Potassium Electrolyte Drink: Best Ratio, Brands, DIY Recipe
Key Takeaways
- Ray Peat argued that adequate salt keeps aldosterone low, and low aldosterone is what stops the kidneys from wasting potassium and magnesium, so he did not argue for potassium over sodium.
- A whole-food day built on fruit, juice, milk, and potatoes, salted to taste, lands near two parts potassium to one part sodium.
- Jigsaw Potassium Cocktail (formerly Pickleball Cocktail) is the potassium-forward option at 800 mg potassium to 90 mg sodium, but it is sweetened with stevia and monk fruit and uses natural flavors.
- UNTAMMED Mineral Mist has the cleanest label of the four, with potassium from coconut water and no sweeteners or natural flavors, and it leans sodium.
- SubLuna Volcano People is the herbal option at 800 mg sodium to 760 mg potassium with 150 mg magnesium, built on coconut water and cream of tartar and sweetened with maple sugar.
- LMNT Raw Unflavored contains salt plus magnesium malate and potassium chloride and nothing else, while the flavored packets add stevia and natural flavors.
- My recipe uses a nettle and hibiscus infusion as the base, delivers about 900 mg potassium to 290 mg sodium per glass, and needs no sweetener.
The content in this article is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Potassium supplements can be dangerous for people with kidney disease or on certain blood pressure medications. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your health routine.
A potassium-forward electrolyte drink makes sense when your food already supplies plenty of salt and little potassium. Ray Peat's position, drawn from his own writing, was that both minerals matter and that salt restriction is the thing to avoid, because low sodium raises aldosterone and aldosterone makes the kidneys dump potassium and magnesium. The drink you choose should fill whichever gap your plate leaves.
I have tweaked my electrolyte recipe many times since I first published it, and this update reflects what I am brewing up these days: a nettle and hibiscus infusion as the base, with no stevia and no lemon doing all the work. Before the recipe, this article walks through what electrolytes do, where the salt-versus-potassium debate comes from, and how four popular electrolyte powders compare on ratio and ingredients.
What Electrolytes Do
Evidence: established physiology
Electrolytes are minerals that carry an electrical charge in water. Sodium, potassium, magnesium, and chloride do most of the work in the body. They set the fluid balance between the inside and outside of every cell and carry the electrical signals that let nerves fire and muscles contract and release.
Sodium sits mostly outside cells and potassium mostly inside. The sodium-potassium pump moves them against their gradients and uses a large share of the body's resting energy to do it. That energy cost is the reason a biologist named Ray Peat spent so much of his career writing about salt.
What Ray Peat Wrote About Salt and Potassium
Evidence: primary source, raypeat.com, with the animal and human studies he cited
Raymond Peat (1936 to 2022) held a PhD in biology from the University of Oregon, where he studied physiology and reproductive aging, and he taught endocrinology before spending decades publishing articles and newsletters on thyroid function, hormones, and diet. His position on salt appears in "Salt, energy, metabolic rate, and longevity" on raypeat.com. He traced the low-salt habit to the 1950s, when diuretic drugs came to market and patients were told to cut salt so the drugs would work better, and he called the advice that followed a cultural cliché.
His argument ran through the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system. When sodium intake drops, the kidneys release renin, which raises aldosterone. Aldosterone tells the kidneys to hold sodium and excrete potassium, and it increases magnesium loss as well. Peat noted that this same hormone system is tied to hypertension, kidney disease, heart failure, and fibrosis, and that sodium restriction also raises serotonin, adrenaline, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1, and sympathetic nervous activity. Older people who cut salt often report worse sleep, which he attributed to the adrenaline increase.
He cited rat work showing that a low-sodium diet lowered heat production, lowered body temperature, and increased body fat, and that rats given a mild salt solution with their food raised their heat production and lost abdominal fat. He also wrote that hypothyroidism is a major cause of excessive sodium loss, because low thyroid function shifts the estrogen to progesterone ratio in a direction that wastes salt. That claim connects him to Broda Barnes, the physician whose 1976 book Hypothyroidism: The Unsuspected Illness argued that low thyroid function is far more common than doctors recognize. Barnes did not publish an electrolyte ratio; Peat took his thyroid work and tied it to salt craving and salt loss.
