Why do people tell you not to drink while you're eating?

[Anonynomnom]

It's been said to me many time from my grandmother, and a few older friends. I've asked them to explain it, but it kind of falls short every time.

[amanset]

I have never heard this.

[Shagnasty]

I have never heard it either. Does it mean literally not having anything including water at the table (very strange) or not swallowing with both food and liquid in your mouth at the same time (not so strange)?

[Ferret Herder]

Backwash? (I haven't heard it either.)

[Anonynomnom]

Well I did some of my own research and Leaf Sri Lanka (http://www.leafsrilanka.org/leaf-sri-lanka/215-six-ways-to-counter-unnecessary-eating) said

Don’t drink while you eat

Virtually all people drink water, milk, soda, or alcohol to help them wash down their meals, but what this is actually doing is flushing the food through the belly much faster so individuals don’t get the feeling that they’re full until it’s too late and they’ve eaten way too much food. Try to eat a meal without drinking and notice how fast that awareness of being full comes.

Drink a glass of water 15 minutes before you consume

Another approach that plenty of weight loss professionals recommend is that you drink a glass of water 15 minutes before consuming. This will help folks reduce unnecessary eating because occasionally their mind gets mixed-up and doesn’t recognize that they’re actually thirsty and not hungry.

Some other people had different ideas, but this makes the most sense to me.

[jackdavinci]

I've also heard that it dilutes stomach acid and so affects digestion.

But there's just no way I can eat without drinking something, so it doesn't really matter.

[Khadaji]

It was explained to me that if you don't drink while eating your are forced to chew more thoroughly, and this gives you more time to feel full, thus eating less.

[Anonynomnom]

I've heard both jackdavinci and Khadaji's explanations. Some people say that the diluting of the stomach acid is sort of bunk(not true), so I'm not sure what to think about that without doing more research.
Although, I can see how giving your self time to eat and feel full makes some sort of sense.

[Max the Immortal]

I've never heard of this either.

[Exapno Mapcase]

Don’t drink while you eat

Virtually all people drink water, milk, soda, or alcohol to help them wash down their meals, but what this is actually doing is flushing the food through the belly much faster so individuals don’t get the feeling that they’re full until it’s too late and they’ve eaten way too much food. Try to eat a meal without drinking and notice how fast that awareness of being full comes.

Drink a glass of water 15 minutes before you consume

Another approach that plenty of weight loss professionals recommend is that you drink a glass of water 15 minutes before consuming. This will help folks reduce unnecessary eating because occasionally their mind gets mixed-up and doesn’t recognize that they’re actually thirsty and not hungry.
This is unmitigated nonsense in every possible way.

The stomach works extremely efficiently to separate liquids and solids. Liquids do not flush the solids through faster. The liquids go through first and the solids stay to be broken down by the stomach acid (and some enzymes).

In addition, liquids do not make you feel full faster. Precisely the opposite. People who have had stomach-shrinking surgery are told not to drink while eating because the liquids will stretch the smaller stomach and make you feel full before you can get a complete meal eaten.

That would also be the reason why drinking before eating makes someone feel fuller. The mind doesn't get mixed-up; the stomach is sending signals because of the stretching.

I also had never heard anyone saying not to drink while you're eating in any normal situation. There is no medical reason for it I can think of as long as you have a whole stomach. No wonder you couldn't get a reason.

[Anonynomnom]

Good to know, thanks for helping to clear it up

[Dr. Strangelove]

This is unmitigated nonsense in every possible way.

The site also contains gems of English prose like the following:
A bosomy pulse heart rate monitor is usually intermittent heart defeat fee watching tendency that need the user to place 2 fingertips to acquire Type A pulse. This sort of monitor may measure heart rate all through 2 range. The 1st picks up the particular physical pattern signal the way the intuition creates together together making use of each defeat together with find out the middle fee, and the 2nd may be to stage the actual heartbeat via measuring single’s intuition suppress.

[jjimm]

When I was a kid my mother told me off for drinking too much fluid with my meal. Her explanation was "you'll give yourself a float".

I have no idea what that means, though the implication is that the stomach contents would float to the top of the esophagus or something. Gross.

