Recipes · Tonic
Homemade Electrolyte Drink
Reader ratingsA lightly sweet, citrusy drink with sea salt, lemon, orange and a little maple syrup or honey: sodium, potassium and sugar in a glass, with no dyes or artificial sweeteners.
Safety
- The base recipe has about 150 mg of sodium per cup (about 300 mg with the larger amount of salt). If you have high blood pressure, heart failure or kidney disease, follow a sodium- or potassium-restricted diet, or take diuretics or ACE inhibitor or ARB blood-pressure medicines, ask your clinician before drinking it regularly.
- Too much salt is the main hazard of home-mixed rehydration drinks: in one Nigerian study, 4 in 10 home-mixed salt-and-sugar solutions were too concentrated. Use level measuring spoons and do not eyeball the salt.
- This is not a substitute for medical oral rehydration solution. For vomiting or diarrhea in babies, young children or older adults, or any signs of dehydration (very dark urine, dizziness, no urination for 8 hours, sunken eyes, extreme thirst), use a commercial oral rehydration solution recommended by your clinician and seek care.
- Never give honey to babies under 12 months. Use maple syrup, and for infants only give fluids your pediatrician recommends.
Why it’s good for you
Sodium, potassium and a little sugar in water is the same principle behind oral rehydration solutions, made here from real salt, citrus and syrup.
Evidence
Moderate evidence
Some human trials or consistent observational data; not yet settled.
This drink borrows the sodium-plus-sugar principle of oral rehydration, one of the best-tested ideas in medicine: a Cochrane review found reduced-osmolarity oral rehydration solution lowered the odds of needing unscheduled IV fluids by about 40% compared with the older formula in children with diarrhea. In a crossover trial of 72 men, an oral rehydration solution kept more fluid in the body than water, whereas a sports drink and orange juice did not differ from water. Nobody has tested this particular recipe, and home-mixed salt solutions are easy to get wrong.
General information from research and traditional use — not medical advice, and not a treatment for any condition. If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication or managing a health condition, check with your clinician first, and seek care for symptoms that are severe or do not improve.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Squeeze the lemons and orange and strain out the seeds.
- In a quart jar or pitcher, stir the salt and maple syrup into 1 cup of warm (not hot) water until completely dissolved.
- Add the juices, the coconut water if using, and the remaining cold water. Stir well, then taste: it should be only faintly salty, like a pleasant sports drink, not like soup. If it tastes salty, add more water.
- Chill and drink over the day, shaking before each pour. Keep it refrigerated and finish it within 3 days.
Tips
- Measure with level, dry measuring spoons. The amount of salt is the one thing that really matters in this recipe.
- Pour leftovers into pop molds: a slow, cold way to take in fluids when appetite is low.
- For long, hot, sweaty workouts, use the larger amount of salt and drink to thirst rather than forcing fluids.
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