For Easter I was given "sport beans", which are jelly beans with electrolytes added. Basically sports hydration drink in jelly bean form. Not bad I thought.

so I got an inspiration. Could I take my recipe for dehydrated fruit leather and add a wee dash of salt? Has anyone tried this? I'm thinking sea salt and "lite salt" (potassium chloride) should give a good balance of electrolytes. But I'm not sure about the ratio and concentrations. less is probably best.

My regular recipe is either blended fruit, or sometimes just apple sauce from a jar (if I'm feeling lazy), dehydrated into fruit leather. Adding a bit of salt should be pretty simple.

If you are dehydrating it then you need to either use less salt and sodium bicarbonate or make sure you take it with plenty of water.

Just food for thought but this is a common "home made gatorade" mix:

► 1 packet any flavor of unsweetened Kool-Aid or similar product for making 2 quarts
► 8 tablespoons sugar
► 3/8 teaspoon of salt
► 1/8 teaspoon salt substitute that contains potassium chloride
► 2 quarts of water

So keep those proportions in mind when dehydrating. As you will need to add in that much H20.

Also, something to think about but most of you UL guys don't filter water but treat it. This depending on a water source leaves a lot of solutes in the form of minerals etc in the water.

According to WikiAnswers

"In an isotonic solution ready to be infused in a human body the concentration of sodium chloride (NaCl) is 9 grams for 1 liter of sterile plain water (H2O). "

Meaning if your water source has already disolved a significant amount of minerals you may end up doing less good for yourself than you think.

I guess I'm saying don't eat a whole bag of those and then say "oh yeah I need water..." and all you find is a muddy little pond. Be sure you already have access to clean water much closer in form to distilled water vs mineral water.

Edited by Vertigo on 04/08/2010 10:12:35 MDT.

I figure if the ratio of sugar to salt is about the same it should be ok. I can get the sugar content of applesauce off the jar, and guestimate it if I use real fruit. But I'll keep that recipe in mind when calculating the exact combination of salt vs lite salt. I'll probably go pretty easy on the salts.

As for mineral content of spring or creek water, sodium content is usually not even close to the concentration of an isotonic solution. Sodium concentration in gatorade is 450 mg/L. Thats still only a tenth the salt concentration in sweat. A typical backcountry river has 5 mg/L. I'm not at all worried about overdosing on sodium from a water source.


This is really no different than eating a salty pretzel or salted nuts in trail mix. Of course I'll drink water with it.

I've made electrolyte leathers and gellies before with great success.
I used some fruit leathers with salt sticks in them on the TRT last summer. I'll be making more for this season.

Exactly what you thought, just add your salts to your normal stuff.

Edited by redmonk on 04/08/2010 21:17:23 MDT.