinch of Himalayan salt.

However, the best method to protect yourself against the possibility of dehydration is to plan ahead.

If you know that you will be practicing moderate physical exercise, start drinking water early in the day to make sure your body has sufficient reserves.

Therefore, whether you’re a weekend warrior or an elite athlete, drinking water before, during, and after exercise is important if you want to get the most out of your physical exercise and feel good while you’re doing it.

What about Coconut Water?

Coconut water is made naturally in the fruit and contains 94 percent water, fiber, protein, and very low amounts of sugar and fat. Tender coconut water contains more important nutrients than mature coconut water.

Moreover, raw coconut water is a storehouse of electrolytes that will not only help you keep your body from getting any cramps but also stay hydrated.

In one boottle of fresh coconut water you can find – vitamin B1 (0,1 mg), vitamin B2 (0,1 mg), vitamin B3 (0,2 mg), vitamin B5 (0,1 mg), vitamin B6 (0,1 mg), folate (7,2 µg), vitamin A (5,8 mg), calcium (57,6 mg), copper (0,1 mg), iron (0,7 mg), magnesium (60 mg), manganese (0,3 mg), phosporus (48 mg), potasium (600 mg), seleniuum (2,4 mg), sodium (252 mg), zinc (0,2 mg), dietary fiber (2,5 g), and protein (1,7 g).

The ingredients in coconut water are way more effective at hydrating the human body than any sports drinks.

Coconut water offers a tasty alternative to water and is considered the ultimate thirst quencher. However, some long-distance endurance runners may need more specialized products which contain more carbohydrates and sodium.

Cade’s Ade, Gainesville, 1965

Gatorade’s birth story has more grit than the bottle lets on. In 1965 a University of Florida football coach asked a kidney specialist why his players hardly needed a bathroom after a game in that Florida heat. The specialist was James Robert Cade (1927-2007), and Cade later said the question changed his life.

Early batches went around as “Cade’s Ade” and “Cade’s Cola” before the Gator name won. Florida tried the mix on hot autumn afternoon in 1965, in a game against Louisiana State.

Royalties followed. By 2015 the university had banked two hundred eighty-one million dollars from its slice.

1834

“Electrolyte” is a younger word than most of people guess. Michael Faraday (1791-1867) introduced it in 1834, in the same burst of new vocabulary as anode, cathode, ion and electrode, while he worked out his laws of electrolysis.

The -lyte half comes from Greek lytos, “able to be loosened.” Faraday had in mind a substance that comes apart when current passes through. A sports label means something narrower: charged bits of mineral that a body loses in sweat.

Twenty ounces, side by side

I lined up US labels for the twenty-ounce size, and the gap between the two brands is narrower than the ads suggest. Gatorade Thirst Quencher lists one hundred forty calories, two hundred seventy milligrams of sodium, eighty milligrams of potassium and thirty-four grams of added sugar.

Powerade depends of the formula. A fruit punch bottle lists two hundred fifty milligrams of sodium and thirty-four grams of sugar, while newer lemon lime labels claim four hundred milligrams with one hundred thirty of potassium.

Is either one close to what sports scientists ask for? In its 2007 position stand, the American College of Sports Medicine set a range of twenty to thirty milliequivalents of sodium per liter, in a sugar solution between five and ten percent. Both land inside that box once I convert the units, which, yeah, cost me a calculator and two tries.

One footnote from the chemistry cupboard: brominated vegetable oil, an additive used to keep citrus flavor mixed through a drink. PepsiCo removed it from Gatorade in 2013 and Coca-Cola pulled it from Powerade a year later. An FDA ban came into effect on August 2, 2024 (FOX 13).

Which bottle, which day?

My bathroom scale and some label math settle most of these calls for me.