In Peat's writing, potassium comes from food. He recommended orange juice by the quart, whole milk, ripe fruit, and cooked potatoes, all of which are potassium-dense. He treated salt as something to eat to taste and to craving, especially premenstrually and during pregnancy, when he considered restriction harmful. In his framework, salt adequacy is what allows the potassium in food to stay in the body. My guide to the Ray Peat diet covers the full food pattern.
What Ratio to Aim For
Evidence: USDA food composition data and one peer-reviewed anthropological estimate; the whole-food calculation is my own
Peat never published a target ratio of potassium to sodium, so the closest thing to one is the food pattern he recommended. I ran that pattern through USDA FoodData Central. A quart of orange juice supplies about 2,000 mg potassium, a quart of whole milk about 1,300 mg, a medium baked potato with skin about 900 mg, and a medium raw carrot about 200 mg, for a total near 4,400 mg before any other vegetable is counted. Salting that food to taste with about a teaspoon of salt adds 2,300 mg sodium. The day lands close to two parts potassium for each part sodium.
That figure sits well below what our ancestors likely ate. In 1985, physician S. Boyd Eaton and anthropologist Melvin Konner, both at Emory University, published "Paleolithic Nutrition" in the New England Journal of Medicine, an estimate of the pre-agricultural human diet built from the foods available to foraging populations. Their numbers put daily potassium near 10,500 mg and sodium near 700 mg, a ratio above 15 to 1. Whole-food eating today comes in lower than that, but the direction holds in both estimates: unprocessed food delivers far more potassium than sodium.
Packaged food reverses the pattern. Salt is added during processing, and potassium is lost during refining, so a person eating mostly packaged food can take in more sodium than potassium every day. For that person, a potassium-forward drink pulls the daily total back toward the whole-food pattern. A person who eats fruit and salts to taste has the opposite need only when heavy sweating pulls sodium out faster than meals put it back.
That gives me a plain standard for judging an electrolyte powder. It should move the day's total toward the whole-food pattern, which means potassium at or above sodium, and it should do that without stevia or undisclosed flavors. The four brands below are measured against that standard.
Four Electrolyte Brands Compared by Ratio
Evidence: manufacturer labels, product-page dosing graphics, and published certificates of analysis, retrieved August 2026
Figures are per serving from each company's current supplement facts panel or product-page dosing graphic. Prices are list price per serving at the time of writing and change often.
marks a stat that meets a standard this article sets: potassium at or above sodium, magnesium included, no stevia or monk fruit, no natural flavors, third-party results posted in full, and mineral amounts published. partial means the standard is met in one variant or with a caveat explained in the brand profile below.
