Best Electrolyte Powders
Electrolytes are incredibly important. Though few people think about them, they are crucial to our health, wellbeing, and physical performance. Even a slight drop in natural electrolyte levels can have far reaching consequences.
They are intimately associated with hydration – dehydration often means low levels of electrolytes as well as a lack of water.
To stay fully hydrated, you need to replace your electrolytes. Therefore, if you live an active lifestyle, live in a hot climate, or tend to sweat a fair amount, you should seriously consider supplementing with them.
Luckily, there are plenty of decent electrolyte supplements out there, none of which cost too much money. Today, I am going to assess the best electrolyte powders available to buy in the UK – and then I’ll go in to a little more detail about what electrolytes are and how we can increase them naturally.
Our Top Rated Electrolyte Powder
Our Top Electrolyte Powders
These are the best electrolyte powders out there. All will serve you well, but we have placed them in a ranked order with our top preference first.
Revival
Revival’s branding is quite revealing. They implore you to ‘live your best life’, which represents their products really quite well. With revival, they have brought a multi-functional electrolyte rehydration powder with added vitamins to the market, pretty much tailor made to allow you to inhabit the best version of your physical self.
Revival was born out of respect for the fact that three quarters of the western world’s population is dehydrated without really being aware of it. As a tiny drop in hydration (think 1% or thereabouts) can greatly diminish your cognitive and mental wellbeing and physical performance, this is a big deal.
This is where Revival was born – think about its name, after all, and you see a desire to breathe new life into a flagging populace.
You get an awful lot from their formula, including very workable amounts of a range of electrolytes, such as sodium and potassium in various forms. You also get a solid vitamin complex, including vitamins C, B1, B3, and B5, as well as folic acid. It’s an incredibly effective recipe.
The company themselves have a lot going for them, too. They hold themselves to high ethical standards by forgoing the plastic containers and high emissions often associated with the drinks industry. Instead, their boxes are made from self-locking, glue free, completely recyclable cardboard. They have eliminated nearly all plastic and carbon emissions from their storage and transportation.
It’s a great drink, fantastic for your body and good for the environment. What’s not to like?
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Hux Hydration
I really like our next supplement, Hux Hydration. Or, rather, I like Hux, its creator. They are a brilliant supplement company who aim to deliver the results we are all looking for without being overly fussy – they keep things simple and effective, to the point, which is how I like anything to be.
There is no need to overcomplicate things on the consumer’s side – that’s for the boffins in the lab, not for the rest of us who just want a good health kick before moving on. And even then, the makers should aim to keep elements streamlined. Don’t take a thousand different ingredients if four or five potent ingredients will do.
This said, electrolyte powders rarely are too complex. A little salt, a few electrolytes, job done. However, I always like to see Hux do well, and they really have brought out something good with Hux Hydration.
They also have a nice approach to their customer base. According to their co-founder, Damien Byrne, they like to aim for ‘the margins for error that are human and normal’. They like to plug the gaps left wanting in our daily lives, which is exactly where a good electrolyte powder comes into play.
Hux Hydration comes in tablet form. Simply dissolve it in a glass of water, as you would any other electrolyte powder, and down it. It is rich in electrolyte minerals like potassium and zinc, which will allow for far greater hydration and immunity, alongside a wealth of additional benefits.
It’s available in three flavours, all of which are great. Our preference being the Watermelon – but all are great and do the job perfectly.
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MyProtein Electrolyte Plus
Electrolyte powders can all be a bit samey. They contain decent electrolytes, maybe an added component or two, and are all very drinkable when mixed with water. Realistically, if you want to set them apart, it’s best to look at companies themselves.
MyProtein are amongst my favourite fitness supplement companies. I often buy their whey powder and creatine. The company itself was set up to make previously quite inaccessible supplements available to everyone. Where cost was once prohibitive (£50 for a month’s supply of whey, for instance), MyProtein paved the way for good quality, affordable products (call it £20 for that month’s supply).
They have done the same with their electrolyte powder. It contains everything you would want it to.
Every dissolvable tablet comes with the electrolytes calcium, chloride, magnesium, potassium, and sodium, which is a rich formula indeed. All told, these will support healthy muscle function, digestive health, neurotransmission, bone formulation and maintenance, nervous system, metabolism and more…
The list goes on…
In short, it’s good stuff, as good as anything on this list.
And it only costs a couple of quid for a month’s supply. It’s quintessential MyProtein – affordable, good quality, with a great degree of utility.
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SOS Hydration
Supplement company SOS, have put together an incredibly good remedy for dehydration, here, with SOS Hydration. It promises, of course, to improve hydration.
It also promises to give you a boost to your energy and focus whilst restoring overall wellness.
It combines electrolytes, minerals, nutrients, and a really quite nice flavour to give you fast acting relief and lasting energy. SOS even go so far as to claim that it’s more effective than an intravenous drip, though I’ve not been able to verify that!
Nevertheless, it is very good.
You get six important electrolytes and minerals in their mix – sodium, chloride, zinc, magnesium, potassium, and citrate – in very strong doses. In fact, you get them in doses up to triple the strength of some of their competition.
This sounds good – it is good, to a point – though there is a limit to how much your body needs or can absorb. It’s always better to go slightly over this point, to ensure you’re getting as much as your body can, but this seems a little overkill.
