Posted by Team Tune
on July 31, 2026
The electrolyte aisle is overflowing, and nearly every brand has found room on the label for the word "clean." Most of them haven't earned it.
Underneath the branding you'll find proprietary blends hiding actual dosages, stevia-heavy formulas with a bitter finish, and mineral profiles too thin to matter. Telling the difference takes about ninety seconds of label reading — once you know which ninety seconds.
This guide uses Tune's Current as the benchmark: 500 mg sodium, 330 mg potassium, 220 mg of triple magnesium, 70+ trace minerals, six bioactive B vitamins, 500 mg vitamin C, 1,000 IU vitamin D3 and a clinically studied antioxidant complex, in a zero-sugar stick with nothing hidden behind a blend name.
What "Clean" Actually Means on a Label
Nothing, officially. There's no FDA definition and no certifying body. Any brand can print it without meeting a single objective standard.
Used with intent, it signals a short, legible ingredient list: no artificial dyes, no undisclosed proprietary blends, no fillers adding bulk without function. The job is spotting the gap between that principle and what's actually in the pouch.
Three red flags do most of the work. FD&C artificial dyes. Proprietary blends that group minerals under one combined number. And fillers like maltodextrin or anti-caking agents.
The blend one matters most. When a label shows an "electrolyte matrix" at 900 mg with no breakdown, you cannot tell whether that's a functional dose or a rounding error in a nice font. There's no reason to withhold the numbers except not liking them.
Certifications help, but they answer different questions. NSF Certified for Sport tests for hundreds of athletic banned substances with lot-by-lot audits — the standard if you're drug-tested. Non-GMO Project Verified addresses sourcing, not dosing. A published Certificate of Analysis is what matters most for a daily user: confirmation that what's on the label is in the stick. Know which question you're asking before a badge makes the decision for you.
Matching Mineral Counts to Your Actual Goals
For general daily hydration, a practical target is roughly 300 to 600 mg sodium, 200 to 400 mg potassium and 50 to 100 mg magnesium per serving. Worth being clear that no official body sets per-serving targets for electrolyte drinks — the 2019 NASEM sodium and potassium reference intakes govern total daily intake, not what belongs in one stick. These ranges are practical, not regulatory.
Below them, you're drinking flavoured water. Meaningfully above them, as a sedentary adult, you're adding sodium you didn't need.
Hard training changes the arithmetic. Longer sessions or high heat push the useful range to 500–1,000 mg sodium, 150–400 mg potassium and up to 150 mg magnesium.
And the form of that magnesium matters as much as the milligrams. Bisglycinate and malate are organic forms with strong absorption profiles. Magnesium oxide is cheap, poorly absorbed, and works better as a laxative than as a recovery mineral. A blend of bisglycinate, malate and ionic magnesium uses more than one absorption pathway rather than betting everything on one.
Training and high output
Around training, sodium and potassium lead. Magnesium form becomes the tiebreaker between products that look identical on the front of the pack. A powder listing magnesium oxide as its primary source is economising on the mineral most relevant to muscle function.
Keto and low-carb
Cutting carbohydrates lowers insulin, which reduces the kidneys' sodium-retention signal and accelerates mineral loss. It's a real effect and it catches people out in the first fortnight.
Here the sodium-to-potassium ratio matters more than either number alone — which is exactly why a formula that itemises both is worth more than one that doesn't.
If you have a diagnosed medical condition
Some conditions genuinely change fluid and sodium requirements, sometimes substantially. If that's you, your targets should come from your clinician and your own lab work — not from a supplement label, and not from an article like this one.
What a transparent label does give you is the ability to follow that advice accurately. You can't hit a number your product won't tell you.
Additives Hiding in "Natural" Formulas
Stevia and monk fruit are marketed as the clean alternative to sucralose, and both are defensible. The honest concern isn't toxicity — it's taste fatigue and GI tolerance over daily use.
Purified steviol glycosides at 95%+ have been the subject of FDA GRAS notices; whole-leaf stevia has not. Most brands use the purified form. Persistent bitterness and a narrow daily tolerance window remain legitimate product complaints.
