Water Water Everywhere

Does your dry cleaner offer you a bottle of water when you pick up your togs? It’s automatic everywhere else. Water gifting signals that we are kind and caring and “eat healthy.” We are on the same Wellness page. We’re good, right?

No other facet of the weight loss biz has been more exploited than water. It all started so innocently in 1945 when the government released a statement about water consumption immortalizing the eight glasses a day rule whilst somehow omitting that this volume is included in any balanced diet. Back then people ate food for taste and hadn’t heard about saving calories by manipulating nutrients. Nutritional information was an occasional “desserts are fattening” type remark before enjoying a banana split sundae. People quoted W.C. Fields who when asked if he drank water said, “Hell, no, fish fuck in it”.

But once the dieting biz started water became our holy beverage of choice, our savior and purifier. Washing away our excess. Soon we were willing to pay for what was free, safe, available — and tasteless. Our bodies are mostly water so it seemed to make sense. But even though water is essential to life, it is not the best choice during a meal. Proper digestion requires specific stomach actions: enzymatic activity, mechanical churning and an acidic pH 2. Water has a neutral pH of 7, which actually forces the stomach to work harder. When the stomach has to work harder, it gets bigger just like any muscle.

In 1976 each of us annually drank only a gallon of bottled water. By 2016 we were guzzling 38 gallons. Were we dying of thirst 40 years ago? No, but now we are wading into unknown waters. Water is our most precious resource. With climate change — obviously made worse by the need to dispose of billions of plastic bottles — we can’t afford more water waste. Remember, 40% of us are on track to get diabetes which means real thirst.