Now that I regularly commute 24+ miles in a day, I really need to think about keeping my energy at optimum levels throughout my ride. A couple of times on the way back home I have bonked/hit the wall. Both times it happened as I was cycling through Peckham :-(.
So I did a little research and found that you can make your own energy drink which will do the job just as well as shop bought varieties and only costs 40p per litre.So why make your own energy drink?
1. Cost
2. Contains nothing artificial
3. It’s easy!
For comparison I went onto the Sainsbury’s website and chose an Orange and Mango smoothie as the base for my home-made drink and Lucozade Sport as the alternative shop-bought energy drink.
| per 100g | Lucozade Sport | Smoothie |
| energy KJ | 117 | 263 |
| carbs g | 6.4 | 13.9 |
| of which sugars g | 17.5 | 12.0 |
| fat | – | 0.2 |
| sodium | 0.25 | – |
It’s interesting to note that the Lucozade Sport does provide more usable carbohydrates, in fact 5g more per 100ml. In the scheme of things this is unlikely to make much difference and could be easily remedied by using a pure juice instead of a smoothie. I haven’t listed it but the Lucozade Sport also contains little extras such as Niacin(B3), Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12 and Pantothenic Acid(B5)
B vitamins are frequently added to energy drinks and are said to help unlock the energy content in food but to be honest the majority of us are most likely getting all the B vitamins we need from our diets anyway. It smacks of marketing hype to me.
So in response to my list of reasons to make your own energy drink. Number 1 is cost. Let’s assume we shop at Sainsbury’s. On their website we have, Orange and Mango smoothie at £1.98 for 1 litre and Lucozade Sport at £1 for 500ml. The 1 litre pack of Smoothie makes 5 litres of energy drink which costs £1.98. 5 litres of Lucozade Sport would cost £10. So we have a clear winner.
Reason 2. A lot of energy drinks contain artificial sweeteners, flavourings and preservatives. Personally I’d rather not be ingesting all this junk.
Lastly Reason 3. It’s very easy. My recipe is this:
200ml smoothie/juice of choice
800ml water
A pinch of salt, dissolved beforehand in hot water
There you have it. Simple and delicious!