BY STEVE BORN
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for an awful long time, you know that pop (aka soda and soft drinks) is just plain bad for you. Unfortunately, most of the sports drinks currently available are just as bad—if not worse—as sodas. A quick look at the ingredient list confirms this:
- Refined sugar (glucose, sucrose, fructose) – BAD!
- High fructose corn syrup – BAD!
- Copious amounts of citric acid – BAD!
- Excess salt – BAD!
- Artificial ingredients – BAD!
This is precisely why, a bit over 16 years ago, we stepped up to the plate to make something truly unique: a sports drink that wasn’t a glorified soda/soft drink, but an actual drink mix that was both healthy and beneficial. The outcome was HEED: High Energy Electrolyte Drink. A true alternative to the syrupy-swill junk constantly being peddled to athletes.
Here’s why HEED is a massive step up from the garbage disguised as sports drinks:
1. No simple sugars. Instead, we use maltodextrin, a long-chain/complex carbohydrate. Maltodextrin is unique in that it rapidly raises blood sugar/energy levels quickly (as quick as pure glucose), and provides a much longer-lasting energy compared to any simple sugar. With maltodextrin you avoid that unpleasant, performance-ruining “flash and crash” that’s characteristic of simple sugar. Maltodextrin also permits your body to digest more calories than simple sugars, so you get the full amounts of calories you need and with no delay in digestion. While consuming simple sugar-based fuels is all but certain to lock up your GI tract eventually, maltodextrin can be absorbed efficiently all day long.
2. Balanced electrolytes. The other sports drinks equate electrolytes to salt, and some of them contain a ton of it. While sodium chloride (salt) is of course essential for exercise performance, it doesn't do the job alone, and excess amounts are guaranteed to negatively impact athletic performance. That's why HEED also contains potassium, calcium, and magnesium… all the minerals, in a balanced blend, that your body needs for optimal performance.
3. No citric acid. If you add a whole load of salt to a drink, it'll taste salty. In order to help cover it up and give it a little kick to satisfy your taste buds, most drinks include a healthy dose of citric acid. And while this particular substance isn’t bad, per se, the excess amounts found in far too many sports drinks can burn your throat and cause some serious stomach issues. Perhaps worst of all, when you bath your teeth for a few hours with citric acid via a sports drink, you’re on the fast track to destroyed tooth enamel and other oral health issues. Citric acid is not a necessity in a sports drink, which is why HEED doesn’t contain any.
4. No junk. HEED has no artificial ingredients, gluten, or anything else that will wreak havoc on your athletic efforts or, more importantly, your overall health. Enough said.
Years ago, when countless athletes and active people cried out, “Enough is enough! We want a better sports drink, one that works and actually tastes good!” we listened and delivered. Upon HEED’s introduction, we stated with supreme confidence, “It’s no great stretch at all for us to say that we believe HEED will literally blow the doors off any other sports drink currently available.” Many years later, this statement is still 100% true.
Containing no simple sugars, sweetened only with healthy sweeteners (stevia and xylitol), devoid of artificial ingredients and tooth enamel-decaying citric acid, and complemented with a balanced, full-spectrum electrolyte profile (not loaded with salt, like most of the rest), HEED is the undisputed king of sports drinks. If you’ve not yet tried HEED, we strongly encourage you to do so. Once you’ve put HEED to the test, we guarantee you’ll never go back to the “no different than soda” sports drinks.