By Sebastian Madlangbayan, founder of Cleonse: the world's cleanest 3-ingredient organic electrolyte.
It depends entirely on the product. Plain salt in water doesn't break a fast in any meaningful sense — no calories, no insulin response. Zero-calorie electrolyte powders mostly don't. Cleonse does. It has 100 calories, 26 g of carbohydrate and 24 g of sugar per stick. That breaks a fast, full stop.
I make Cleonse. I'd rather lose the sale than have you drink 24 grams of sugar at hour sixteen thinking it's fine.
Start with what you're actually fasting for
"Breaking a fast" isn't one thing, because people fast for at least three different reasons and the threshold is different for each.
1. Metabolic / insulin. Most intermittent fasting is really about keeping insulin low and staying in a fat-oxidising state between meals. Anything with meaningful carbohydrate or protein raises insulin. Fat alone raises it far less. Water, salt and black coffee, essentially not at all.
2. Autophagy. The cellular clean-up process people chase on longer fasts. The human evidence here is thinner than the internet suggests, and there's no established number of calories that switches it off. The conservative practice most people follow is to keep intake near zero.
3. Caloric restriction. If you're time-restricted eating for calorie control, the only question is whether the calories count. 100 calories count.
The rule of thumb that has emerged — under about 50 calories, essentially nothing that spikes insulin — is a practical heuristic, not a law of physiology. But it's a reasonable line, and Cleonse is on the wrong side of it by a factor of two.
Where Cleonse lands, precisely
Here's the panel. No hedging.
| Per 30 g stick | |
|---|---|
| Calories | 100 |
| Total carbohydrate | 26 g |
| Total sugars | 24 g (organic cane sugar) |
| Sodium | 500 mg |
| Ingredients | 3: organic lemon or strawberry powder, organic cane sugar, French grey sea salt |
24 grams of sucrose in 473 ml of water is, functionally, lemonade with very good salt in it. It will raise blood glucose. It will raise insulin. If your fasting protocol has any metabolic goal at all, this ends the fast.
That's not a flaw in the product. It's the product. Cleonse was built so that sodium and carbohydrate arrive together during hard work — which is a genuinely useful thing during a two-hour tennis match and a genuinely useless thing at 10am on a 16:8 protocol.
The category, sorted honestly
| Option | Calories | Breaks a fast? |
|---|---|---|
| Water + a pinch of unrefined salt | 0 | No |
| LMNT Raw (unflavored) | 0 | No |
| Re-Lyte Unflavored | 0 | No |
| LMNT flavored (stevia) | 0 | Almost certainly not — see the grey zone below |
| DripDrop Zero Sugar (sucralose + ace-K) | ~5 | Almost certainly not |
| Cure Hydration | 25 | Borderline; small but not zero |
| Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier | ~45–50 | Yes |
| Skratch Labs Sport Hydration | 80 | Yes |
| Cleonse | 100 | Yes |
| Gatorade (20 oz) | ~140 | Yes |
If your only requirement is sodium in a fasted window, the top three rows are free and effective, and two of them aren't my product.
The grey zone nobody explains
A few things worth knowing before you trust a "0 calories" label.
"0 calories" can mean up to 5 calories. US labelling rules let a product declare zero calories per serving if it contains fewer than five. Most zero-sugar electrolyte sticks contain a gram or two of something — a flavour carrier, maltodextrin, an amino acid — that rounds down. For metabolic purposes this is almost always irrelevant. For a hardline autophagy protocol, "zero" is an accounting term, not a physical fact.
Non-nutritive sweeteners are genuinely debated. Stevia, sucralose and acesulfame potassium contribute no meaningful calories. Whether the sweet taste itself triggers a cephalic-phase insulin response is a live question with mixed findings, and the effect, where it's been measured, is small. My read: if you're fasting for metabolic reasons, sweetened zero-calorie electrolytes are fine. If you're fasting for autophagy and being strict about it, use unflavored.
Citric acid, amino acids and maltodextrin all count as something. They're small amounts. They're not nothing. Unflavored salt-based products avoid the whole question.
Why you should be salting your fast anyway
Here's the part that surprises people: fasting actively loses you sodium.
It's a documented phenomenon called the natriuresis of fasting. Sodium excretion rises within days of starting a fast, and it reverses almost immediately when you eat. One case series documented peak daily sodium loss of 68 mEq alongside close to a litre of negative fluid balance, reversing on refeed. One proposed mechanism ties it to glucose-sodium co-transport in the kidney: with no dietary glucose arriving, the filtered glucose load stays flat, and the sodium that would otherwise be reabsorbed alongside it goes out in the urine instead.
Practically, this is a large part of why extended fasts come with headaches, lightheadedness on standing, brain fog, muscle cramps and general flatness — the "keto flu" experience overlaps heavily with being low on sodium and fluid.
So: fasting people arguably need sodium more than fed people, not less. The mistake is reaching for a carbohydrate-based sports drink to get it.
What I'd actually use in a fasted window
Plain salt and water. Somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 teaspoon of unrefined salt in 16–24 oz of water, sipped, not slammed. That's roughly 500–1,200 mg of sodium depending on the salt and the scoop. It costs nothing. If you want the same salt that's in my product, buy a bag of French grey sea salt and use that. I'm not being coy — for a fasted window it's the correct tool and it's cheaper than anything I sell.
