Towards the end of every spring semester, students across the country close their curtains, put on headphones, and shut out the outside world in many last-minute attempts to finish their assignments and study for final exams. During exam periods and late-night study sessions, students often find themselves fueling their work with coffee, soda, or most prominently energy drinks. Considering many students often find themselves operating within a tight budget it begs the question:
What energy drink brands provide the best Fuel for thought for a restless student?
While taste is a subjective matter, nutritional content is not. Among the myriad of energy elixirs available at your local convenience store, three of the most prominent are Red Bull, Celsius, and Guayaki.
To determine what could be considered the best energy drink for college students. The products offered need to be examined across three factors, caffeine, calories, and cost.
Using the three companies' websites we can gather the total products offered, nutritional information, and caffeine content and then cross reference that with cost information from Amazon to assess what could be considered the best.
While Guayaki is more expensive than the rest, the company's focus on organic ingredients and Market Driven Regeneration has garnered it a following. For fans of the company and Yerba mate, Guayaki has an ambassador program aptly named Ambacebador after cebadors which in South American yerba mate culture is a person who shares their Mate.
"I started drinking Guayaki before because of the organic feel for it," Said Travis O'Neal, 30, a school worker and member of Guayaki's ambassador program. "I was drinking Monsters and Red Bulls and I stepped away from those because of the additives, I should say the side effects from the long-term of drinking those."
O'Neal's comments raise necessary questions about caffeine consumption. Like what's the healthiest way to drink it or how much of it should I actually drink?
The FDA recommends most adults limit their caffeine consumption to about 400 milligrams a day to prevent any dangerous or negative effects associated with overconsumption. That's about two cans of Celsius, five standard cans of Red Bull, or about one to three cans of Guayaki Yerba Mate Drinks depending on the variety.
Many students and professionals often find themselves crashing midday after their morning coffee or drink ritual but the solution to this crash might seem like its in the blind spot for students focused on getting their work in.
" So after you take whatever source of caffeine you've taken, it usually takes a while to kind of like kick in depending on your beverage or drink or the amount [of caffeine] that could be like 10 to like 30 minutes. So in between that time before it starts to kick in, you take a nap," Said Suzie Tze, a graduate intern at Rowan University's Wellness Center. Tze wrote a blog post last year illustrating some of the problems with college students' caffeine consumption. "So it does two things. One is that the tired chemicals in your brain get cleared out. And then when it comes time for the caffeine to kick in and bind to the receptors, it does its job. So then after your little 20 to 30-minute nap, you wake up feeling not only energized, one by the caffeine and also two by clearing out those tired chemicals in your brain."
The next time you're strolling the aisles of your local 7/11, keep these findings in mind when picking out one of the many energy elixirs on the market.
If you're looking for a quick fix of caffeine, Celsius has the most caffeine offered per can with the added boost of low calories, but keep in mind there won't be much guava juice in your sparkling Kiwi guava beverage.
If you just need a quick pick-me-up once every week or so, Red Bull offers better caffeine content than a can of Coke with the bonus of lower calories.
If you're looking for a more sustainable option for your caffeinated needs, Guayaki's wide range of beverages and climate-driven marketing efforts might be the best pick for you.
If you want nothing less than a consistent caffeine rush at the cheapest price point for the least calories, traditional black coffee is the best way to get your fix, but adding sweeteners and creamers would make it as bad if not worse than most of the energy drinks discussed.
If you want to see where your favorite energy drink stacks up against any of the ones we have discussed click through the visualization below!
For a full analysis of all of the nutritional and cost information associated with the products listed, refer to the spreadsheet below.
