Coconut Water

I am always on the look out for good recovery drinks to have after a hard workout. I hate gatorade and powerade and those typical sports drinks. They are loaded with sugar and even though the light versions are a little better, I still don't like the way they taste and they make my teeth feel gross.

I however recently discovered Coconut Water, which is an excellent recovery liquid that provides fluid replacement and is just a generally highly beneficial drink. Coconut water is harvested from coconuts before they are ripe and create coconut milk, which is fatty and higher in calories. Coconut water is the purest liquid second only to water itself and it is full of electrolytes, calcium, potassium, magnesium; great for athletes and non athletes alike.

Other benefits include:
-it can relieve urinary problems
-it improves digestion
-it breaks up kidney stones
-it is antibacterial
-it controls vomiting

Have a hangover? Try coconut water. Drinking an 11oz Coconut Water has the same short term hydrating power as drinking one liter of water (2) and eating one banana –with less carbohydrates and fat.

**And something that I found interesting, coconut water can be used in blood transfusions. In cases of emergency coconut water has been used as an intravenous hydration fluid instead of the standard IV fluid.

I picked some up at Whole Foods and tried it last night and loved it. It isn't overly sweet, and there isn't a strong coconut flavor. Normally when I have a recovery drink after working out I don't find myself incredibly happy about drinking it and usually force it down quickly so I can have water or iced tea instead. I found myself guzzling it. I mixed in one scoop of vanilla protein powder so I could get some added protein after I lifted as well which made it sort of tropical.

I would highly reccomend you try coconut water. It is a great tasting, natural way to get essential nutrients and replace electrolytes. Screw Gatorade, this is much better.

** Note: I originally had a link up to the coconut water being used in blood tranfusions that was a new age mumbo jumbo site. I had seen the info elsewhere but grabbed that link quickly without really looking at it and Adam pointed out it was not a credible site (he cant comment again because of his computer issues). Anyway I changed the link and re-worded the info so thanks to Adam (I am very anti new age mumbo jumbo so I should have looked at the site more closely!)