Reading Nutrition Labels

How to tell what’s in your energy drink

If you’re not in the habit of reading the food and beverage labels on the items you buy, you may want to start – especially when it comes to energy drinks! Consuming any foods without first reading the nutritional label is pretty irresponsible. After all, you’re using this food to fuel your body. It’s kind of like putting any old motor oil in your car without consulting your manual. For all you know, the oil could damage your engine!

The same goes for foods – especially energy drinks that are filled with empty calories, caffeine and sugar. While empty calories and sugar might give you a quick blast of energy, they will soon leave you feeling drained and cranky when your insulin levels plummet. Just like specific motor oil is meant for your car’s engine, a specific energy drink is meant for you under different circumstances.

There are hundreds of energy drinks slugging it out with each other, and each drink has a specific job to do. This is why nutritional labels are featured on each drink. If you learn how to read them, they’ll provide you with all of the information you’ll need to decide which specific drink is the right one for you.

If you can’t read a food or drink label properly, though, this information isn’t really going to do you any good. That’s why in addition to learning how to read labels, you need to have a basic understanding of how the ingredients are meant to react with your body. Common ingredients in energy drinks include things like caffeine, taurine, inositol, B vitamins, guarana, sugar, ginseng, citrus flavoring and sodium.

It’s important to understand what each of these ingredients does – for example, caffeine is a synthetic stimulant, while ginseng is an herbal stimulant – as well as the dangers associated with these substances if you overdo it. Really, if you react badly after consuming an energy drink you have no one to blame but yourself, because all the nutritional facts were in front of you the entire time.

Learn to decipher between harmful and beneficial ingredients via the energy drink labels. For instance, if the label indicates that a drink contains a high amount of sugar, that indicates that it will provide a quick spike to your insulin levels, which means you’ll experience a quick high. However, it also tells you that your insulin levels will plummet just as quickly, and you’ll likely feel drained afterwards. On the other hand, an energy drink containing a lot of natural ingredients like ginseng and Echinacea will promote natural alertness without the added insulin drop – plus, the Echinacea has immune-strengthening properties. If you’re headed out for a run in the cold, this might be a better choice.

In addition to deciphering between beneficial and negative ingredients, the drink label will also give you an idea of how the drink tastes. This basically comes down to personal preference, but if you don’t want a drink that tastes like a can of rancid castor oil, take the time to read the label.

What each person needs and wants from an energy drink will depend on what they’re looking for specifically and what kind of diet they’re on. A guy who is dating twins on Friday night may need a different type of energy boost than an athlete who is running the 100-yard dash. When it comes to athletes, you really have to be careful of what you’re putting into your body – especially if you’re competing and some of the ingredients of your energy drink appear on a list of banned substances.

Energy drinks are made with people’s specific needs in mind. Some are designed for people on low-carbohydrate diets, while people with underlying heart conditions or cholesterol problems should be looking for drinks with low sodium content.