QAA Podcast - Trickle Down Episode 11: The Elixir of Life Part 1 (Sample)

Episode Date: December 10, 2023

There are many reasons why Gatorade became the king of sports drinks. It had a compelling origin story. Its partnership with the NFL led to the iconic “Gatorade Dunk,” where celebrating athletes would pour a giant container of Gatorade over their coach. There was the hugely successful “Be Like Mike” advertising campaign, which featured Michael Jordan sipping Gatorade. But one of the reasons is the belief that Gatorade is a science-backed product. To secure this belief, Gatorade’s owners helped establish the Gatorade Sports Science Institute. On these two episodes of Trickle Down, we’ll explore how Gatorade influenced the science of hydration on the way to becoming a multi-billion dollar brand. Subscribe for $5 a month to get an extra episode of QAA every week + access to our archive of premium episodes and ongoing series like PERVERTS, Manclan, and The Spectral Voyager: https://www.patreon.com/QAA Theme by Nick Sena (https://nicksenamusic.com). Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Editing by Corey Klotz. https://qanonanonymous.com REFERENCES Wikipedia: Elixir of Life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elixir_of_life Fitzgerlad, Mattt. Diet Cults: The Surprising Fallacy at the Core of Nutrition Fads and a Guide to Healthy Eating for the Rest of Us (2014) Rovell, Darren. First in Thirst: How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat into a Cultural Phenomenon (2005) Noakes, Timothy. Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports (2012) Noakes, Timothy. THE HYPONATREMIA OF EXERCISE https://www.crossfit.com/essentials/the-hyponatremia-of-exercise-part-1 Cleveland Clinic: Electrolytes https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diagnostics/21790-electrolytes

In 1983, the Quaker Oates Company purchased the sports drink brand Gatorade from the firm Stokely Van Camp. Before the purchase, Stokely made some extraordinary claims about the effectiveness of Gatorade, such as that it moved through the body at 12 times the speed of water. This claim hadn't been scientifically validated, so Quaker Oates executive Phil Marinot ordered for a lab to test Gatorade to find out its exact qualities. They found that Stokely's claims were way off. Gatorade worked as fast as water, not 12 times faster as originally advertised,

but that initial testing, just to learn more, was enough to start a new era of Gatorade's marketing. Marino said this. When I heard that, I knew that we had the ammunition to win. It sounds small, but if it weren't for the test results that said what it did, we wouldn't be here.

Marinole realized that in order for the brand to stay on top, Quaker would have to constantly prove that Gatorade was the best thirst-quenching product in the world at all times, and that required science, or at the very least, the backing of scientific papers and scientists. So Marinole oversaw the creation of the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, and he even took a position on the board of the prestigious American College of Sports Medicine. He explained his strategy this way. What I was concerned about was that somebody was going to out Gatorade Gatorade. Our goal was to use our relationships with researchers to stay ahead of the curve on the latest in Thirst Science.

This campaign didn't just help turn Gatorade into a multi-billion dollar brand. It also twisted how millions of athletes and regular people thought about hydration. I'm Travis View, and this is Trickle Down, a podcast about what happens when bad ideas flow from the top. With me are Julian Field and Jake Rockatansky. Episode 11, The Elyxer of Life, Part 1. Boys, I'm glad that you're joining me here in 2023 to learn about why we think about, you know, hydrating water and refueling with water and related drinks the way that we do. This is a great American story about people realizing, oh, it's. just sugar in water. And I think that's really cute that you guys had to figure that out about

Gatorade. Now that they got the cucumber flavor, I mean, what are you going to do? I'm powerless against it. I mean, some of it is very tasty. While researching this episode, I did buy some Gatorade. It did, you know what? It tastes nice. I'll say that about it. That's the highest praise I'll give it. Did you piss 12 times faster? What'd you do, lemon lime, fruit punch? Of course. No, classic lemon lime. Yes. Classic lemon lime. Yeah, just neon yellow, glowing color. It's great stuff. This episode was brought to you by Gatorade, a product of the PepsiCo company.

Now, there are some kinds of stories that are just imprinted on the human brain, and they're told over and over again, and they exist in the oldest writings that we have and in every culture. The universal nature of these stories indicates that they were told, you know, before we even had writing, they must have existed in the mouths, ears, and minds. humans as they are trying to survive on a hostile planet with no more advanced technology than shaped mud, sticks, and stones and fire. And consequently, we can't escape them, no matter how civilized or sophisticated society becomes. One such story is called The Elyxer of Life, and it goes like this. There is a drinkable liquid or some other substance that has properties far beyond

mere water. Those who find it and drink it will be renewed. It restores youth. It heals disease, it conquers fatigue. One early depiction of a life-giving substance is found in the epic of Gilgamesh, a Mesopotamian epic poem that was written roughly 3,000 years ago. In the story, Gilgamesh seeks a plant called the Ur-Shanabi, or the plant of the heartbeat, which is supposed to make him young again. Gilgamesh retrieves it from the bottom of the sea, but before he can use it, the plant is stolen by a snake. And so Gilgamesh returns to the ancient city of Uric and marvels at its towering walls.