"Natural flavors" is the real transparency problem. It's a legally permitted catchall covering dozens of compounds with no individual disclosure. For a brand built on clean-label integrity, that's a contradiction sitting in plain sight. Some companies have moved to real fruit powder or citrus extract instead — which tells you how seriously they take their own claim.
Dyes and citric acid sit in different places. FD&C dyes are mostly a philosophical issue at normal doses; worth avoiding because they signal a formula built for the photo rather than the function. Citric acid is a standard acidulant and genuinely not worth worrying about.
What a Genuinely Complete Formula Looks Like
Most products stop at four: sodium, potassium, magnesium, chloride. A complete one keeps going.
Trace minerals from ancient inland sea deposits contribute boron, iodine, selenium, zinc, copper, manganese, molybdenum and dozens more — the elements behind enzyme activity, thyroid hormone synthesis and your own antioxidant enzymes. Concentrated sea mineral extracts deliver these already dissociated, though the deposit source alone doesn't guarantee absorption and anyone claiming otherwise is overselling.
A daily hydration formula that also carries B vitamins and vitamin D3 isn't overreaching. Bioactive folate as 5-MTHF and B12 as methylcobalamin arrive past the conversion steps that a common MTHFR variant slows down. Vitamin D3 plays established roles in calcium metabolism and immune function. One habit, several gaps.
Tune's Current is the clearest example of the approach: 500 mg sodium, 330 mg potassium, 220 mg of triple magnesium, 70+ trace minerals from ancient inland sea sources, six bioactive B vitamins, 500 mg vitamin C and 1,000 IU vitamin D3, alongside VitAlign — a clinically studied plant-based antioxidant complex that supports nitric oxide production and circulation. Zero sugar, keto-friendly, vegan, non-GMO, gluten-free.
Worth naming what it isn't: there's no riboflavin and no biotin in it, so it's a six-vitamin complex rather than eight. Few products in this category combine that mineral and vitamin density in one serving, and fewer still will tell you what they left out.
How the Category Compares
LMNT runs a high-sodium protocol — roughly 1,000 mg sodium and 60 mg magnesium per packet, around $1.50 a serving. It suits athletes and keto dieters who want aggressive sodium and a stripped-down formula. Needed Hydration Support is more balanced at 250 mg sodium and 150 mg magnesium with ConcenTrace trace minerals. Transparent Labs Hydrate offers 500 mg sodium and 50 mg magnesium with third-party testing. LyteShow is a liquid sea-mineral concentrate for people who want the simplest possible thing.
A 50-cent tablet with 100 mg sodium stops being a bargain the moment you're also buying a magnesium supplement, a B complex and a D3 softgel to cover what it doesn't. The honest comparison isn't what one stick costs — it's what it replaces.
Building a Routine That Holds
Timing helps at the margins. The highest-value windows are morning, which replaces overnight losses before the day compounds them; around training, where sodium and fluid turnover are highest; and evening, where a magnesium-forward formula fits the wind-down.
Pick one and keep it. Current's label caps at two sticks a day, and most people need one. Three windows is a description of when it makes sense, not an instruction to drink three.
A DIY mix works as a backup — sea salt, cream of tartar for potassium, lemon juice, water. It covers the two primary electrolytes for almost nothing. The ceiling is real, though: no trace minerals, no B vitamins, no D3. Use it when you've run out, not as the plan.
The most common early mistake is stacking. A high-sodium mix alongside salty broth, a seasoned protein shake and separate mineral capsules can push daily sodium somewhere uncomfortable. The second is taking electrolytes on an empty stomach, which amplifies sodium sensitivity for some people.
Consistency across weeks beats perfect timing on any given day. Choose the window that fits your life and let the habit do the work.
What to Take Away
A formula earns the word "clean" through a transparent ingredient list, individual dosages you can verify, and a nutrient profile matched to what your body actually uses.
The checklist is short. No proprietary blends. No artificial dyes. No fillers. And a sodium-potassium-magnesium range that fits your real activity level rather than an aspirational one. If a label won't show you those numbers plainly, the product isn't finished.
If you've been assembling three or four supplements to cover what one formula could handle, the case for consolidating is mostly about consistency — the routine you keep is the only one that does anything. That's what Current was built to be: a daily mineral foundation simple enough to actually maintain.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This article is for educational purposes and is not medical advice.