| Per serving | Jigsaw Potassium Cocktail | LMNT | UNTAMMED Mineral Mist | SubLuna Volcano People |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sodium | 90 mg | 1,000 mg | 595 mg | 800 mg |
| Potassium | 800 mg | 200 mg | 340 mg | 760 mg |
| Magnesium | ✓ 50 mg (glycinate chelate) | ✓ 60 mg (malate) | ✓ 80 mg (chloride) | ✓ 150 mg (glycinate) |
| Potassium to sodium | ✓ 9 to 1 | 1 to 5 | 1 to 1.75 | partial 1 to 1.05, potassium 40 mg under sodium |
| Potassium source | Potassium chloride | Potassium chloride | Coconut water | Coconut water and cream of tartar |
| Sweetener | Stevia and monk fruit | partial Stevia; none in Raw Unflavored | ✓ None (Berry Sweet uses cane sugar) | ✓ Maple sugar |
| Natural flavors | Yes | partial Yes; none in Raw Unflavored | ✓ No, real fruit powder | ✓ No, whole fruit powders |
| Third-party testing | ✓ Lot COAs posted | Stated, reports on request | ✓ COAs posted | partial COA posted, redacted |
| Mineral amounts published | ✓ Supplement facts panel | ✓ Supplement facts panel | ✓ Nutrition facts panel | ✓ Product-page dosing graphic |
| Approx. price | $0.83 jar, $1.00 packets | $1.50, $1.30 subscription | $1.43 | $1.83 |
| Standards met (of 6) | 4 | 2, plus 2 partial | 5 | 4, plus 2 partial |
Jigsaw Potassium Cocktail
- Sodium
- 90 mg
- Potassium
- 800 mg
- Magnesium
- ✓ 50 mg (glycinate chelate)
- Potassium to sodium
- ✓ 9 to 1
- Potassium source
- Potassium chloride
- Sweetener
- Stevia and monk fruit
- Natural flavors
- Yes
- Third-party testing
- ✓ Lot COAs posted
- Mineral amounts published
- ✓ Supplement facts panel
- Approx. price
- $0.83 jar, $1.00 packets
- Standards met (of 6)
- 4
LMNT
- Sodium
- 1,000 mg
- Potassium
- 200 mg
- Magnesium
- ✓ 60 mg (malate)
- Potassium to sodium
- 1 to 5
- Potassium source
- Potassium chloride
- Sweetener
- partial Stevia; none in Raw Unflavored
- Natural flavors
- partial Yes; none in Raw Unflavored
- Third-party testing
- Stated, reports on request
- Mineral amounts published
- ✓ Supplement facts panel
- Approx. price
- $1.50, $1.30 subscription
- Standards met (of 6)
- 2, plus 2 partial
UNTAMMED Mineral Mist
- Sodium
- 595 mg
- Potassium
- 340 mg
- Magnesium
- ✓ 80 mg (chloride)
- Potassium to sodium
- 1 to 1.75
- Potassium source
- Coconut water
- Sweetener
- ✓ None (Berry Sweet uses cane sugar)
- Natural flavors
- ✓ No, real fruit powder
- Third-party testing
- ✓ COAs posted
- Mineral amounts published
- ✓ Nutrition facts panel
- Approx. price
- $1.43
- Standards met (of 6)
- 5
SubLuna Volcano People
- Sodium
- 800 mg
- Potassium
- 760 mg
- Magnesium
- ✓ 150 mg (glycinate)
- Potassium to sodium
- partial 1 to 1.05, potassium 40 mg under sodium
- Potassium source
- Coconut water and cream of tartar
- Sweetener
- ✓ Maple sugar
- Natural flavors
- ✓ No, whole fruit powders
- Third-party testing
- partial COA posted, redacted
- Mineral amounts published
- ✓ Product-page dosing graphic
- Approx. price
- $1.83
- Standards met (of 6)
- 4, plus 2 partial
Jigsaw Potassium Cocktail (formerly Pickleball Cocktail)
Jigsaw Health renamed this product in 2025 but kept the formula: 800 mg potassium from potassium chloride, 90 mg sodium from flake sea salt, 50 mg magnesium as lysinate glycinate chelate, and 900 mg chloride. It is the only mainstream powder I know of built potassium-first, and the company posts lot-specific lab results, which few brands do. The trade-off is the flavor system. Every flavor is sweetened with stevia and monk fruit and flavored with natural flavors, and the orange version adds beta carotene and beet for color. If you already eat plenty of salt and want one scoop to close a potassium gap, this does it, and if you avoid stevia it is off the list.
LMNT
LMNT is built for the opposite problem. Each packet delivers 1,000 mg sodium, 200 mg potassium, and 60 mg magnesium malate, a formula the company designed around sweat loss and low-carb eating. Given Peat's position on salt, the sodium level is defensible. My objection was the flavored packets, which use stevia leaf extract and natural flavors, and that is why I did not recommend LMNT before. The Raw Unflavored packet changes that. Its full ingredient list is salt, magnesium malate, and potassium chloride. For a heavy sweater or someone recovering from a low-salt diet, Raw Unflavored is the cleanest sodium-forward option in this comparison, and you can add your own citrus.
