Dump the expensive Cytomax, Powerade and nefarious Red Bull from your rehydration regimen. The best sports drink has been right in front of you since childhood and it is the Slush Puppy.
Like so many great inventions, the Slurpee was created by accident. In the late-1950s, Omar Knedlik of Kansas City owned an old Dairy Queen. His machinery was always breaking down. When his soda fountain went out, he improvised by putting some bottles in the freezer to keep them cold.
When he popped the soda tops, the drinks had turned to a syrup slurry. Folks loved them and started requesting the drinks that were left in the freezer the longest. Realizing he had a surprise hit on his hands, Knedlik built a machine in the back room using an air conditioning unit from a car that created slushy sodas by combining a flavor mix, water, and carbon dioxide to make it fizz.
A "Name the Product" contest was held and the winning entry was "ICEE." With help from an engineering and manufacturing company in Dallas, the ICEE machine was redesigned and sold to a few convenience stores throughout the early 1960s. In 1965, 7-Eleven licensed the machine, but called the drink "Slurpee," by the sound it made while sipping it through a straw.
I used to think that the junk science behind sports drinks was legitimate. I'd pore over the fake statistical evidence about this product or that making claims about electrolyte rebalancing and glycerin absorption. This beverage pseudo-science is just the same regurgitated bullshit fomented by University of Florida "researchers" to promote Gatorade in 1965.
In 2010, a less than robust, but no less legitimate study of "ice slurry ingestion on thermoregulatory responses and submaximal running time in the heat," demonstrated positive effects from drinking Icees. It was conducted by New Zealand sports nutritionists. Of course, I didn't need a study to convince me that the Slurpee is the ultimate cycling drink.
Call it placebo or short term sugar rush, but it works for me. My anecdotal experience is pure bliss. I love the cold rush of artificial flavors pouring down my greedy gullet after 50-60 sweltering miles. Once "brain freeze" subsides, I feel recharged.
Popeye had spinach, Count Dracula had the blood of glamorous women, and the Silly Rabbit had Trix. I have the Slush Puppy--a cosmic power energy source capable of doing almost anything, from re-arranging molecules to making energy blasts, allowing time travel and bringing people back from the dead.
It's also kosher!
Muslims, Jews and infidels can equally enjoy this holy concoction.
All Slurpee flavors are considered kosher pareve. That is food considered neither meat nor dairy. Some 7-Eleven stores get the machines themselves certified kosher, which the store owners use as a selling point in places like Borough Park, NY.
So, you can't go wrong with God's chosen energy drink.
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