Tag: Gatorade

I did a collagen peptides deep dive on the internet to find out why 10 grams of it is included in Gatorade’s BOLT24 Restore. Let’s just say my Google journey involved preventing or reducing skin wrinkles, joint pain caused by osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, and Jennifer Aniston. Just to be clear, the supplement does not prevent or reduce Jennifer Aniston.

I’m sure the reason for the collagen is one of those I mentioned that’s not Jennifer Aniston. But I have no way to test whether the collagen peptides in BOLT24 Restore help with any of those things. So I’ll just tell you how the two flavors – Peach Mango and Apple Pear – taste.

Both varieties look like flat champagne or white wine. They pour like regular beverages, but they’ve got a mouthfeel that’s like Jello that’s been put into the fridge to set but taken out after 30-45 minutes. I don’t want to say there’s a thickness to them, but I already typed it, so I’m not going to use my arrow and delete keys to change it. I’m going to assume that’s the collagen at work.

If you need or want more collagen in your diet, go with the Peach Mango because it’s the better tasting one of the two. Its flavor has an equal balance of peach and mango. The stevia is a bit more noticeable in these Restore versions than with the original BOLT24, but they don’t taste as odd as other beverages that are only sweetened with it. I’m looking at you, Zevia.

Now, Apple Pear mostly tastes okay. It has a flavor that’s more Fuji apple than pear, and that sounds wonderful. However, the aftertaste takes an acrid turn. Once the fruit flavor fades, there’s a sweet artificial meat-like taste in my mouth that pops up for a few moments. It’s odd, and enough for me to push the Peach Mango one instead.

Because these are Gatorade beverages, of course, they come with electrolytes. But unlike your standard Gatorade, BOLT24 drinks get it from watermelon and sea salt. Also, these don’t contain artificial sweeteners or flavors.

The bottle says it has 10 grams of protein, but it also says it doesn’t provide any daily value of the nutrient. It’s making my head hurt. Does collagen help with that?

Purchased Price: $1.99 each
Size: 16.9 fl oz bottle
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Peach Mango), 4 out of 10 (Apple Pear)
Nutrition Facts: (1 bottle) 80 calories, 0 grams of fat, 230 milligrams of sodium, 11 grams of carbohydrates, 9 grams of sugar, 8 grams of added sugar, 10 grams of protein, and 100 percent vitamin C.

As someone who gets thirsty, doesn’t consume the daily recommended amount of protein, and likes to drink things with names that describe how I’m feeling, I think I can get behind Gatorade Zero with Protein.

The no-sugar thirst quencher is available in three flavors, and if you’ve explored the Gatorade rainbow, your taste buds have probably come across them before in other lines the sports drink brand offers. There’s Fruit Punch (a classic G flavor), Glacier Cherry (a flavor that I always want to add red food coloring to), and Cool Blue (a blue raspberry variety with a name that could also be a cologne or aftershave product).

Because these are part of Gatorade’s sugar-free Zero line, there are artificial sweeteners, which in this case are acesulfame potassium and sucralose. As someone who regularly drinks zero sugar beverages, I’m okay with the sweetener combination here.

I would also like to note, and this is going to make you wonder if my taste buds are broken, they taste fine at room temperature. With almost every other sugar-free beverage I’ve consumed that was not chilled or was out for too long, the artificial sweeteners overwhelm the flavor. But that wasn’t the case with these. Of course, your taste buds may vary.

The cloudy drinks get their 10 grams of protein in every bottle from whey protein isolate, which makes these thirst quenchers slightly gritty. Although having had other protein beverages, I did expect that. What I didn’t expect was that the additive makes my mouth feel quenched one moment and then parched the next. It’s definitely weird. I imagine this will be a deal-breaker for some. It isn’t for me.

Look, I don’t have a physiology lab with dozens of scientists to test the recovery efforts of Gatorade Zero with Protein. But I have a tongue and thousands of taste buds to determine if these sugar-free sports drinks taste good. I think for zero sugar protein beverages, these are surprisingly good, and I enjoyed them all equally.

Purchased Price: $19.99 (3 flavor variety pack)
Size: 16.9 fl oz/12 pack
Purchased at: Amazon
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 bottle) Cool Blue – 50 calories, 0 grams of fat, 230 milligrams of sodium, 1 gram of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, and 10 grams of protein. Fruit Punch – 60 calories, 0 grams of fat, 230 milligrams of sodium, 1 gram of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, and 10 grams of protein. Glacier Cherry – 50 calories, 0 grams of fat, 230 milligrams of sodium, 1 gram of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, and 10 grams of protein.

Update 5/5/21: We also tried the Restore varieties! Click here to read our review.

What does the 24 in Gatorade’s BOLT24 mean?

I assume it’s 24 hours because of the following quote from Gatorade PR (bold emphasis is mine), “With this launch, Gatorade’s commitment to fueling athletic performance goes beyond the field, supporting athletes’ athletic lifestyle around the clock by providing advanced, all-day hydration.”

So BOLT24 could be consumed before, during, or after working out. Or you could drink it while chillin’ at some kid’s birthday party you crashed at 3:29 p.m., watching the sun dip below the horizon on a clear day to let you know when its time to take your pants off and exhale at 6:43 p.m., binge-watching a show on Netflix about the cooking techniques of nomadic tribes of Northeastern Asia at 11:41 p.m., or listening to your favorite gardening podcast while pulling out weeds in your marijuana garden at 10:21 a.m.

BOLT24 is a lower calorie sports drink, 80 calories per 16.9-ounce bottle to be exact, and provides 100 percent of the daily value of vitamins A, C, B3, B5, and B6. It contains no artificial sweeteners or flavors. And, because it’s Gatorade, it has to have electrolytes, which it gets from watermelon and sea salt. The line launched with three flavors Mixed Berry, Tropical Mango, and Watermelon Strawberry.

