Hi everyone this is Monica Reinagle and you're listening to the nutrition

divas quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous we throw the term electrolyte around a lot these days and most of us

have a vague notion of what that means, but how much do you really know about electrolytes?

I've gotten several questions on this topic lately, so today's show is a crash course on

electrolytes, exactly what they are, what they do for you,

to find them.

So what exactly are electrolytes?

If you ask a chemistry professor to define the term,

they might say that an electrolyte is a compound

which produces ions when dissolved in a solution such as water, and that these ions have

either a positive or negative electrical charge, which is why we and that all sounds like Greek to you, my

electrical charge, which is why we refer to these compounds

as Electrolytes.

If that all sounds like Greek to you,

my colleague Lee Fallon,

who hosts the Everyday Einstein Podcast, has a couple of great episodes

that explain more about ions in terms that everyone can understand, and I have links to those

in today's transcript.

Here in the world of nutrition,

we use the word electrolyte more specifically

to refer to minerals that are dissolved

in the body's fluids creating electrically charged ions.

...