Liquid Candy

My work offers concentrated pouches of electrolyte drink to everyone as a stopgap measure to prevent people from overheating and dying of dehydration during the hot summer months. I’m not aware that this was a major problem in the past, but it does sound like the sort of thing that we’d like to avoid.

The little pouches are called “Sqwinchers.” The idea is that you open one up, fill the pouch to capacity with cold water, then drink it.

I adore them. When I first started here, I drank twenty to forty per day. They are delicious. When filled with water, they form their delicious pouches full of sweet, electrolytic nectar in several fruit flavors. They also have a tea flavor that I love.

However, it is not technically necessary to actually fill the pouch with water. The pouches can be opened and consumed in the sweet, sweet concentrated form. The taste is intense. It’s as if you were eating a “Jolly Rancher” candy, but instead of the flavor washing over your tongue over the course of several minutes, every exquisite gustatory neuron fires at once, sending a sensory overload of flavor to your brain. Liquid candy is as good a term as I can imagine.

This topic is on my mind because I eventually forced myself to give the packets up, cold turkey. The little things carry about 45 calories each, all from sugar. When you consider the number of them I was drinking, well, let’s just say that Dr. Atkins would not approve. But today, I discovered that one of my more resourceful coworkers had independently researched and gotten approval to order new “Lite Sqwinchers.” They have zero calories.

Today has been a very good day.