Is Pickle Juice Really The Answer To Your Hydration Woes?

Pickle-flavored products are having an extended moment. But let's not forget pickles themselves, which are tart, briny, and flavorful. They're a joy to eat (at least for many people), but they'd be nothing without their juice. 

Pickle juice serves multiple purposes in that it acts as both a preservative and a flavoring agent. After the precious pickles have been eaten, it can be your natural instinct to pour the remaining brine down the drain and call it a day, but before you consider doing so, remind yourself that what's left is actually extremely useful. 

First off, pickle juice has a ton of culinary uses — it can be repurposed for savory cocktails or used as a pickleback, which is a palate chaser after a stiff shot. You can even use the liquid gold to brine humble cuts of meat like pork chops or chicken and give them a huge boost of flavor. But the juice itself has some really handy properties, and if you find yourself dangerously low on electrolytes after a long pickup game at the basketball court, you can sip on it to replenish some of them. 

That means pickle juice can be used as a tool to hydrate when you need it most, but don't go chugging the stuff quite yet. There are some things you'll need to consider before drinking pickle juice to recharge your batteries.

Pickle juice contains two key electrolytes you need to restore after becoming dehydrated: sodium and potassium. This means it can be useful for hydration, especially if you've been exercising for a long period of time, but you need to proceed with some caution, because as we all know, pickle juice is heavy on the salt. Those watching their sodium intake might want to opt for another solution, like eating a banana and drinking plenty of water. If you're dehydrated from a hangover, pickle juice can help too — provided you can stomach it.

Another athletic issue pickle juice is thought to relieve is muscle cramps, though it's not through replacing lost electrolytes. It's thought that the vinegar in pickle juice triggers a particular muscle reflex in your entire body once it comes into contact with the back of your throat, which in turn shuts down the pain you feel when your muscles cramp up. Just how vinegar does this isn't well-researched yet, so the mechanics are still somewhat unclear.

As a bonus, if you're sipping on juice from naturally fermented pickled products like kimchi or sauerkraut (as opposed to pickles made with straight vinegar), you'll be taking in probiotics, which are known to support gut health.

So yes, pickle juice can indeed help hydrate you, especially if you need electrolytes quickly, with the added bonus of muscle cramp relief if you need it. Just make sure you don't drink too much since all that salt can quickly become too much.