A few weeks ago, I was visiting with a friend when she asked if I wanted to try the new electrolyte drink powder she was obsessed with.
“It’s super salty and delicious, and now I have one every day,” she said, handing over a small packet.
One sip of the powder—the brand is LMNT if you’re curious—and I was sold. Pretty soon, I had my very own pack of 18 satchels ($28.99) headed to my doorstep, promising to deliver me “all-day energy” and “maximum hydration” without any sugar or additives.
My friend and I aren’t alone. Across social media, we’re told drinking plain water is passe, subpar, and incredibly basic. Now, we should be optimizing our hydration—from making sure we’re extra hydrated via electrolytes. And this isn’t the electrolyte drinks of the past, like sports drinks chock full of calories and sugar. No, these supplements boast wellness-friendly bonafides like no added sugars, all-natural ingredients, and vitamin boosts alongside the hydration.
The electrolyte trend is just the latest entry in a barrage of popular powders, tinctures, and supplements promising to give our health a jolt.They claim to do everything from adding greens to your diet, to ensuring you’re getting enough vitamins, to even helping with stress. You can slurp your watermelon or berry-flavored collagen, your colostrum, or balance your hormones. Or you can make a “loaded water,” throwing a bunch of different supplements in one glass, with a dash of a gut-healthy prebiotic soda like Poppi for an extra boost of flavor.
On TikTok, where wellness trends tend to proliferate, these types of “loaded water” creations are a fixture in many “day in the life” videos posted by lifestyle creators. They wake up, go to the kitchen, and immediately blend some mysterious powder or another into their Stanley cup or an Owala. The routine continues throughout the day, with perhaps a greens blend in the morning, an electrolyte mix for post or pre workout, and a “natural caffeine” blend for energy as an afternoon pick me up.
But while the obsession with protein and vitamin blends isn’t overly new, the focus of electrolytes is particularly popular online at the moment. Spend enough time on social media, and you could be convinced that plain old H20 is insufficient to ensure you’re staying hydrated during the hot summer months.
Danika Doal got into electrolyte drinks after she started to research how to get more nutrients in her body daily without taking a ton of supplements. A content creator, she started making ASMR videos of her daily drinks, to huge success.
“The videos on electrolytes have performed extremely well and I have found my audience asking many questions about them,” she says. “ASMR drinking is such a niche content market that I’ve seen garner many views…It’s been great to promote electrolytes on my platform as I do believe as a newer trend, there isn’t much information available.”
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And the trend is also showing up in a proliferation of thirst quenching products. You can now not only buy powders aimed toward adults, but towards kids. Katie Butler, a spokesperson for the children’s wellness brand Zarbee’s, tells Glamour that they recently released a electrolyte drink in pouch form because they saw such a need in the market.
“Parents on social media, in everyday conversations and commentary on competing brands shared they wanted something that wasn’t loaded with sugar or artificial dyes and asking for better hydration and gut health options for their kids.
And Alex Cooper, the Call Her Daddy host and influencer, launched Unwell Hydration, a line of electrolyte drinks, earlier this year. Kristin Lentz, its senior brand manager, tells Glamour that as more people are focusing seriously on wellness, they’ve found that “enhanced hydration” is a “top priority.”
“Now, more than ever, there’s strong demand for effective ways to stay hydrated throughout the day,” she says. “In a world where we’re constantly on the go and ‘doing it all,’ there was a clear white space for enhanced hydration that offered the benefits you want, without the junk you don’t.”
But as much as I enjoy my new salty pick-me-up, the journalist in me had some questions. Mainly, is maximizing my electrolytes really making me more hydrated? Or to put it simply, what’s wrong with just plain water?
Of course, nothing. Rest assured, says Dr. Stacie Stephenson, a registered nutritionist, author, and functional medicine expert, if you just stick to the classic H20, you aren’t going to be insufficiently hydrated.
“Generally speaking, you really just need the water and that’s half your weight per day in ounces,” she says.
Where this type of product can come in handy though, she says, is actually making you drink. Stephensen says she’s personally not someone who enjoys drinking a ton of plain water, and for people like herself, they may need the extra flavor to motivate them to do it. But if you skip the trendy saches, you won’t be hurting yourself.
“I’d just encourage people to really focus on hydration. Hydration is really critical,” she says.
So in that way, all these new water trends and the subsequent products can actually help with wellness. It can be a drag to force yourself to take huge supplement pills, or glug down a bunch of water every day if you don’t really feel like it. But if getting your vitamins or protein or hydrating is tasty, and can be a part of your daily sweet treats? Stephensen says that’s a win win.
“I like liquids basically because of convenience,” she says. “It can be a routine. You can add all your nutrients to your green shake and it does give you a head start.”
Doal says that one of the best parts of making her videos are the comments that don’t talk about any fancy routine, but a simple habit.
“I receive multiple comments telling me I have reminded those that follow me to drink their daily water,” she says.
The post The Electrolyte Drink Trend Is Tasty—but Is It Necessary? appeared first on Glamour.
