Engineered Sports Foods: Convenience or Necessity?
By Nancy Clark, MS RD CSSD
For Active.com
To look at all the ads for sports drinks, energy bars, electrolyte replacers and sports candies, you'd think these engineered products are a necessary part of a sports diet, particularly if you are doing endurance exercise such as training for a marathon or a triathlon. When my clients ask for advice about how to use these products, I first assess their daily sports diet to determine if they can get—or are getting—what they want from standard foods (carbs, sodium). In most cases, they can get their needs met with a wisely chosen sports diet.
