Gatorade and Kids

[Lemur]

As I said in the OP, the vast majority of their liquids are tap water, milk (with or without chocolate syrup) and juice. We treat soda like ice cream, a treat for good behavior.

I was just curious about "sports drinks," that's all. And from what I'm gathering, it's about as healthy as soda. That answers my question.

[Mailman653]

Try Orangina instead? It's the best tasting soft drink I've tried, and once they're hooked on that, you can try mixing carbed water with various fruit juices.

I love that stuff, I can finish a liter in a day.

In regards to the orginal post, I think most of what has been said is correct. I think to summerize it all it can be said that unless your kids are playing sports on a constant basis, they shouldn't be drinking the stuff just as an ordinary drink. They have sugars and too much sugar obviously can cause caries (cavities).

Nothing beats water for a safe and healthy drink. No sugars, no additives or artificial colors or preservitives, and depending where you live, your local tap water might be treated with floride as well.

[Ice]

From a dental perspective it's terrible stuff, not only because of the sugars, but the colours/flavourings are terrible for your teeth as well.

Lemur, this is very important. I saw this study a while a go:

1 Day of Soft Drinks, Lots of Erosion
The University of Iowa researchers covered extracted teeth with nail polish. They left bare two patches on each tooth, one on the enamel and one on the root. Then they dunked the teeth in test tubes filled with regular Coke, Diet Coke, Gatorade, Red Bull, or 100% apple juice.

Every five hours, the researchers refreshed the beverages. After 25 hours, they examined the teeth with a microscope. All of the beverages eroded the bare spots on the teeth. But different beverages had significantly different effects.

On the enamel, Gatorade was significantly more corrosive than Red Bull and Coke. Red Bull and Coke, in turn, were significantly more corrosive than Diet Coke and apple juice.

On the roots of the teeth, Gatorade was more corrosive than Red Bull. Coke, apple juice, and Diet Coke followed in that order.

http://www.webmd.com/news/20060309/g...tough-on-teeth

Apparently gatorade is absolutely horrible for your teeth.

[TosaInu]

Hello,

Another risk with large amounts of simple sugars (like glucose and fructose) is that the body is producing extra insuline to get rid of the sugar pikes in the blood. This could eventually help causing/cause diabetes. Drinking that stuff all day, or any softdrink or sugarrich food for that matter, is not a good idea.

Pasta is also sugar rich, but that's a long chain of sugars which is slowly digested and absorbed into the blood.

[Fragony]

What's wrong with a glass of milk. Or the best anti-thirst drink there is, water!

[Beskar]

Fluorine.

Though, I drink bottled water, simply because it does without a lot of the chemicals present in tap water.

[TosaInu]

That depends where you live Beskar. I don't know for sure whether it's just a gossip, but it seems some bottled water is the same as tapwater for a city here. The rest of us aren't buying expensive bottled tapwater, the people in that city are lucky and get bottled water out of their tap.

As far as I know, small amounts or no chemicals (such as chlorine) at all are used to prepare drinking water in Holland.

[Beskar]

I have to be honest, I can notice the difference in taste quite dramatically. It might just be the tap water here, but there is definitely a none pleasant one while some bottled water you can get is quite flavour-less. The quality of the water is dependent on how favour-less it is, it is the impurities in the water which give it flavour.

Many people accuse bottled water of simply just being a hoax. In some respects it is, in others it is not. When you see those bottles of water for around £20, then you can be pretty sure you are definitely not getting your money worth.

In the show Panorama over here in the UK, they did a big thing of how bottled water is pretty much a scam, and this business and ultimately we should just drink from the tap. They did this survey with "wine tasters" and these wine tasters had to apparently taste the subtle differences then rate the water. The water they picked the reason being "it has the most taste" was Thame's tap water in the sample, and Panorama used this going "You hear it from the experts, tap water was infact rated better". In actual fact, all their survey proved was the opposite, tap water was in fact the worse.

As being a bottled water drinker myself, maybe I am more attuned to the differences, I have never been able to drink tap water, I always found it disgusting. However, I always been fine with filtered and bottled water. Even the very cheap store brand ones are actually passable in comparison with tap water and that is around 13p a 2litre. (which is around 17cent)

For tap water, it generally has a metallic taste to it, then it has the taste of these other chemicals and being honest, bottle-water is obviously a good investment for me.

[Xiahou]

Try filtering? It's cheaper in the long-run and you don't have mountains of plastic bottles left over to deal with.

I usually keep a few bottled waters around for convenience sake, but normally I just drink tap water- filtered. I find it improves the taste significantly compared to when its straight out of the tap.

[Fragony]

poorly filtered, no difference between bottled and tap here.

[Beskar]

Confused Honorary Texan with you being American. :P

I will have to try the water in the Netherlands then next time I am there.

[Tribesman]

Why not just give them beer and wine ?

[Pannonian]

Why not just give them beer and wine ?

Lemur's an American, so the beer and wine doesn't have as much alcoholic kick as the gatorade.