UNTAMMED Mineral Mist
Mineral Mist is a newer brand with four ingredients: organic coconut water, solar-evaporated sea salt, magnesium chloride from Great Salt Lake brine, and freeze-dried fruit. A serving provides 595 mg sodium, 340 mg potassium, 80 mg magnesium, and 30 mg vitamin C from the fruit. The label lists no sweetener, flavor additive, anti-caking agent, or preservative, and the company publishes certificates of analysis for each flavor. The ratio leans sodium, so it fits someone who eats fruit and dairy and wants a mineral top-up without sweeteners. Their product page notes that the powder settles and needs a second shake, and that an opened pouch should be used within three months because nothing preserves it. The "80 plus trace minerals" claim is marketing copy; the COA does not test for it.
SubLuna Volcano People
SubLuna is an herbalist-run company, and Volcano People is the blend it designed for sweat loss. A serving delivers 800 mg sodium from volcanic black salt, 760 mg potassium from coconut water powder and cream of tartar, and 150 mg magnesium as glycinate, which is the most magnesium of any brand here. Those figures come from a dosing graphic on the product page rather than a supplement facts panel, and the heavy-metal COA is posted in redacted form, so the numbers rest on the company's word. The base is sweetened with maple sugar and followed by a 750 mg herb blend of plantain leaf, slippery elm, lemon, lime, butterfly pea flower, soursop leaf, black maca, shilajit, and sarsaparilla. Flavor comes from the whole fruit powders alone, and the company says the taste is delicate enough that a squeeze of citrus improves it. Maple sugar rather than stevia fits Peat's view of sugar, and the coconut water plus cream of tartar pairing is the same potassium strategy my recipe uses. The ratio sits a hair on the sodium side of even, which makes it a balanced daily option for someone who eats fruit and salts to taste. Mermaid Water is the company's low-sodium blend, sweetened with glycine and built on coconut water and sea moss; sea moss is the plant carrageenan is extracted from, which is worth knowing if you follow Peat on that subject.
Why I Avoid Stevia and Natural Flavors
Evidence: stevia fertility data is from rodent studies with conflicting replications; gut microbiome data is rodent and in vitro; natural flavor labeling rests on the regulation text
"Natural flavors" is a legal category defined under 21 CFR 101.22. The term covers extracts and distillates from plant or animal material whose main job is taste. The solvents, carriers, preservatives, and processing aids used to make and stabilize those extracts count as incidental additives and do not have to appear on the label. Companies use natural flavors in electrolyte powders to cover the bitterness of potassium chloride, and since the blend is undisclosed, I skip products that list it.
Stevia raises a second question. In 1968 Planas and Kuc reported in Science that a water decoction of stevia leaf reduced fertility in female rats, with the effect persisting for at least 50 days after intake stopped. Melis reported similar results in 1999. Other groups did not replicate the finding, so the animal record is split. The same paper noted that the plant was used as a contraceptive by indigenous groups in Paraguay, a report that remains anecdotal. On the gut, a 2019 rat study found that low-dose rebaudioside A shifted gut bacteria, and a 2022 review found mixed results with no human trials to settle it. The evidence is thin in both directions, so I treat stevia as a precaution.
I have my own experience with it. I ran a keto diet before 2020 and kept using concentrated stevia daily afterward to hold my sugar intake down. I felt better within three weeks of stopping. If you want a sweetener with less baggage, monk fruit extract is the one I suggest, and it should be a pure extract with no erythritol added, since erythritol irritates the gut in many people.