Day or session	My pick	Why that one
Forty minutes of weights	Tap water	“little evidence” of a gap
Half marathon in July	Gatorade, sipped by thirst	Why skip carbs past sixty minutes?
Kid’s soccer practice	Water from home	the pediatricians’ rule
Desk day, no workout	Nothing special	sugar with no job to do
Three-hour ride, hot sun	Newer Powerade	more salt per bottle
Stomach bug	Pharmacy rehydration sachet	the NHS route
Marathon past four hours	Drink to thirst, no more	Boston 2002, thirteen percent
Scale shows a drop	Water and a salty snack	about twenty ounces per pound
Coconut water mood	Fine, in small glasses	“more bloated” in 2012

Water can overdo it

The 2002 Boston Marathon changed how I fill a bottle. A Harvard team checked blood from four hundred eighty-eight finishers, and thirteen percent had hyponatremia (a blood sodium level of one hundred thirty-five millimoles per liter or lower). For women the figure climbed to twenty-two percent. Three runners hit the critical zone.

Weight gain during the race and finish times past four hours were the strongest risk flags. What unsettles me is the mechanism, because once salt in the blood drops, water drifts into cells, and inside a skull a swollen brain has little room, which in rare cases means confusion, seizures, coma or death, a list the first author, Christopher Almond, spelled out to the Harvard Crimson in April 2005, days before that year’s race.

His advice was dull and useful: weigh in before and after.

Sideline coolers and kids

Who checks the small print on a sideline cooler? In 2011 the American Academy of Pediatrics put out a clinical report on this exact question (Pediatrics, volume 127). Water should be the main fluid for children and teens. Routine sugary sports drinks, the authors wrote, raise the risk of excess weight and dental erosion, and one co-author warned parents for sports drinks at mealtimes.

Energy drinks got a harsher verdict: never appropriate for kids. A young athlete in long, hard sessions is the exception the report left room for.

Coconut water, retested

A 2012 trial from the University of Memphis and Miami Research Associates put twelve trained men through sixty minutes of treadmill work, which cost them about one point seven kilograms of body mass. Afterward each man got bottled water, pure coconut water, coconut water from concentrate or a sports drink, on four separate days. Fluid retention came out the same for both coconut versions and the sports drink, and the men felt more bloated after coconut (Kalman et al., 2012). Vita Coco paid for the study.

What I do before a ride longer than sixty minutes

I step on the scale in the morning and again when I get home. My scale tell me more than thirst does. Each pound gone gets twenty to twenty-four ounces of fluid within two hours, a rule from an ACSM hydration sheet (ACSM).

Under an hour, water and nothing else. Past that point a bottle of Gatorade or Powerade lands in the cage, since the ACSM puts carbohydrate at thirty to sixty grams an hour for hard efforts of that length. I cap fluid near one quart an hour. A salty snack after the ride does more for me than a second sweet bottle.

Two most common mistakes on my part: water alone on a three-hour ride, and a sweet drink on a desk day.

When to call a doctor

Most thirst fades after a glass of water. The NHS says to ask for an urgent GP appointment or call 111 when someone feels unusually tired, or feels dizzy after they stand up and the dizziness does not pass (NHS). Ireland’s HSE treats confusion, or a whole day with no pee, as an emergency. For a stomach bug, UK health services send people to a pharmacist for oral rehydration solutions.

After a long race, confusion or a seizure fits the low-salt problem from the Boston section above, and that calls for an ambulance with no delay.

ALSO READ: Ajwain Seeds and Water – Side Effects

Conclusion

Sports drinks like Gatorade and Powerade are beneficial when they help the liver in increasing blood glucose supplied to the muscle. Nevertheless, your muscles store over 90 minutes (or more) worth of glucose in the form of glycogen.

The bottom line is that for the majority of people sports drinks provide unnecessary kilojoules, additives, salt, and are an unnecessary financial expense.

Image source – https://pixabay.com/photos/powerade-drink-isotonic-drink-415710/

ALSO READ: Parkia Speciosa (Petai): Health Benefits

Sources

http://www.bicycling.com/training/nutrition/10-new-organic
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-36638596
http://www.britishsoftdrinks.com/Sports-Drinks