Perhaps a lesson from our ancient ancestors that we can only seek immortality through what we create, not what we consume. The Greek historian Herodotus claimed that the Macrobeian people bathed in a special water that was like oil, and this allowed them to live for a long time. In European alchemy, legendary accounts from the 17th century claim that Nicholas Flamele discovered the elixir of life and therefore lived forever. The American spin on the elixir life is the patent medicine. In the 19th century, Grifter sold bottled liquids that were said to be cure-alls. These concoctions often contained alcohol, opium, and other narcotics, and this was not always revealed to the consumer. Of course, today, we can see the remnants of the patent medicine era and popular brand name soda drinks like Coca-Cola got its name because it originally contained cocaine, and Pepsi is called that because it was advertised as curing dyspepsia or upset stomach.

The patent medicine era came to an end in 1906 when Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act. This curbs some of the more misleading, overstated, or fraudulent claims that appeared on labels. And in 1936, the statute was revised to ban them entirely. But the problem with a story, like the elixir of life, which is so deeply ingrained in the human psyche, is that it cannot be suppressed by any amount of laws or regulation. Humans need to believe in it. And other people, if they're clever, know how to exploit this. need to make obscene amounts of money. So for this episode, the next one, I'm going to be taking a look at the modern rejuvenating liquid, the post-World War elixir of life, sports drinks, and

Gatorade specifically. Sports drinks started as an experiment on college football players, but over the decades, it transformed into the powerhouse of an industry that we know it today. But in order for that transformation to take place, sellers of sports drinks had to change how people thought about hydration entirely, including hydrating with water. Now, there's no more simple or primal way to nourish your body than to just drink water. We need water because we're mostly water. You know, the need to have a constant fresh supply of water is a trait we share with all of biology, from bears, the birds, to trees, the mushrooms, to amoebas. Because water is such an essential part of us, you think, like we as society, we'd have like a solid and consistent

grasp of how much fluid we really need to live, thrive, and perform athletically. But if you take a look at the fluid intake recommendations that have been given over the past century or so, that is not the case. Now, nowadays, you might have heard the recommendation to drink like eight glasses of water per day, or you might have heard the claim that, you know, once you feel thirsty, you're already dangerously dehydrated. Now, these claims, as I've come to learn, rests on very shaky foundations. I mean, go into some more detail on that on the next episode. The truth is that this emphasis on drinking as much as possible is new. In fact, it was unheard of as recently as the first half of the 20th century.

In those days, the most accomplished endurance athletes universally recommended drinking nothing at all during athletic events. For example, this was the advice of American Olympian Joseph Forshaw, who finished fourth in the 1908 Olympic marathon and 10th in the 1912 Olympic Marathon. I know from actual experience that the full race can be covered in creditable time without so much as a single drop of water being taken or even sponging of the head. I have done it myself. Similar advice was given by the Marathon Running Pioneer James E. Sullivan. And now he was the founder and president of the Amateur Athletic Union, as well as the chief organizer of the 1904 Summer Olympics. In his 1909 book Marathon Running, he offered this advice to anyone looking to get into the

sport. Don't get into the habit of drinking and eating in a marathon race. Some prominent runners do, but it is not beneficial. Now, you could dismiss this kind of advice as the backwards ideas of athletes who performed in a more primitive age of sports. For example, in the 1904 Olympic Marathon in St. Louis, only 14 of the 32 competitors finished the race. Oh my gosh. The truth is that even into the 1950s, top distance athletes suggested drink. drinking nothing while racing. Now, this was the advice of the English marathon runner Jim Peters, who was the first runner to complete a marathon in under two hours and 20 minutes. And he broke the world record for the men's marathon four separate times. In the marathon race, there is no need to

take any solid food at all, and every effort should also be made to do without liquid. As the moment food or drink has taken, the body has to start dealing with its digestion. And in so doing, some discomfort will almost invariably be felt. Hey there, you've been listening to a sample clip of Trickled Down. This is a side project that I've been working on. It's a 10-episode series about misinformation and bad ideas that flow from high authority sources. I think it's fascinating, and I mean, it's a way for, I guess, me to explore the way people who should know what they're talking about don't always actually. I'm not going to lie, some of it's kind of a bummer, but if you're anything like me, that's actually more of a reason to dive into the subject matter.

Like with the premium episodes of Q&N anonymous, all the episodes of Trickledown are available to people who support us through Patreon, still the same five bucks a month, double the extra content, same price that we've been doing since 2018. We are inflation proof. Inflation proof, inflation proof, inflation proof. Thank you.