Source of Sodium Citrate

Triathlon Forum
1

I’d like to mix my own electrolytes to add to a Carbo-pro-esque calorie source… I’m almost 100% certain that I can do it for cheaper than E-load or some of the alternatives. That is conditional on me being able to source some of these products.

I can’t find anyone selling food grade sodium citrate online. I have found a soap producer selling the stuff: http://www.soapgoods.com/Sodium-Citrate-Granular-p-752.html and I’m wondering if anyone can provide insight regarding either: a) should I just chuck this stuff back like I’m not worried and pretend this it is food grade or b) provide a source for online purchasing of sodium citrate that is more trustworthy. I would like to not just do sodium chloride as my sodium source.

I’m going to model my own electrolyte mix after that which is found in e-load:

per 500ml of fluid:
Sodium 370 mg 15%
Potassium 96.5 mg 3%
Calcium (as Calcium Carbonate) 25 mg 2%
Magnesium (as Magnesium Citrate) 12.5 mg 4%
Zinc (as Zinc Citrate) 1 mg 8%

Or the zone caps (per 50ml of water) so multiply by 10 to compare to above:
Sodium (as Citrate, Chloride) 51 mg 2%
Potassium (as Chloride) 13.5 mg 1%
Calcium (as Carbonate) 5 mg 1%
Magnesium (as Citrate) 2.5 mg 1%
*Percent daily values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet

I recently noted that blackstrap molasses has ~170 mg of potassium per tsp (about 15 calories)… I might try flavouring my drink with that, I’m sick of fruity flavours which are the main option for sports drinks. Add some ginger and cloves and I’ve got a gingerbread flavoured electrolyte drink. I dunno if that’ll taste as good as I imagine, it’s worth a try.

I’ve found some Cal-Mag-Zinc daily vitamins in approximately the ratio seen here, just crush them with blender, you don’t need very much, daily calcium requirement is around 1000mg so 1 crushed vitamin pill goes a long ways in the drink… (10 liters per pill) I don’t actually need calcium supplementation with all the dairy I drink but I do want to include it in electrolyte drink as ~50mg of calcium and ~25mg of magnesium are lost per liter of sweat.

2

Nuun tablets have the profile you’re looking for and have a mild flavor.
I use pure maltodextrin from NOW:
http://www.nowfoods.com/Products/M003488.htm

I mix up what ever concentration of malto I need and add a nuun tab.
Easiest and cheapest I’ve found.

3

I am interested in something similar myself.

Did you have any luck finding the Sodium Citrate?

4

If you go to the www.soapgoods.com web-page you will notice that granular sodium citrate doesn’t come with a food safety rating. After posting to this forum I saw that if the ‘fine’ version which I guess is more of a powder does indeed come with a food safety rating. If you look up the MSDS for it you’ll see the following warning: ‘Ingestion of large amounts may cause gastrointestinal irritation’ which is pretty obvious, we all know that.

Also, lots of the other things on that website are listed as “Not for use as a food” which encourages me to treat that one as food.

I also discovered that cream of Tartar contains about 165mg of potassium per gram… meaning that one teaspoon of it (~500mg K) supplements potassium for 2.5 liters of fluid.

Once I get the shipment I’ll post up a little ‘how-to’ for making your own electrolyte powder. Until then if you’ve got any questions let me know.

5

Thanks a lot… Looking forward to “gingerbread” flavor electrolytes…
Sounds good for cold-weather training. LoL.

6

An alternative source which is a bit more expensive:

http://willpowder.net/sodiumCitrate.html
.

7

I think you should buy direct from the Sigma catalog!

8

Sigma Aldrich is super expensive:

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/ProductDetail.do?lang=en&N4=S1804|SIAL&N5=SEARCH_CONCAT_PNO|BRAND_KEY&F=SPEC

20 times as expensive as what I found. Remember the goal is to mix electrolytes that will be CHEAPER than buying commercial products.