Still, it’s impressive, as is the range of electrolytes on offer.
The story behind SOS Hydration is pretty cool, too. It was developed by one of the world’s GI doctors, based on WHO and UNICEF guidelines for oral rehydration therapy. It’s designed to allow the body to absorb a lot more water than it would with just plain water, whilst also proving a good, low sugar alternative to the kinds of sugary sports drinks you can find in any supermarket or corner shop.
It’s clever, rich in electrolytes, and nice to drink. What’s not to like?
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Natures Truth Electrolyte Powder
Let’s end on a good one, with Nature’s Truth Electrolyte Powder. It’s another very generous supplement, giving you a fantastic blend of calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorous, sodium, and chloride, which should collectively aid in overall hydration and wellness whilst also contributing to healthy muscular function.
Nature’s Truth like to highlight that it’s all vegetarian and vegan friendly – it fits nicely with their brand image. However, all electrolytes should be at least vegetarian friendly. It’s good to see it so explicitly put, and I would encourage all vegetarians and vegans to give it a go, but don’t worry too much about it. I’m vegetarian and have been able to try out everything on this list with no worries.
This being said, I do like Nature’s Truth’s branding and image. They’ve been going for over forty years, which is an incredibly long time in the supplement game, where newcomers enter the market every five minutes and companies go bust all the time.
And in that time they’ve built up a solid reputation for ethically sourced, high quality ingredients, all natural, with no additives, artificial colours, or preservatives, all blended and presented to the best standards going, following full GMP & BRC guidelines.
They are, in short, a company to be trusted. And with an electrolyte blend like this, you will be very well off. It will give you everything you’re looking for from a good quality electrolyte powder.
There is one wrinkle, however. Nature’s Truth claim that their lemon and citrus flavour is a lovely, tasty alternative to the kinds of soft drinks plenty of us down at the gym. It is a good alternative, true… but the taste leaves something to be desired.
It didn’t sit right with me.
Sure enough, when I looked into customer reviews, the taste was pulled apart quite ruthlessly: Nature’s Truth’s Electrolyte Powder seems to be very divisive. It has almost equal numbers of five- and one-star reviews, with many of the bad reviews citing the unpalatable taste as the reason for their scorn.
I wouldn’t go this far. The taste isn’t great, but it’s not quite unpalatable. And plenty of people get on with it OK. Just beware, it may not be for everyone.
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Verdict
There are some great products on this list. To a large degree, they are all much of a much – they will all aid hydration and keep your electrolyte levels on point. You will be healthier and far more athletically proficient by taking any of them.
However, we must pick a winner. For me, a mix of good electrolytes, a strong vitamin complex, good palatability, great ethics and green credentials, and just general good quality will always be hard to beat. Because of this, Revival will always be hard to beat – I would recommend it to anyone, anytime. It really is a great product.
What Are Electrolytes?
Electrolytes, as you might expect, are named for their electrical charge. When dissolved in water, they can have either a positive or negative electrical charge. Importantly, however, they are key for your body’s chemical reaction regulation; they help your body to maintain its fluid balance both within and without your cells; our cells cause our muscles to contract by using electrolytes to conduct electrical charges.
We need them, of course. And we get them from dietary sources, from what we eat and drink on any given day.
We lose them through sweat and urine. The more we sweat or urinate, the more we lose. Thus, the more hard exercise we perform, or the more time we spend in hot weather, or the more diuretics like caffeine and alcohol we consume, the more our electrolytes are depleted.
There are several symptoms associated with depleted electrolyte levels. These include confusion and irritability, fatigue, and headaches. You may suffer from diarrhoea or constipation, nausea, and vomiting, as well as muscle cramps, muscle spasms, muscular fatigue, arrhythmia (irregular or accelerated heart rates), and numbness or tingling extremities.
How To Increase Your Electrolytes Naturally
We get our electrolytes from dietary sources. There are certain foods that are rich in them.
For example, dairy sources like milk and yoghurt are rich in the electrolyte calcium. In fact, a single serving of milk or yoghurt can give you around 300 mg or 450 mg, respectively. Bananas, meanwhile, are rich in potassium, which helps to control blood pressure and muscular health. A lack of potassium can greatly impair your athletic performance (hence you will often see tennis players eating bananas in breaks). A single banana can give you over 400 mg of potassium.
In fact, fruit sources are often very rich in electrolytes. Coconut water is a good one – it contains around 600mg of potassium and 252mg of sodium per serving, whilst also giving you plenty of fluid and a little natural sugar. It’s one of the most efficient ways of rehydrating yourself. Watermelon is also rich in potassium, fluid, and sugar, putting it on par with coconut water.
Trendy brunchers can also rejoice, because avocado is richer in potassium even than bananas. A single avocado can deliver around 1000 mg of potassium (though it is also rich in fat, so beware its caloric yield).
An average lifestyle may benefit from solely natural electrolyte sources. However, if you’re particularly active, live in a hot country, sweat a lot, or tend to drink lots of diuretics (again, alcohol and caffeine, for example), you may need to supplement with them. Above are some of the best electrolyte supplement options if you’re looking for a good quality source.
