Product Review – Nuun All Day
This one will be quick.
I’ve been a big fan of Nuun for years. They were one of the first companies to send me free product as a result of something I wrote on my blog (a very brief mention in this case). Since I started taking endurance sports somewhat seriously, I’ve used it consistently as an electrolyte supplement for training and racing. But the need to stay hydrated obviously doesn’t end after training and I feel better hydrated when I get my electrolytes. At least a few days a week put a tab in my bottle of water at work for “everyday” hydration. I sometimes use it before going to bed if I’m expecting the next day to be hot and I take in on airplanes to try to counteract the dry air pumping through the plane. I pretty much always have at least one tube at the office, one in the car, one in my briefcase, one in my gym/yoga backpack and one on the kitchen counter.
I was going to list my favorite flavors, but out of the 14 currently on their website there are only a few I don’t like. I used to stick mostly to the Orange-Ginger flavor, but that’s been changed to just “Orange” and right now I have open tubes Orange and Citrus in my office desk drawer, Grape in the car, Watermelon (new flavor) and Tropical at home and Strawberry Lemonade in my briefcase. Somewhat surprisingly, I also love the Banana flavor. I don’t really care for the Lemon Tea or Lemon-Lime.
But I’m posting this today for a different reason than just to re-iterate that I like Nuun.
The other day I was at Sprouts and they had Nuun Active Hydration (I’ll just call it “Nuun” here) and Nuun All Day on sale. I didn’t need any more Nuun, but since I’d never tried Nuun All Day, I figured I’d give it a shot. Nuun All Day came out last summer and is different from Nuun in that Nuun All Day has less electrolytes and more vitamins. Interestingly, Nuun All Day has twice the Potassium of Nuun. I don’t know why that is. The full nutrition information and ingredients list can be found here (at the bottom of the page).
But here’s the reason for this blog post. Nuun All Day is friggin’ gross. Granted, I’ve only tried one of the four flavors (Tangerine Lime). But unless they make drastic change to the formula, that will be the only one I try. It tastes like sweet chemicals. There’s nothing remotely tangerine or lime about it. Not even “fake” tangerine or lime. The sweetener in Nuun is acesulfame potassium and the sweetener in Nuun All Day is stevia. Shouldn’t the chemical sweetener taste more like chemicals?
The official marketing materials for Nuun All Day say that it’s supposed to be a mild flavor to get people to drink more water and less soda, juice or caffeinated beverages. Flavors to make water easier to drink? Really? And even if I needed flavored water, it ought to be good flavored.
Also Nuun All Day is more expensive than Nuun. Like 20% more expensive. Maybe the vitamins are much more expensive than the electrolytes. Or maybe they just think that people who need flavored water will spend a little more money. Whatever, I’ll be sticking with Nuun Active Hydration.