Breaking Muscle receives no compensation in exchange for reviews. We received this product for free and did not experience typical customer service. The opinions expressed belong solely to the writer.
People are becoming more and more worried about consuming sugar-heavy, chemical-laden drinks. Enter Formula O2 Recovery Drink. Formula O2 is an energy and recovery drink that might be just the answer you’ve been looking for.
I tried two flavors, which I’ll describe below. Both of them had the same nutrition facts and similar ingredients.
Features
There are a few interesting things to note about Formula O2:
- Oxygenation: The water in Formula O2 is oxygenated, rather than carbonated. While there is oxygen in regular tap water, Formula O2 contains up to ten times more. The label claims the extra oxygen helps to process toxins faster. Whether this is true or not may be up for debate, but it gives the drinks a sensation similar to what you get when drinking carbonated water.
- Sweetness: The drinks are sweetened with erythritol and stevia. There’s some dextrose in there as well, along with natural flavors that could contribute a little sweetness. The beverages are not particularly sweet, which is great. Each drink has nineteen total grams of carbs, only two of which are sugar. That low amount of sugar in a sixteen-ounce can is pretty much unheard of in the energy drink market, and is especially impressive when you consider Formula O2 doesn’t contain any aspartame or similar sweeteners.
- Electrolytes: Formula O2 also contains substantially more electrolytes than most athletic recovery beverages, with more potassium than most other drinks contain. Each can has 370mg of sodium, fifteen percent of your daily value, and 360mg of potassium, or ten percent of your daily value. It can be hard to find that much potassium outside of real food.
- Caffeine: Formula O2 also includes something it labels as “natural caffeine.” It is not obvious how this differs from regular caffeine, but for the caffeine junkies among us, Formula O2 doesn’t skimp on it. Each can offers 140mg of caffeine.
Flavors
I tried the following flavors:
- Grapefruit Ginger: This flavor has some of the sourness of grapefruit and a mild grapefruit flavor. I’m not a huge fan of grapefruit, but the taste wasn’t too strong so I didn’t mind it. I was looking forward to the ginger, as I enjoy ginger a lot, but there wasn’t any ginger flavor to speak of. Of the two varieties I tried, I preferred this flavor.
- Orange Mango: This one tasted a little like a children’s chewable vitamin. As with the grapefruit variety, I was most excited for the mango flavor but found nothing resembling it when I tried the drink.
The flavoring in both beverages was definitely subtle, but when it comes to drinking flavored beverages you can’t have it all. If you’re expecting powerful fruit flavors, you’ll need to either go with products that contain more potent chemical sweeteners and flavoring agents or those that have a high sugar content. The alternative to those options is the lighter flavor of Formula O2.
My Recommendation
I have consumed a lot of energy drinks over the years, and I have also been concerned about the deleterious health effects of doing so. Drinking Formula O2 helped alleviate much of that concern. These drinks can be used as an energy drink or a recovery drink. Formula O2 gave me energy and some of the healthy carbs I need to recover, with none of the guilt.
I’d recommend Formula O2 to any athlete who wants to improve performance through the use of beverages. It’s a healthier alternative with more to offer.
Formula O2 Recovery Drink is available in a 12 pack for $41.99 at DrinkO2.com.
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