how can anyone not drink anything with their meal? knew a kid in middle school, always gives me his chocolate milk because he doesn't need to drink anything to go with his dry cafeteria food
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/digestion/AN01776 http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/do-cold-drinks-alter-digestion/
So... if water affects the digestive process, I guess the question is -- so what? What is the impact?
I'm not saying i agree with waiting to drink water, but youre saying it's wrong because of those basics you listed, which you are assuming are natural or proven guidelines, but they aren't. Someone else could easily say its 3,4 or 6 meals a day and would be no more right or wrong than you are. Same goes for not eating X hours before sleeping.
I'm much more health consious than the average person and this just sounds a bit ridiculous to me. Little long term impact IMO and completely over-analyzing it.
There are plenty of other spots of my diet I can clean up before worrying about when I drink my water with my meal
I also wanted to add, i find that i don't need to drink much during my meals. I do drink water with them, since i don't drink juice or soda much, but i usually only have like a cup of water available and dont always finish it. I think your body naturally doesn't get the urge to drink much while it's eating, so it won't dilute the stomach, like mentioned earlier. If it does, then I think it's for one of either two reasons: -you're probably already dehydrated and your body needs water, period, it doesn't care if you're eating or not. -you're drinking something sugary or something you crave, like alcohol, and the pleasure of it overrides the body's natural reaction against it.
Disagree. I refill my water bottle all day at the office, at least 6 times, sometimes as many as 10 times and that's just during the 9-5, and I still have to drink something with every meal.
A bath doesn't "dilute the process". That's different. It pulls blood away from your digestive system to temperature regulate your body, since you're warming or cooling yourself from the outside at a relatively quick rate. So it slows the process down, but it doesn't "dilute it"
I drink water at the end of the meal to get the excess food down my throat, or if I'm having something with a lot of bread.
If you're afraid of diluting your stomach acid, just drink something acidic instead of water. Battery acid, vinegar, or pomegranate juice all work. You might get heartburn though.
I would imagine the water content of most food is pretty significant, even after being cooked. Things like meat (flesh) are going to be, in large part, made of water. And enzymes from the liver and pancreas have as much to do with digestion as stomach acid.