Who Should Not Add Potassium Salts
Evidence: established pharmacology; the kidney and medication cautions appear on potassium chloride product labels
Potassium chloride is the one ingredient in this article that can hurt someone. The kidneys clear excess potassium, and when they cannot keep up, blood potassium rises and heart rhythm suffers. Anyone with reduced kidney function, and anyone taking an ACE inhibitor, an ARB, a potassium-sparing diuretic such as spironolactone, or a prescribed potassium supplement, should not add potassium chloride to a drink without a physician's sign-off. Salt substitutes print that warning on the container.
A potassium drink made without salt will not lower your blood sodium on its own. Drinking a large volume of plain water while losing sodium in sweat can. If you work outside in summer or train hard, add sodium rather than removing it, and let thirst set the volume.
Potassium Electrolyte Drink Recipe With Nettle and Hibiscus
Evidence: potassium and sodium figures from USDA and product labels; nettle mineral content from a peer-reviewed analysis; hibiscus from two human blood pressure trials; dandelion from one small human diuretic trial and traditional use
The old version of this recipe used plain water and leaned on lemon to hide the potassium chloride. This version uses an herbal infusion as the base. Nettle leaf is one of the most mineral-dense herbs in Western practice, with potassium, calcium, magnesium, and iron measured in published analyses. Hibiscus calyx is tart enough to replace most of the lemon, carries potassium of its own, and lowered blood pressure in two randomized human trials, which you should know if you take blood pressure medication. Dandelion leaf can stand in for nettle (though nettles will taste better, in my opinion); it is a traditional potassium-rich diuretic and increased urine output in a small human study.
Makes one 10 oz glass
Infusion base
- 1 tablespoon dried nettle leaf (or dried dandelion leaf)
- 1 teaspoon dried hibiscus calyx
- 10 oz just-boiled filtered water
Minerals
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar (potassium bitartrate), about 250 mg potassium
- 1/4 teaspoon potassium chloride salt substitute such as NoSalt, 650 mg potassium on the NoSalt label; other brands differ, so read yours
- 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt, about 290 mg sodium (use 1/4 teaspoon on heavy-sweat days)
Finish
- Juice of 1/4 lemon or lime, or skip it if the hibiscus is tart enough for you
- Optional: 1 teaspoon raw honey or a splash of cold-pressed orange juice, which adds sugar and another 50 mg of potassium
Method
- Pour the hot water over the nettle and hibiscus, cover, and steep 20 minutes. Strain and let it cool to room temperature or chill it.
- Stir in the minerals until fully dissolved. The infusion's acidity helps them dissolve.
- Add citrus and honey if using, then taste it. If it reads bitter, more hibiscus or citrus fixes it, and if it reads salty, add 2 oz of water.
Per glass, not counting the infusion: about 900 mg potassium and 290 mg sodium, a ratio near 3 to 1. If potassium chloride is new to you, use 1/8 teaspoon for the first week. Large single doses upset the stomach, and the bitterness fades as you adjust.
An overnight nourishing infusion works here too. Use 1 oz dried nettle to a quart of water, steep 8 hours, strain, and use 10 oz of it as the base for a stronger mineral contribution.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best potassium to sodium ratio in an electrolyte drink?
It depends on your food. A whole-food day of fruit, juice, milk, and potatoes salted to taste lands near two parts potassium to one part sodium. If your meals are salty and low in fruit, a drink near three to one potassium closes the gap. If you sweat heavily or eat little salt, choose a sodium-forward mix instead.
Is LMNT too high in sodium?
LMNT delivers 1,000 mg sodium per packet, which suits heavy sweating and low-carb eating. Ray Peat's writing supports salt adequacy over restriction, so the sodium level fits his framework. The flavored packets contain stevia and natural flavors. The Raw Unflavored packet contains only salt, magnesium malate, and potassium chloride.
Does Pickleball Cocktail still exist?
Yes. Jigsaw Health renamed it Jigsaw Potassium Cocktail in 2025. The formula is unchanged at 800 mg potassium, 90 mg sodium, and 50 mg magnesium per serving. It is sweetened with stevia and monk fruit and flavored with natural flavors, and lot-specific lab results are posted on the product page.
Which electrolyte powder has no stevia and no natural flavors?