[Cute Wolf]

try giving them money, so they can decide what kind of drinks that they want to buy....

[TosaInu]

Hello,

I agree, there's water and water. And sure you can taste differences between bottled brands of 'plain' water. Some tapwater doesn't taste great. Like you said, metallic or you taste chlorine. Preparation, storage and transport all have an effect. But it's either years ago or in other countries I tasted that.

Top quality water can't be consumed without getting ill.

[Moros]

tap water varies not only from country, but even from region to region and from town to town. One advantage though is that most tap water have all the stuff you need while if you drink bottled water, it's best to change brands often. As most if not all brands of bottled water only have a little part of the vital minerals.

[TosaInu]

Hello Moros,

Isn't it so that water (automatically) contains minerals to prevent it being bad for your health rather than needing to contain essential minerals? The required amounts of minerals are obtained from balanced food (fish, meat, dairy, nuts, vedgetables, grain).

[Moros]

Hello Moros,

Isn't it so that water (automatically) contains minerals to prevent it being bad for your health rather than needing to contain essential minerals? The required amounts of minerals are obtained from balanced food (fish, meat, dairy, nuts, vedgetables, grain).

well I'm only saying what an article in the papers some time ago said. Apparantly there are or might be some minerals you don't get from food or whatever. The only thing that I do know however if that at certain places (most places in flanders and the netherlands) it's better to drink tap water than bottled. Now I wouldn't drink tap water in Naples though.

[Reverend Joe]

Tosa/Moros, the problem with the water in DC is that it tastes like (and probably is) poison. I mean, it tastes thick, and it has a nasty aftertaste; it tastes like slugs have been swimming in it. I have heard it's actually recommended by health organizations that people in DC not drink their tap water.

Try filtering? It's cheaper in the long-run and you don't have mountains of plastic bottles left over to deal with.

And that's my other problem: I had a great big Brita filter, but some idiot stepped on it and broke it, and DC water is so bad that even a small faucet filter doesn't cut it. So, bottled water for me.

I really oughta buy a new filter, but I'm too lazy.

[Hooahguy]

here in GA the tap water is really good. just saying.

[Fragony]

Same here, perfectly clean bad taste.

About Gatorade, I thought up a little scheme to bring up the kids true motivations. These bottle's look rather flashy, why not be uncool and let them drink it from a glass.

[rajpoot]

I don't think anyone's mentioned it before here, so I'll do it. These energy drinks normally contain a hell lot of caffeine......far more than what they mention on the label.....and that can be harmful.

This I read in a recent Health Capsule.

[TosaInu]

Yes India,

Not only caffeine, but also taurine and guarine (which have similar effects afaik). I'm not sure about Gatorade and a few others. They are more about being isotonic and/or offering a load of sugars.

That could be the case Moros: some minerals are pretty hard to get.

[The New Che Guevara]

Just off topic...

GATORADE!!!!!!!!

Thanks

[edyzmedieval]

I stopped using Powerade some time ago because I wanted to overwork my body. It just replenishes the body with electrolytes and essential minerals, which means you won't be fatigued and you'll be able to continue for a long time, but it's too chemical and I don't like it. The taste is amazing though.

Now I drink Guarana tho, and it's addictive.

[Strike For The South]

I stopped using Powerade some time ago because I wanted to overwork my body. It just replenishes the body with electrolytes and essential minerals, which means you won't be fatigued and you'll be able to continue for a long time, but it's too chemical and I don't like it. The taste is amazing though.

Now I drink Guarana tho, and it's addictive.

[edyzmedieval]

Haha, I get your point. But on the long term, who knows what the chemicals inside might produce, so I just drink water every 15-20 minutes when I do intensive workouts or I play basketball.

[The New Che Guevara]

Haha, I get your point. But on the long term, who knows what the chemicals inside might produce, so I just drink water every 15-20 minutes when I do intensive workouts or I play basketball.

I just strain my body during workouts... namely the two hours I get during autumn-spring on tuesday nights at hockey training and then the 70 minutes I normally play on thw weekend.

[Fragony]

I don't think anyone's mentioned it before here, so I'll do it. These energy drinks normally contain a hell lot of caffeine......far more than what they mention on the label.....and that can be harmful.

This I read in a recent Health Capsule.

In any case there drinks are incredibly unhealthy, if you are tired just take a brake, body knows best. It is better to do half an hour workout a day, with no heavy lifting at all, rather then pushing your limits once a week.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I don't think anyone's mentioned it before here, so I'll do it. These energy drinks normally contain a hell lot of caffeine......far more than what they mention on the label.....and that can be harmful.

This I read in a recent Health Capsule.

By energy drinks do you mean gatorade and powerade and the like, or the actual 'energy drinks' like Redbull and Monster? I don't think that quite applies to gatorade.

Anyway, just keep the gatorade in low amounts and you should be fine, as was mentioned. I remember drinking it as a kid with no ill effects. Didn't know about the teeth thing though - freaky!

CR