From childhood, we have been told not to drink water or any other liquid with our meals as this disrupts our digestion. But is this true, or is it just a myth we have followed for generations? Let us look deeper into this topic.
To understand this, we need to understand our digestive process clearly. Once we take food in our mouth, it gets mixed with the saliva secreted by our salivary glands. Then, the food bolus moves down through our food pipe into the stomach, combining it with the gastric juices. This is called chyme, and it now moves into the small intestine.
The small intestine chyme gets mixed up with pancreatic juices and the bile secreted by the liver.
Nutrient absorption starts in the small intestine, where most nutrients are absorbed. The rest are absorbed in the colon.
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Is drinking water with meals affecting your health negatively?
1. Incomplete digestion of food
- The first myth in this context is that drinking water with meals flushes out the food from your stomach and does not allow its complete digestion. This is not true. Drinking small sips of water with meals is okay.
- Liquids pass faster through the stomach than solid food, but this does not affect the digestion of solid food. Solid food takes the time required for complete digestion in the stomach, and only after this does it move out from the stomach. Water or any other liquid does not affect the digestion of solid food.
2. This leads to weight gain.
- It is also believed that drinking water with meals helps one gain weight. However, there is no scientific study to support this belief. If you drink any liquid other than water, such as sugary beverages, milk, coffee, tea, etc., along with your meals, this will surely help you gain weight because you are feeding your body extra calories, which will make you gain weight.
- On the contrary, drinking plain water 30 minutes before meals can help you eat less and thus lose weight.
3. Hinders the absorption of nutrients
- The third myth regarding this topic is that water slows down the absorption of nutrients in the gut. It is believed that drinking water and other liquids along with meals dilutes our saliva and other gastric juices, which then do not digest and break down the nutrients properly due to being diluted. Hence, nutrients are not entirely absorbed from the food during digestion.
- In this sense, you mean that you are doubting your stomach’s ability to adjust the concentration of its digestive juices per your meal’s consistency.
- Our stomach absorbs some water from our meals and uses it to secrete gastric juices, but this water only aids in the digestion process and does not hinder it.
4. Alcohol and citric juices lower saliva secretion.
It is also believed that alcohol and citric acid juices lower the amount of saliva secreted. Drinking alcohol in moderation along with your meals does not affect your saliva secretion; here, we are talking about low alcohol concentrations in beer and wine. But drinking hard liquor with meals does lower saliva secretion by up to 20%. On the contrary, citric acid juices increase saliva secretion.
5. Leads to acidity
Another belief is that drinking water with meals increases acidity and heartburn. It must be noted here that drinking water in moderation, like a few sips with your meals, does not cause any problem, but drinking a lot of water puts pressure on your stomach, as a result of which the stomach tends to regurgitate food back into the esophagus. Thus, people suffering from GERD (gastro esophageal reflux disease) must drink only a little water with meals, which produces extra pressure on their stomach and results in acidity.
Conclusion
No scientific study reveals that drinking water between meals needs to be corrected. However, some studies say drinking water 30 minutes before and 2 hours after food aids proper digestion and absorption. Sipping a few sips of water with meals can help ease swallowing and digestion by making it soft enough. But one must avoid drinking a lot of water, say, one glass of water along with the meals, as this can lead to acidity.
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