LMNT Raw. Unflavored, no stevia, 1,000 mg sodium, zero calories. It's a well-made product and it's built for exactly this.
Re-Lyte Unflavored. 1,000 mg sodium, no sweetener, and among the lowest cost per serving in the category.
A flavored zero-sugar stick if plain salt water makes you gag and you're fasting for metabolic rather than autophagy reasons. LMNT, Re-Lyte, DripDrop Zero Sugar all work; check whether you're okay with stevia or sucralose.
None of those are Cleonse. That's the honest answer to the question in the title.
Where Cleonse does belong
Two windows.
During training. This is what the formula is for. Past roughly 60–90 minutes of continuous work, exogenous carbohydrate measurably preserves performance — that's about as settled as sports nutrition gets. And glucose and sodium are absorbed together at the SGLT1 transporter in the small intestine, which is the mechanism underneath every oral rehydration formula ever written. 26 g of carbohydrate and 500 mg of sodium in one bottle is one bottle instead of two decisions. More on that in do electrolytes need sugar.
The refeed window. If you're breaking a fast after a long one, you want fluid, sodium and easily absorbed carbohydrate, and you want it gentle. A stick in 16 oz of water is a reasonable first thing in — 500 mg sodium, 24 g of simple sugar, three ingredients, nothing your gut has to argue with. Then eat real food.
That's the honest positioning: Cleonse is a training-and-refeed product. It is not a fasting product, and I've stopped trying to make it sound like one.
Try The World's Cleanest Electrolyte™
Three ingredients. 500mg sodium. Nothing artificial. Free shipping and a 30-day guarantee.
Shop CleonseFrequently asked questions
Does Cleonse break a fast? Yes. Cleonse contains 100 calories, 26 g of carbohydrate and 24 g of sugar per 30 g stick. That will raise blood glucose and insulin and ends a fast under any definition. Cleonse is designed for use during training and in the refeed window, not during fasted windows.
Do electrolytes break a fast? Only if they contain calories. Sodium, potassium, magnesium and chloride are minerals with no caloric value and no insulin response, so plain unflavored electrolytes — or salt in water — do not break a fast. Electrolyte drinks that contain sugar, maltodextrin, dextrose or meaningful amounts of amino acids do.
Does salt water break a fast? No. Salt contributes no calories and does not raise insulin. Adding unrefined salt to water during a fast is generally considered compatible with fasting and helps offset the sodium loss that fasting itself causes.
Do zero-calorie sweeteners like stevia or sucralose break a fast? For metabolic and calorie-based fasting goals, almost certainly not — they contribute negligible calories. Whether sweet taste alone produces a small cephalic-phase insulin response is still debated, and any effect appears small. If you're fasting strictly for autophagy, unflavored products remove the question entirely.
Why do I get headaches and cramps while fasting? Sodium and fluid loss is a major contributor. Fasting triggers an increase in sodium excretion — the natriuresis of fasting — which reverses as soon as you eat. Replacing sodium with plain salt water or an unflavored electrolyte product addresses the most common cause without adding calories.
What should I drink during a fast instead of Cleonse? Water with 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of unrefined salt, or a zero-calorie unflavored product such as LMNT Raw or Re-Lyte Unflavored. All three deliver sodium with no calories. Save Cleonse for training sessions and for breaking the fast.
Cleonse: three ingredients — organic lemon or strawberry powder, organic cane sugar, French grey sea salt. 500 mg sodium, 85+ trace minerals, 100 calories, 26 g carbohydrate, 24 g sugar per 30 g stick in 16 oz (473 ml) of water. No stevia, no artificial sweeteners, no dyes. $33 / $66 / $110 for 10 / 30 / 60 sticks, free shipping, 30-day guarantee. See the product.
Related: Do electrolytes need sugar · Cleonse vs LMNT · What is the cleanest electrolyte
Editor's note and sources
I founded Cleonse, which as this article says plainly does break a fast. Competitor calorie and label figures were read from current public product pages in July 2026 and change without notice. Fasting protocols vary widely and the thresholds discussed here are practical conventions, not settled physiology.
- Fasting-induced natriuresis and the SGLT hypothesis, Frontiers in Endocrinology 2020: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/endocrinology/articles/10.3389/fendo.2020.00217/full
- Studies on the natriuresis of fasting, Metabolism: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0026049566901752
- Insulin and renal sodium handling, Diabetologia: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00252649
- FDA nutrient content claims — "calorie free" permitted below 5 calories per serving (21 CFR 101.60): https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-101/subpart-D/section-101.60
- Sodium-glucose cotransport and intestinal fluid absorption, Scientific Reports 2020: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-64818-3
- Jeukendrup A., carbohydrate intake during exercise, Sports Medicine 2014: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-014-0148-z
- LMNT current label and Raw unflavored: https://drinklmnt.com/products/lmnt-recharge-electrolyte-drink
- Redmond Re-Lyte Unflavored: https://living.redmond.com/products/re-lyte-hydration
- DripDrop Zero Sugar label: https://dripdrop.com/products/zero-variety-pack-8-32
Nothing here is medical advice. Talk to a clinician before starting an extended fast, particularly if you take blood pressure or diabetes medication. Cleonse supports hydration; it does not diagnose, treat, or prevent any condition.