This is a very interesting conversation on a subject that has kept me awake for a while. I have 2 questions or comments:
1.- When some of you say things like “it works for me”, “it’s the best”, etc. what do you actually mean? How do you “measure” the benefit? how do you know that it works? Most of the time I use a recovery drink, following general advice, but sometimes I don’t for one reason or another. I can’t really say I notice any difference on the days that I don’t take it.
2.- I have tried several recovery drink recipes and I struggle to meet the 4:1 ration and 20g of protein at the same time. I understand those are 2 important conditions and it seems confirmed by @ian65r 's article. With 20g of protein, you need 80g of carbs. I can get the protein easy from a protein powder, but 80g of carbs is a lot of carbs. 100g of banana (roughly a medium banana) has around 25g of carbs, so you need more than 3 of them. Another source of carbs I have around the house are dates, which have around 70% carbs. Again, you need around 115g of those and that’s a lot of dates (around 20 dates if I remember right). Once you add all that banana or all those dates you end up with a recovery drink upwards of 400-500 calories, which sounds too me rather high. Whe I look at off the shelf recovery driks that claim a 4:1 ratio, they never have 20g of protein.
Where am I going wrong?