DIY “LMNT” Electrolye Drink Mix
LMNT is a great electrolyte drink mix. If you do subscribe and save on LMNT’s website, the cost for 30 packets is $39 dollars. If you use just one per day for a year, that equals $468 dollars per year for an electrolyte mix. The convenience and quality of the LMNT packets are great so this may seem very worth it to you. I’m always looking for a way to save money, especially with a product that can so easily be made at home for a fraction of the cost.
The main three ingredients in LMNT (which they share openly on their website) are salt (sodium chloride), magnesium (magnesium malate) and potassium (potassium chloride). The electrolytes therefore are: sodium, chloride, magnesium and potassium. These minerals are cheap! Very cheap. Instead of 75 cents per day, DIY-version is only about 11 cents per day.
You can save $428 dollars a year if you make this electrolyte mix yourself!
Interested in saving some money? See my DIY-versions below.
Single Recipe
LMNT contains 1000mg sodium, 60mg magnesium and 200mg potassium per serving. We can’t get exact but we can get close. This version has 1060mg sodium, 75mg magnesium and 263mg potassium. (See below for where to buy these ingredients.)
Per Serving:
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon magnesium malate
1/4 teaspoon potassium chloride
That is it! Add each ingredient to water just like you would the LMNT blend.
Bulk Recipe
Make it even easier by making in bulk.
Makes 96 servings. Serving size: 1 teaspoon.
1 cup salt
1/2 cup magnesium malate
1/2 cup potassium chloride
Add 1 teaspoon to a large glass of water.
Some people can handle the taste of the minerals just by themselves. I’m not one of those people! But there are options to make it taste better. LMNT adds citric acid, stevia leaf extract and fruit powders to their mixes. All of these items are available online and would be easy to add to your own recipe.
LMNT also has some DIY recipes on their website. They add things like lime juice, orange slices or watermelon cubes. You could also add a little honey or some coconut sugar. These will increase your blood sugar but this may actually be a good thing for you. If you want to avoid sugars, stick to either stevia leaf or monk fruit.
I make a blend of this for my husband that uses coconut sugar. It doesn’t have as high of a salt content and I added more potassium and magnesium to the mix. In addition, I added some trace minerals and inulin to the mix.
Where to Buy& More Information
Salt - You can use regular table salt. I like using one of these: Redmonds. Baja Gold. These salts contain other minerals that the body needs. There are some reports that sea salt may contain microplastics. However, I suspect that may be true of some of the other salts as well. Whatever salt you use, get a fine grain so it will dissolve in water faster.
Magnesium - I purchase minerals from Bulk Supplements but they also sell their products on Amazon. I have always been happy with the quality. You can purchase on Amazon but I buy directly through their website since they have so many other useful products as well (see below.) Of course there are other good supplement companies like Thorne, Pure Encapsulations, and NOW but do be aware that if you use a different brand, I can’t guarantee that that the amount of magnesium will be the same. You can also use different forms of magnesium but, again, the calculations will be different.
Potassium - Same goes for potassium as for magnesium above however (and this is a big however), do not take too much potassium at once. Too much potassium can stop someone’s heart from beating. Most people can handle more potassium in this electrolyte blend but you really should talk to your doctor before doing that. If you have kidney issues or certain heart conditions, too much potassium can be dangerous. Here is the link for potassium chloride.
There are many other ingredients you can add to this blend to make it taste better. Here are some of them with links were to find them.
Stevia leaf extract, monk fruit, coconut sugar, organic strawberry powder (also makes the water pretty and pink), organic lemon powder, lemon juice, lime juice. Inulin has a mild sweet flavor and is what I add to make this blend taste better. Inulin is a soluble fiber from artichokes. Fresh mint leaves, lime or lemon slices may also be nice.
Photo by Mineragua Sparkling Water on Unsplash