SubLuna's herbal blends use maple sugar or glycine for sweetness and whole fruit powders for flavor, and Volcano People delivers 800 mg sodium, 760 mg potassium, and 150 mg magnesium per serving.Can I use cream of tartar as a potassium supplement?
Cream of tartar is potassium bitartrate and provides about 495 mg potassium per teaspoon according to USDA data. It works in a homemade electrolyte drink at 1/2 teaspoon per glass. It is a concentrated potassium source, so the same kidney and medication cautions apply as with potassium chloride.
Is potassium chloride safe to drink?
For people with normal kidney function who are not on ACE inhibitors, ARBs, potassium-sparing diuretics, or prescribed potassium, 1/4 teaspoon dissolved in 10 oz of liquid is a common dose. Anyone with kidney disease or on those medications should not use it without medical guidance, because excess blood potassium affects heart rhythm.
Sources
- Peat R. Salt, energy, metabolic rate, and longevity. raypeat.com
- Xavier AR, Garófalo MA, Migliorini RH, Kettelhut IC. Dietary sodium restriction exacerbates age-related changes in rat adipose tissue and liver lipogenesis. Metabolism. 2003;52(8):1072-1077.
- Bryant KR, Rothwell NJ, Stock MJ. Influence of sodium intake on thermogenesis and brown adipose tissue in the rat. Int J Obes. 1984;8(3):221-231.
- Horton R, Biglieri EG. Effect of aldosterone on the metabolism of magnesium. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 1962;22(12):1187-1192.
- Eaton SB, Konner M. Paleolithic nutrition: a consideration of its nature and current implications. N Engl J Med. 1985;312(5):283-289.
- Barnes BO, Galton L. Hypothyroidism: The Unsuspected Illness. Thomas Y. Crowell; 1976.
- Planas GM, Kuc J. Contraceptive properties of Stevia rebaudiana. Science. 1968;162(3857):1007.
- Melis MS. Effects of chronic administration of Stevia rebaudiana on fertility in rats. J Ethnopharmacol. 1999;67(2):157-161.
- Nettleton JE, et al. Low-dose stevia (rebaudioside A) consumption perturbs gut microbiota and the mesolimbic dopamine reward system. Nutrients. 2019;11(6):1248.
- Kasti AN, et al. The effects of stevia consumption on gut bacteria: friend or foe? Microorganisms. 2022;10(4):744.
- 21 CFR 101.22, Foods; labeling of spices, flavorings, colorings and chemical preservatives. ecfr.gov
- Herrera-Arellano A, et al. Effectiveness and tolerability of a standardized extract from Hibiscus sabdariffa in patients with mild to moderate hypertension: a controlled and randomized clinical trial. Phytomedicine. 2004;11(5):375-382.
- McKay DL, Chen CY, Saltzman E, Blumberg JB. Hibiscus sabdariffa L. tea (tisane) lowers blood pressure in prehypertensive and mildly hypertensive adults. J Nutr. 2010;140(2):298-303.
- Clare BA, Conroy RS, Spelman K. The diuretic effect in human subjects of an extract of Taraxacum officinale folium over a single day. J Altern Complement Med. 2009;15(8):929-934.
- Rutto LK, Xu Y, Ramirez E, Brandt M. Mineral properties and dietary value of raw and processed stinging nettle (Urtica dioica L.). Int J Food Sci. 2013;2013:857120.
- USDA FoodData Central: cream of tartar; orange juice, raw; milk, whole; potato, baked, with skin; carrot, raw; salt, table.
- Jigsaw Health. Jigsaw Potassium Cocktail supplement facts and lot certificates of analysis. Retrieved August 2026.
- Drink LMNT. Ingredients by flavor. Retrieved August 2026.
- UNTAMMED. Mineral Mist nutrition facts and certificates of analysis. Retrieved August 2026.
- SubLuna. Volcano People and Mermaid Water ingredient lists and certificate of analysis. Retrieved August 2026.
