Is It Good to Drink Water While Eating?

The nutrition experts are still debating whether it is good for the digestion process to drink water while eating or not. While many of them claim that drinking water while eating benefits digestion and supports the dissolution of nutrients, another group of experts have the opposite attitude. Namely, they think that drinking water or some other beverage while eating, in fact, slows down and even harms the process of digestion. In this way, poor digestion leaves a lot of toxins that are responsible for flatulence and cramps in the stomach. There are many studies claiming water can prevent a body from producing enough enzymes, essential for digestion if taken during a meal. This statement is especially true if we take a lot of cold water or some other drink at once. Experts warn us if we must drink water during a meal, then it should be warm water taken in small quantities, ideally – 2 dl. To learn more about the researches and their results, the article “Is It Wrong to Drink Water While Eating?” offers us the following example.

About 80 obese adults in their fifties were selected for the three month study. The method used was to give all participants advice on how they might lose weight and how to go about it using diet and exercise. Then, half the group were asked to preload (drink about a pint or two glasses of water) before one or two meals a day. They were also checked to see if they were really doing so by regularly measuring their urine output! The other half group were just told to imagine they were full before they sat down to eat.

The results showed that both groups lost weight. But those who were drinking water before all meals had reduced their weight by 4.3kg (9.48 lbs) over the 12 weeks. They also lost 2.7 pounds more than the “full stomach thinkers”, who, interestingly enough were working out and exercising more than their water-drinking colleagues.

However, all experts agree that water is essential for digestion, metabolism and elimination of body waste. All of them could not agree more on benefits of hydration and its huge positive effects on metabolic processes. Even though they differ in their opinions regarding taking water during a meal, they finally find consensus about drinking water. According to them, drinking water a half an hour before and an hour after a meal can significantly improve digestion process. In this way, we will ensure that our body is properly hydrated that will increase metabolic activities. Hydration is essential for digestive processes in our body and should be taken seriously. The best time to drink a lot of water are periods between the meals. If our body is properly hydrated, we will not have to drink water while eating. This little habit will easily disappear.