Okay, I've looked at the constituents of Gatorade vs Code Blue, and frankly, it's not really accurate to compare them as close cousins with the only difference being a varying degrees of intensity, because they're not really in the same family per se.

It's not as extreme a difference as comparing apples and oranges... rather it's more like comparing oranges to pineapples, which means it's easy to see some parallels, but those parallels are superficial, and if I was the manufacturer I'd do more to make that difference clear.

The manufacturer of Code Blue does try to state in euphemistic ways that it's not a workout drink, rather, it's for hangover recovery, but they're probably being too subtle for American buyers, who wouldn't know how socially normal, and accepted, and expected it is for people in Asia to get hammered out of their minds the night before, yet still be expected to get up and go to work no matter how hung over the next day.

All social issues of working out versus getting drunk aside, the essential physiological aspect distinguishing what the two drinks are designed to suit has to do with the difference between what gets leached out with sweat versus what gets leached out with urine.

Gatorade is to replace nutrients in proportions to what tends to be lost with perspiration, and Code Blue is blended to replace what tends to get lost when someone has been consuming a lot of diuretics (compounds that stimulate urination) such as caffeine and ethanol.

I'm going to trust that most people can see that concentrations of salts etc. are much higher - and different - in urine compared to what is found in sweat, not to mention how those nutrients are eliminated in different *ratios*.

Gatorade is for if you've been sweating a lot, and Code Blue is for if you've been peeing a lot, and they're both fine for what they've been blended to do... replace ions lost to sweat in one case, and replace ions lost to urination in the other.

It means I would take Code Blue if I'd been up for days drinking lots coffee, because caffeine is also a diuretic, but not Gatorade. I'd use Gatorade if I was planning to spend a day in a sauna.

By the way, as an aside, there's a common mythology that consuming ethanol somehow translates to consuming lots of carbohydrates. Nothing could more incorrect *and* potentially dangerous to believe.

The body turns ethanol into hydrocarbon... aka fat. It does *not* turn ethanol into carbohydrates... aka sugars.

Neurons are special and different from all the other cells in the body, in that they cannot burn fat. Whereas all other cells in the body can burn either hydrocarbons or carbohydrates, neurons behind the blood-brain barrier are an exception... they can only burn carbohydrates.

Plus there's something else people need to know which maybe they don't: Mammals cannot convert hydrocarbons into carbohydrates. Birds can convert hydrocarbons into carbohydrates, but mammals cannot.

The way it works is: mammals can convert proteins into hydrocarbons or carbohydrates (i.e. it can turn meat into fat or glucose or glycogen), and it can convert carbohydrates into hydrocarbons (i.e. it can convert sugars and starch into fat), and it can even convert some sugars into amino acids (the amino acids that it cannot build from hexose and pentose sugars are called the 'essential amino acids') but once a food has been converted to fat, the only thing a mammal body can do with it is use it as the brick-and-mortar of cell membranes, use it to provide the myeline insulation of axons, use it to synthesize cholesterol, use it for insulation when packed under the skin, use it to make skin and hair oily, or burn it...

It *cannot* be converted to carbohydrates, and neurons can only burn glucose, which is a carbohydrate.

What that means is that if you're drinking lots of ethanol, and you don't also consume starch or sugar with the ethanol, then you'll be intoxicating the neurons and slowing them down, and then *complicating* it further by not providing the neurons with the carbohydrates they need to burn in order to keep going against the extra load they're carrying from ethanol stupification.

You'll noticed that people who drink beer or drink cocktails mixed with diet-sodas without munching on something starchy tend to get dopey and pass out faster than those who drink beer and eat something starchy, or who drink their cocktails with authentic sodas made with real sugar.

Your neurons need glucose - a carbohydrate - to function, they cannot burn fat - a hydrocarbon - and your body converts ethanol into fat... *not* hydrocarbons.

Where it gets dangerous, aside from the normal hazards of passing out at bad times, is that if the neurons can't find any sugar to burn, they will start converting their own proteins into sugars in order to have the fuel to keep going as a last gasp effort.

Ever wondered by people who drink rum and (real) coke don't loose as many neurons per drunk as beer drinkers who won't eat their peanuts? That's why.

So... if Code Blue has carbohydrates in it, and it's blended to be a replacement of nutrients lost to excessive peeing, which will be the case the morning after, then it can't hurt and in fact it's a good thing for carbohydrates to be part of the blend, because any time ethanol is in the equation, you'd better have some sugars and starches in there as part of the mix or your neurons are *not* going to be happy about it!

That being said... Gatorade is good for sweat, so use it if you're working out or if you're planning to spend a day in the sauna, and Code Blue is for cases where you're going to be peeing a lot, so use it in circumstances where you're consuming a lot of ethanol and/or caffeine.

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