What does it mean that Gatorade is a 6% carbohydrate beverage? How is carbohydrate percentage calculated?
Years of laboratory research has shown that a 6% carbohydrate solution provides the best taste profile when exercising, is rapidly emptied from the stomach and absorbed by the intestine, and delivers performance-enhancing energy to active muscles better than lower or higher concentrations of carbohydrate. When checking carbohydrate percentages, don’t be misled by the percent of carbohydrate listed on the Nutrition Facts panel. That is a statement of carbohydrate content versus a person’s total daily diet, instead of the actual amount of carbohydrate content in an 8-oz. serving of a beverage. You can calculate the carbohydrate percentage of any beverage simply by knowing the total carbohydrate content (identified on the Nutrition Facts panel of the label) and the serving size in milliliters (also listed on the label). Gatorade contains 14 grams of carbohydrate in every 240-ml (8-oz) serving. So, 14/240 x 100 = 5.8% carbohydrate (we round up to 6% just to make things easy to remember.
Six percent is the concentration and means six grams of carbohydrates per 100 mL of fluid. Years of laboratory research has shown that a 6% carbohydrate solution provides the best taste profile when exercising, is rapidly emptied from the stomach and absorbed by the intestine, and delivers performance-enhancing energy to active muscles better than lower or higher concentrations of carbohydrate. When checking carbohydrate percentages, don’t be misled by the percent of carbohydrate listed on the Nutrition Facts panel. That is a statement of carbohydrate content versus a person’s total daily diet, instead of the actual amount of carbohydrate content in an 8-oz. serving of a beverage. You can calculate the carbohydrate percentage of any beverage simply by knowing the total carbohydrate content (identified on the Nutrition Facts panel of the label) and the serving size in milliliters (also listed on the label). Gatorade contains 14 grams of carbohydrate in every 240 ml (8-oz) serving. So, 1
