Two excellent observations. YES, darn heavy in context of what's received especially if you become habituated to artificially flavored artificial sugar water. The most abundant ingredient(s) in both Crystal Light and Gatorade Powders is sugar at 83-85% sugar calories. TANG is 41% sugar. Kool Aid is basically colored sugar. *by caloric content %
Hydrating 4-10 L of H20 per 8 hrs of hiking accustomed to drinks having to be sweetened one can easily be hauling in excess of 10 oz of powder each day. Some will say I don't use that much. It's still a slippery sugary sweetened slope because: 1) its' scientifically engineered in by processed food industry scientists to exploit the human palette's "bliss point", you're intentionally pleasure driven through opioid receptors, dopamine, and endorphins to achieve this known bliss point, you become ADDICTED by having cravings intentionally triggered until this bliss point is achieved, so much for a war on addictive drugs(compounds)? 2) drinking sweetened water, whether it's heavily sweetened or not, accustoms one to further desiring/drinking/eating what's sweet. BAD! Because then unsweetened water that should be consumed for hydration can be bypassed missing out on proper hydration levels which I thought was the goal of drinking water in the first place? *This can have the opposite effect of being encouraged to drink more H20. This is observed repeatedly on trail and off. So many are observed who drink sugar laden powder mixes and liquid sugary drinks that don't consume enough water to properly hydrate or do so only by carrying much sugary powders while being sugar addicted.
Think about this in terms of food wt. If the average food wt/day hauled by hikers is 1.5 - 2 lbs(24-32 ozs) adding 10 ozs to this increases the food wt hauled by 30-40+ %.... LARGELY FOR SWEETNESS SAKE. Don't U.S. citizen already consume enough sugar? Now we bring our sugar addictions to hikes at the expenses of added wt and lower(NOT HIGHER!) nutrition? Aren't we already consuming enough sugar laden foods in many trail foods? And, isn't it easy enough to obtain real nutrients and electrolytes, sodium etc AND FLAVOR from REAL WHOLE foods?
https://www.eatthismuch.com/food/vie...rade-mix,3211/ Do the math.
Interesting how flavoring is intentionally linked by so many to sweetness. HOW HAS THAT HAPPENED?
https://www.theblot.com/what-bliss-p...oritos-7716219
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/...r-our-cravings
http://www.wellingtonresearch.com/wh...r-bliss-point/
YES, it's a conspiracy!
One can have flavored water with zero sugar, zero artificial sugar, and zero artificial ingredients. HOW? Make a tea as FarAway suggested. A good one for the trail is steeping a chunk of fresh ginger root, fresh bit of lemon, and turmeric(fresh rhizome or powder) in a water bottle using the same over the course of many water bottle fillings; add a bit of sweetness in the form of maybe a honey packet or packet of REAL sugar. We do it in Hawaii EASILY by offering delicious cucumber, lemon, or orange water with a touch of Himalayan or Sea salt added. How hard is it to find cucumber, small lemon, small orange, and some sea salt... especially during summer? Adding some freshly foraged raspberries, strawberries, thimble berries, huckleberries, blueberries is really all it takes to favor water and provide some nutrients WITHOUT having to haul a sugary powder. And , now were not having our bliss points unnaturally triggered that we become addicted to sugar laden powder mixes AND we understand what the heck we are consuming. Don't let the processed food industry "scientists" take over your ability to know what you're consuming.