My name is Jeff Snider, and I drink a lot of Gatorade

I just ordered enough Gatorade powder to make 84 gallons of the stuff. I ordered it from GatorExpress (1-800-442-8671); Fourteen "6-gallon" pouches for $108.20 including shipping and handling.

But that ought to be much less than I've been spending.

You can get a variety of flavor choices from GatorExpress, but the whole case of 14 must be in a single flavor. I always drink the "orange" flavor, which of course doesn't taste like oranges, but is orange colored.

I've been fencing for three years, and I've found that keeping myself hydrated makes a huge difference in my performance. Drinking Gatorade is the most convenient method of doing that.

Other important things include being well rested (12 hours of sleep is not too much), and practicing all the time (6 days a week is not too much). Know what all this has gotten me so far? One good result in a North American Cup: 29th place.

So I normally drink a lot of Gatorade while fencing. About 1/2 gallon per practice, and a whole gallon for a day at a tournament, plus or minus. I practice 4 days a week, and average about 4 days of competition per month. That totals over 150 gallons of Gatorade per year! At the grocery store rate of $5 per gallon, I have been spending $750 per year on the stuff.

(If I were foolish enough to buy it all at the club rate of $1 per pint it would cost $1200 per year.)

The bulk powder purchase means enough to make one gallon cost me $1.29. If I were to invest in a home water distilling kit to get free good water, I would reduce my Gatorade cost from $750 to $200 per year! That money will buy me a lot of new weapons each year.

As an aside, the water used by Gatorade to make the Thirst Quencher beverage is filtered 3 times. They recommend distilled water to get your powder mix to have the closest taste to the off­the­shelf beverage. I found this out by calling the Gatorade Hotline: 1-800-88-GATOR.

I do plan on tracking my Gatorade consumption from now on, to get better figures for how much money I'm saving, etc. I'll put some tables and graphs on this page if I do get enough raw data to make them interesting.

I did in fact get my heavy box of Gatorade powder yesterday, and it does come in very large pouches, each enough to make 6 gallons. I mixed up 2 1/2 gallons quite successfully, and have already drunk about a gallon of it. (The second half gallon while trapped in front of my computer playing my roommate's copy of SimCity3000 until 3am. Damned addictive game.)

It took a bit of calculation to figure how much powder to put in for 1 gallon. The instructions on the back said 96 servings in a pouch, and 1 1/3 tablespoons of powder for each serving. 6 gallons per pouch means 16 servings, which is 21 1/3 tablespoons, per gallon. Oddly, I don't have a tablespoon anywhere in my house. (Can you tell I'm a bachelor?) But I do have a 2-cup measuring glass thing. So I have to figure out how many cups 21 1/3 tablespoons is, without a reference of any kind. I ended up looking it up in the dictionary, under cup, cupful, tablespoon, etc. Since there are 16 tablespoons in a cup, it turns out to be a nice round 1 1/3 cups of powder per gallon, and my measuring glass thing has a line at exactly that amount. Whew.

Now I just need to get a cheap purified water source. I used a 2 1/2 gallon jug of Great Bear purified water for this first batch. Can you buy cheap water purification kits for home?

OK, so I've been a little slack in updating this.

I bought a Brita filter thing, a big one that holds almost 2 gallons, to help turn my tapwater into clean gatorade-producing water. It works pretty well, except that it's a tad slow if I feel like I'm in a hurry. Since it holds 2 gallons, if I keep it full I never have to stand around and wait. It cost about $20, including the first filter cartridge, and more filters can be bought 3 for $20. They're supposed to be replaced every 3 months or 40 gallons, so the total cost for the first year is $40. Every successive year costs $27. Say that for whatever reason the container itself only lasts 4 years, the yearly cost is $30.

After some experimentation, I did decide to cut down the strength of the Gatorade I make. I now mix around 3/4 cup of powder into each gallon, so it's a little over half-strength. This is the most palatable for me. And that way each pouch makes 10 and 2/3 gallons rather than 6.

I haven't been keeping track of how much Gatorade I've been using. I have 7 and a 1/3 pouches left, but I sold one pouch to a clubmate back in February or March. So in 4 months I've used 5 and 2/3 pouches. That's 34 gallons at full strength, or 60 gallons at partial strength. Although my gallons/week has gone way up with the summer heat, I'm inclined to think I've been drinking at about the rate of 150 gallons per year I estimated back in February, or maybe just slightly higher.

I do drink a lot of Gatorade. Last night I drank an entire gallon at DCFC, where it was around 100 degrees in the salle. And the day before I played basketball for 45 minutes in the 95 degree heat before fencing for 2 hours at OTFG, and nearly finished a gallon. It's probably a good thing I don't make it full strength!

So, the cost calculation:

6 pouches in 4 months is 18 pouches per year. At $108.20 per 14, that's about $140 per year for powder. Add the $30/year for water, and I'm now paying about $170/year for my Gatorade habit, compared to $750/year buying it off the shelf.

I definitely call this experiment a success.

I just ordered my second case of 14 6-gallon pouches.

Freight has gone up to about $13.50, but this is still the best deal going. I reuse the gallon containers that you buy gatorade in, and have been making it about 2/3 to 3/4 strength. Full strength is too sweet, and at 1/2 strength I "hit the wall" early in an all-day competition.

Now I keep enough powder with my fencing gear so if I run out at a tournament I can easily make another gallon. There's nothing worse than trying to compete without the right beverage! I keep it in a plastic bag inside a small box, so it won't break open and make all my tips sticky. I had one of those miniature plastic coolers that they retail the gatorade powder in, and the top comes off way too easily. Better security is important.

It's been quite a while since I looked at this. I just ordered my third box of 14 6-gallon bags. Shipping has gone up to $14.50, but the price is still $100.

I've been drinking Gatorade a little more slowly, possibly because I haven't been pushing myself quite as hard physically, or maybe because we have good air conditioning at DCFC, compared to the old Alice Deal 100F days. I did pick up two or three 6-gallon bags from Chuck Smith over the past two years, and I've bought two of the little mini-coolers of powder and a gallon or two at Safeway.

I still love Orange. I don't like drinking any other flavor. How weird is that?