Originally Posted by
Syscrush
Thanks very much.
To be clear, it's not that I think of salt/sodium as a fuel itself, but my 2 preferred on-bike sources of carbs (Gatorade and granola bars) both contain enough sodium that I'd avoid either of them off the bike. Given the amount of salt lost as sweat on a 3+ hour ride, I thought that I might get some additional leeway where a higher-sodium food might be OK.
My other favorite ride fuel (although slightly less convenient than granola bars) is Nutella sandwiches made with my own home-baked bread (which is much lower in sodium than store-bought bread) - I'll focus on that instead of the pre-packaged bars. I think I'll still use Gatorade for rides longer than 3 hours.
And another alternative -- that I like -- is Peanut Butter & (a little) jelly on whole wheat. If you buy the bread from the store, it has all the sodium one could probably want. Actually the stuff I eat has 125 mg in a slice -- which is more than the 107mg in a cup of Gatoraid. Plus, one tablespoon of Peanut Butter (which is half of a 'serving') has another 65mg.
So add it all up: a typical P&J gives you a 300-400mg of sodium which is a lot more than the 160mg in a 12ounce Gatoraid -- but you get a lot more 'good stuff' from the P&J (including protein).
... But, you lose the 'cool' factor ...
But, if your main goal is to keep pumping carbs into the boiler as you ride, then there are a bunch of other alternatives. I don't use them -- so I won't comment. But a lot of riders here do use them and have a lot of knowledge of them...
In short, if you mainly want carbs, you have a ton of options. Don't limit yourself to Gatoraid and so called energy drinks. I suspect if you pooled the contributors to this forum you would find a fairly small percentage that use Gatoraid.