Best Electrolyte Drinks for Kids with a Bonus DIY Recipe 

Great for Hot Summer Farm Days!

There are so many electrolyte drinks on the market today. It is easy to feel like you need to drink a colorful powder to stay up to date on the newest trend. I like to keep a few on hand for when we need a quick pick me up or a sudden illness comes on. Since we spend many hot days sweating in our garden, I enjoy having an easy option available for my kiddos and myself. It’s nice to know their minerals are getting replaced when their little bodies are sweating it out!

The Best Electrolyte Drinks (pre-made)

Let’s cut to the chase, Pickleball Cocktail, and Just Ingredients are our go-to’s. Read on to learn more about why we love them. Don’t rush out and buy them just yet! You most likely have simple ingredients in your home to make a DIY powerhouse electrolyte drink. Check out the recipe at the end of the post for more details!

There are three things I consider when analyzing electrolytes for my family. Clean ingredients, adequate mineral ratios, and delicious taste! Remember, these are prepackaged. The best option will be homemade using truly natural flavors like coconut water and clean fruit juice as a vitamin C source.

• Pickleball Cocktail by Jigsaw Health.This easy mixable electrolyte powder contains zero sugar, and caffeine and has bioavailable forms of magnesium and sodium. Our favorite flavor is the blue raspberry. I love that it comes in a bulk tub for our daily use. We also always have the single-serve packets on hand to throw in an overnight bag or to send with my husband on work trips. 
• Just Ingredients electrolytes We love that it is flavored with REAL FRUIT, has no artificial sugars and has a lower sodium ratio than leading brands. We love the Orange Pineapple Electrolytes for a tropical natural flavor. This comes in one of the most affordable options if you want to try one out. 

Remember don’t rush out and buy these or get click happy! These electrolyte powders are a good option to have on hand, but you can make your own drink much cheaper with simple ingredients like fruit juice, coconut water and unrefined salt!

What are Electrolytes? 

Electrolytes are simply essential minerals with an electric charge. The main electrolytes in body fluids are Sodium, Chloride, Magnesium, Calcium, and Potassium. 

Why are Electrolytes Important?

Electrolytes help keep body fluid balanced, maintain blood pH, and carry electricity from nerves to muscles. All of these functions are pretty important, right? For years, the go-to electrolyte drinks have been Gatorade and Powerade. Unfortunately, these sports drinks have a high sugar content, artificial flavors, and artificial colorants.  

Luckily, the demand for healthier and more natural options has created a growing market for electrolyte powders. 

Electrolytes are key to proper hydration!

Now, I don’t necessarily believe my family must be chugging eight glasses of plain water daily to be optimally hydrated. Most healthcare providers I have asked agree humans aren’t drinking enough water. Recently, the functional and integrative health circles have been advocating electrolyte drinks as a good option for overall hydration.  I tend to agree with the latter only because I feel more hydrated when incorporating electrolytes into my diet. 

Most of us are walking around dehydrated!

I’m not saying everyone is seriously dehydrated but I do think most of us are suffering from mild dehydration.  This can lead to common symptoms like fatigue, lightheadedness, dry skin, headaches, and unfulfilled thirst. 

 Once I started learning more about proper hydration, I started to become aware of the drinking habits of those around me. I’m convinced most of us are walking around significantly dehydrated. Have you ever worked with someone and noticed they don’t drink or pee all day? Is that weird?! My husband and I always laugh because we are frequent urinators and sweaters and almost always have a drink close by (TMI?).

As a mother, I find that there are a slew of other symptoms of dehydration in kids. Like irritability and crabiness. When I can feel the attitudes rising in my home I stop and think “what have they drank today” and “have they had enough protein”?  A prompt electrolyte drink tea party, or “blue drink” as my kids call it, often helps bring their moods back up. Kid’s bodies need power people! Electrolytes are literal ELECTRICITY for your body!

I used to focus on drinking a gallon of water a day but I find that I feel so much better, and less thirsty if I am drinking less water and incorporating more electrolytes. 

Why do we Need to Replenish Electrolytes?

There are a few main reasons the demand for essential minerals, specifically electrolytes, is more important today than it may have been with previous generations.

• Two-thirds of American children’s diets consist of packaged food. Most of this food is comprised of “empty calories” and is deficient in essential nutrients needed for a growing child. Even if the food label advertises “essential nutrients and vitamins” the ingredients are often synthetically made and aren’t bioavailable to our bodies, therefore unusable. 
• Stress burns minerals, it is no secret that children of today are under environmental and lifestyle stressors that previous generations didn’t combat. 
• Food is less nutrient-dense than our ancestors ate because of poor soil fertility. Even if your diet is packed full of produce and grass-fed meats, the nutrient density of those foods is continuing to decline. 
• Most of the water we drink today is heavily contaminated, therefore it is ultra-filtered. While it’s good to filter out unwanted chemicals in water most water filtration systems also filter out naturally occurring minerals that God put there for a reason. Therefore, we are drinking plain water or as some call it, “dead water”. 

It’s also important to consider if you’re overdrinking water. Many diets today highly recommend drinking a gallon of water a day. While I do believe most people don’t drink enough, I don’t think drinking a gallon of “dead water” is going to have nearly the same impact as drinking mineral-rich water. Experts now claim drinking too much “plain water” can strip your body of minerals. It’s important to find a balance that works for you and your body’s needs. Everyone has a different baseline of electrolytes, lifestyle, and bio-individuality. I know I feel much better when drinking at least one electrolyte drink per day.

The Problem with Most Electrolyte Drinks

This also includes anything marketed as “sports drinks,”, or “energy drinks”. etc. They are just full of junk! They’re full of too much sugar, artificial flavors, dyes, corn syrup, and synthetic vitamins ( especially in vitamin waters). I also feel weary towards alkaline waters. I believe we want our stomachs to be acidic, therefore it does the job of killing of pathogens. Consistently drinking alkaline substances seems counterintuitive to me.

Many popular drinks are advertised as “sugar free” but have subpar sugar substitutes that are not meant for our bodies. Our bodies were designed to work off of real food and real ingredients. Especially in a time of stress like dehydration, after strenuous exercise, or sickness, we should be prioritizing ingredients that our bodies readily accept or are bioavailable. 

I aim to avoid the following when it comes to electrolyte drinks, soft drinks, juice or anything I’m putting in my child’s body:

• Artificial sweeteners, corn syrup, or too much added sugar
• Too much sodium ( Ideal 3:1 potassium to sodium ratio)
• Artificial flavors 
• Artificial dyes 
• An overabundance of synthetic vitamins like (ascorbic acid), iron and calcium.

* Disclaimer: my only qualification here is that I’m a mother who deeply cares about her family’s nutrition. I’ve came to the conclusion that I am uncomfortable with mass amounts of synthetic vitamins going into my children’s bodies. I’d prefer they get these vitamins from whole foods or whole food supplements. This DOESN’T mean we won’t ever use synthetic sources. But we will not be chugging drinks daily with synthetics added in.

When should you drink electrolyte water?

That is up to you and the bio-individuality of your body. I’d start by replacing one glass of water with one glass of mineral-rich goodness on a daily basis! I drink at least one glass of filtered water with electrolytes added to my DIY electrolyte drink daily, and so do my children. On a hot day in the summer or during intense exercise we drink more. We also focus on remineralization through electrolyte drinks during a stomach bug, cold, or fever. It’s also easy to make homemade electrolyte popsicles to have on hand for your sick child. 

Make your Own DIY Homemade Electrolyte Drink!

Check out my favorite hydration drink recipe full of essential minerals to help maintain electrolyte balance.

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may make a small commission at no extra cost to you.