Coconut Water for Hangovers

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Drop that Sports Drink and Read this RIGHT NOW!

We all know that you need to replenish your electrolytes after a punishing night of drinking. When processing the alcohol and its by-products, your body has used up its precious stores of both water and electrolytes.

Drinking water is great for rehydration, but what about all of the electrolytes you lost? If you chug tons of water, it will help, but your sodium levels (among others) will be imbalanced.

So then you go for Gatorade, but guess what – it only has two of the five primary electrolytes you need to replenish, and the high fructose corn syrup in sports drinks is DEADLY POISON for your already beat-up liver!!! We’ll get back to that later, but for now, it’s time to try something better:


Introducing Coconut Water for Hangovers

Coconut water is extracted from green coconuts that are still too young to have created milk, so it is a low-calorie, fat-free drink with far less sugar and fructose than other drinks.

Coconut water has the same five main electrolytes found in your blood. We’re talking about sodium, potassium, calcium, bicarbonate, and phosphate. In medical emergencies, this stuff can even be used intravenously when there are no other fluids around. In the meantime, Gatorade only has two (sodium and potassium). Weaksauce indeed.

And Coconut Water tastes great to boot.

What are Electrolytes Anyway?

A bit of chemistry coming your way..

Electrolytes are substances containing free ions that make the substance electrically conductive. Most lifeforms, including humans, require an electrolyte balance between nearly all cells.

The primary ions of electrolytes are sodium(Na+), potassium (K+), calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+), chloride (Cl−), hydrogen phosphate (HPO42−), and hydrogen carbonate (HCO3−). The plus (+) and minus (−) signs mean that an electron has been displaced, allowing this electrolyte to bond with other molecules in a chemical reaction to activate many functions in your body, such as flex a muscle.

Thanks for the Chemistry Lesson… So What?

Like we said, when you drink, your liver and kidneys use all of these electrolytes to do their jobs in cleaning up after last night’s mess. Once you run low on electrolytes, your recovery comes to a standstill – ie, you get a long, ugly hangover. You could choose to poison yourself and do a half-ass job with Gatorade, or you could get more electrolytes and less fructose with coconut water.

Why is High Fructose Corn Syrup so Poisonous for our Livers?

Here’s the news. A calorie isn’t just a calorie. In fact, a carbohydrate isn’t just a carbohydrate. Your body treats them ALL differently, and too much fructose is absolutely poison for your liver – far worse than straight glucose.

Here is a link to an amazing video titled Sugar: The Bitter Truth. First, I want you to go to 1:08:45. Dr. Lustig shows you a list of the awful things that alcohol puts your body through. After that, he shows you what awful things fructose does – and they’re nearly the same!!!

[After looking at what ethanol/alcohol does to your body]

“Here’s fructose. 8 out of 12. Why? Cuz they do the same thing. They’re metabolized the same way. Because they are the same. Because they come from the same place, right? How do you make ethanol… naturally? Right – You ferment sugar. Hasn’t changed. Because it has all the same properties. Because it’s taken care of by the liver in the exact same way, and for the same reason…”

– Dr. Lustig in Sugar: The Bitter Truth

So after you’ve just raped your liver from last night, why are you subjecting it to more of the same? PUT DOWN THE GATORADE.

Let’s see why exactly.

In the video, I’d now like you to go back to 49:45 to see why the glucose in coconut water isn’t all that bad for your liver. You can go further back to see the entire reaction – it’s very interesting.

Now, go to 56:55. Watch what happens to your liver after drinking all of that fructose. Case closed. The entire segment from 42:00 through 1:15 in this video is absolutely amazing and I recommend watching it if you have time.

But I Thought We Needed Carbohydrates for a Hangover

We do!! Low blood sugar is one of the worst parts of an epic hangover, and you DO need to get carbs in to fix your blood sugar problem. And coconut water, does have a mixture of fructose and glucose – which is good for your body in the right amounts.

The thing is, you shouldn’t be doling yourself truckloads of concentrated fructose. The video above proves that. Spare your poor liver!

On the other hand, some slightly-burnt bread for the carbon and sulfur, on top of the glucose, is great. Combine that with coconut water and the glucose, slight amounts of fructose, and electrolytes that it provides, and you have a totally natural home run in the war against hangovers.

And at the end of the day, Coconut Water works. I only get low blood sugar when I have an EPIC hangover, and on my last one, it was coconut water that pulled me out of my tailspin. True story.

I’m Sold – Now Where Can I Get Some Coconut Water?

Coconut water is easy to find in Hawaii and California, but hasn’t made its way east except for some specialty stores. But fret not, we have plenty of deals online with free shipping!

There are many brands to try, so click on this link to Buy Coconut Water and pick the one that looks like the best deal.

3 Responses to “Coconut Water for Hangovers”

  1. Adam Dolly
    18. May, 2011 at 1:03 am #

    I am having a case of coconut water delivered to my hotel in Las Vegas so it’s there when I arrive.

    • Admin
      18. May, 2011 at 1:47 am #

      That’s a great idea, but since it’s a Vegas weekend, you should go all out with some Hangover patches. They’re not cheap but for special weekends, they’re WELL worth it… especially compared to how much you spend there otherwise:

      http://www.hangovercuresavior.com/hangover-patch

      I’d go for Zaca.

  2. Kim Miller
    24. Mar, 2012 at 1:14 am #

    A friend of mine turned me on to this coconut water and I have used it every time I have a hangover. Within an hour of drinking it I feel like a new person, I will never go without it ever again. If I know I will be drinking alot the night before I will stock my fridge up with it for the next morning.

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