Cane sugar (yum) and stevia (blech) are the sweeteners used in BOLT24. I didn’t know there was stevia until I looked at the labels after taking swigs of all the flavors. It surprised me when I found out because products I’ve tried with stevia ALWAYS end up in the trash or placed aside for a food bank donation soon after consuming it because the sweetener makes everything taste off or bitter (Hi Zevia!).

Well, that’s now almost always because I bought a 12-pack of BOLT24 from Amazon and all of it is going down my throat while binge-watching an anime on Netflix about Yakuza members being turned into female pop idols at 7:23 p.m. or watching the sun rise above the horizon on a clear day to let me know when its time to put on my pants and inhale at 5:56 a.m. While I may not taste the stevia, I imagine others might notice it more than I do.

All three BOLT24 varieties are excellent flavors, although they all have the exact same color (thanks lycopene!) and they’re ones we’ve seen before from Gatorade in other lines. But if I had to rank them I’d pick Tropical Mango first, followed by Watermelon Strawberry, and then Mixed Berry.

Tropical Mango has a pleasant aroma that’s noticeably more mango. The same can be said about its flavor, but I do taste a bit of pineapple. Watermelon Strawberry it smells like strawberry candy, and its flavor leans more towards strawberry than watermelon. It also has a slight tang from the strawberry. Finally, Mixed Berry pretty much smells and tastes like a fruit punch.

There’s a lot to like about BOLT24 — great flavors, no artificial sweeteners, no artificial flavors, electrolytes, lower sugar content than regular Gatorade, and all those vitamins. I do wish they came in bigger bottles, but I understand why they don’t. Imagine lugging around a 32-ounce bottle while frolicking in a field of daisies at 1:39 p.m.

Purchased Price: $19.99
Size: 16.9 oz. 12-pack assorted flavors
Purchased at: Amazon
Rating: 9 out of 10 (Tropical Mango), 8 out of 10 (Watermelon Strawberry), 7 out of 10 (Mixed Berry)
Nutrition Facts: (16.9 oz. bottle) 80 calories, 0 grams of fat, 230 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 19 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of protein.

I think I’ve long passed the stage when I would lose fluids during sleep, because I don’t use disposable plastic sheets or diapers anymore and I no longer sweat from the nightmares I used to have that consisted of me auditioning for American Idol by singing the Boyz II Men song “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday,” but I’m auditioning as that guy who was the least attractive member of the 1990s R&B group Color Me Badd.

Yes, the long haired dude that kind of looked like Kenny G.

However, according to the bottle of Gatorade A.M. Tropical Mango I’ve been chugging from for the past two mornings, I apparently lose fluids and energy while I sleep. Here’s what it said:

Gatorade A.M. helps put back the fluids and energy you lose during a full night’s sleep. It’s the same scientifically proven formula in flavors designed for the morning.

I don’t know if I truly lose fluids while I’m asleep, but I do know that when I sleep, I’m losing five to eight hours of my life that I’ll never get back and that upsets me. I think this feeling is much like what most people go through after watching an episode of the ABC “sitcom” According to Jim.

That’s five to eight hours I could be using to do things I enjoy, like cooking a fine Italian meal with a bottle of Ragu sauce, sucking the helium from balloons and reciting lines from Star Wars, making meth in my shower, constructing paper clip chains, organizing my vast boxer collection by color, seeing how many bowls of different cereals it takes to equal the nutritional value in one bowl of Total cereal, having blind taste tests between all the variations of Coke and Pepsi, perfecting the “richness” of my “custard” in my “Creme brulee,” and organizing my vast boxer brief collection by testicle snugness.

I wish the scientists at Gatorade would create a version of Gatorade which helps me put back the hours I lose during a full night’s sleep. Perhaps they could call it Gatorade T.M., which would stand for “time machine.” That would be more impressive than Gatorade A.M.

I may not believe I lose fluids when I’m asleep, but usually right after I wake up I definitely lose a lot of fluids when I unbutton my pajama pants, unleash my “Mothra,” and “shoot my silk spray into Tokyo.”

After I’m done, I think then I could use some Gatorade A.M. to help replace the fluids I just lost “shooting Tokyo with my silk spray.” But if you think about it, if I drank half a bottle of Gatorade A.M. to put back the fluids I lost during sleep or “spraying Tokyo,” I’m pretty sure 30-60 minutes later I’m going to have the urge to lose the fluids I just consumed.

Drinking Gatorade A.M. every morning for the past few days didn’t seem to improve my mornings better than my usual morning beverages, either water, milk, orange juice, apple juice, or whatever energy drink is sitting in my fridge mixed with vodka. The tropical mango flavor was good, but didn’t really taste like mango and it was also surprisingly sweet for a Gatorade.

Adding caffeine to the Gatorade A.M. would’ve probably made it better and help it become a true morning beverage that could get me through my repetitive morning rituals, but drinking it every morning to replace the fluids I lost during sleep would probably get expensive, like excessive magazine subscriptions, shopping at Neiman Marcus, or disposable plastic sheets.

Item: Gatorade A.M. Tropical Mango
Price: $1.79 (32-ounces)
Purchased at: 7-Eleven
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Good tropical mango flavor. Helps replace the fluids lost during sleep and after peeing. Helium. Organized underwear.
Cons: Kinda too sweet for a sports drink. Didn’t really taste like mango, so I guess I cannot have The Mango. Losing valuable hours while I sleep. According to Jim. My nightmares of me auditioning for American Idol as the homely guy from Color Me Badd.