I'm not a chemistry expert. In fact, I didn't do so hot in college chemistry because the 8am classes routinely interfered with my social agenda - not that I had dates at 8 in the morning, rather I would be recovering from the previous nights exploits. And there was lots of homework.
So I may not be able to balance a chemical reaction or tell you the difference between nitrate and nitrite, but I do have some basic knowledge. For example, water is made up of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. I think that is the one chemical formula that almost everyone knows. Anyway, water, in pure form, is colorless, tasteless, and odorless. The only way to get pure water is to distill it (boil it for an extended period of time). The water that we normally get from faucets has various minerals in it, but, for the most part, is still colorless, and relatively odorless and tasteless (depending on where you live in the world).
Enough of the chemistry lesson - Gatorade, apparently, doesn't have the same chemical definition of water as the rest of the world. I know this because there's a commercial for "Propel Fitness Water" that compares it to other "waters," and by "waters" I mean flavored sugar water with various other additives (otherwise known as "juice"). In this commercial, Gatorade tries to make the point that this other "fitness water" has over 100 calories per serving while Propel has only 10-20, depending on the flavor.
It's a fair enough argument - why drink things with more calories while working out? It's counter-productive. So using that logic, you would want to find a source of hydration with the least amount of calories. If only water had no calories and hydrated you at the same time. What? It does? Holy crap.
If I had millions of dollars and nothing better to do, I would make a commercial and have it aired right after the Propel commercials. Then I would hire people to go to stores and make fun of the people that buy "fitness water."
On second thought, I think Gatorade may be onto something here. If the only qualification to call something "water" is that water is an ingredient, it could lead to tons of loopholes in our legal and moral systems. For example, instead of calling alcoholic drinks "beer," "wine," or "whiskey," you can start advertising them as "happy water" or "make your sorrows go away water" or "make fat,ugly chicks attractive water." The possibilities are endless. Thanks, Gatorade.