I must ask her what she meant the next time I see her.

[Anonynomnom]

hahaha never heard that one, but I'm glad I am not alone in this.

[Yllaria]

I've never heard it, but I've read it several different times. The explanations are always different and never make sense, and it can always be traced back to someone who is either selling a book or giving inspirational speeches. In other words, it's woo.

It spreads because it's an easy thing for someone to hear and apply. And by apply, I mean both follow personally and pontificate about smugly or authoritatively to others. It's only use is to beat other people up with it.

Unless it really is adding too much yin. (That was the first reason I ever heard.)

[Ambivalid]

Just a WAG, but maybe it's something some people would say because they think the drink would take up the room in your stomach for getting as much food, (as in finish your plate!, nutritious food) as possible in.

[Derleth]

This is going vaguely off-topic, but who here was told to chew each bite of their food some specific number of times, usually in the hundred-or-so range? If so, you were listening to the utterly stupid wisdom of Horace Fletcher, the Great Masticator. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Fletcher) He died in 1919, way too interested in human feces and right before his ideas were replaced by the idea of calorie-counting (or, the theory that the human body is not a magic mass-energy-making machine). As Fletcher said, "Heaven will castigate those who don't masticate", leading me to conclude he completely misheard some of the most interesting sermons of his childhood.

Anyway, the advice is looney and you got programmed by some idiot's shambling zombie dogma.

[Alley Dweller]

So, I take it that soup would be a bad thing to eat? Or does the soup-making process somehow make the liquid OK? Chili? Gravy? Salad dressing? Heck, aren't fruits and most vegetables mostly water? Are those bad to eat?

I would never eat without water or some liquid at hand. I have had bad experiences nearly choking on dry food.

[Covered_In_Bees!]

In addition, liquids do not make you feel full faster. Precisely the opposite. People who have had stomach-shrinking surgery are told not to drink while eating because the liquids will stretch the smaller stomach and make you feel full before you can get a complete meal eaten.

That would also be the reason why drinking before eating makes someone feel fuller. The mind doesn't get mixed-up; the stomach is sending signals because of the stretching.

Perhaps it's just because I should be sleeping, but this makes no sense, you contradict yourself in these two paragraphs. I get the feeling there is a nuance to what you said that is going over my head.


liquids do not make you feel full faster.

the reason why drinking before eating makes someone feel fuller.

So which is it?

[Ambivalid]

Originally Posted by Exapno Mapcase
In addition, liquids do not make you feel full faster. Precisely the opposite. People who have had stomach-shrinking surgery are told not to drink while eating because the liquids will stretch the smaller stomach and make you feel full before you can get a complete meal eaten.

(bolding mine) Isn't this basically saying the exact same thing? :confused:
How, exactly, is one "precisely the opposite" of the other?

[Covered_In_Bees!]

Oh good, I'm not the only one who was confused. Whew.

[naita]

Originally Posted by Exapno Mapcase
In addition, liquids do not make you feel full faster. Precisely the opposite. People who have had stomach-shrinking surgery are told not to drink while eating because the liquids will stretch the smaller stomach and make you feel full before you can get a complete meal eaten.

(bolding mine) Isn't this basically saying the exact same thing? :confused:
How, exactly, is one "precisely the opposite" of the other?

Considering it was a refutation of a claim that drinking while eating prevented accurately judging your food intake by flushing food into your intestine before it contributed to you feeling full, I'd hazard the guess the meaning of the first sentence should be reversed.

[Hari Seldon]

Just a WAG, but maybe it's something some people would say because they think the drink would take up the room in your stomach for getting as much food, (as in finish your plate!, nutritious food) as possible in.

Right on! My mother banned water and other liquids at meals because it would ruin our appetites (for food, of course). If only..., but that was the typical Jewish mother attitude. A fat kid (which I was) is a healthy kid. Oh yes, and throw food on their plate even they are full and then say, "You can eat a little more." I still don't drink water with meals (except at restaurants), although maybe I should. My wife was raised on the same regime.

[Broomstick]

I've heard of this off and on throughout the years and I agree, the explanations have always been full of woo.

[Ludovic]

As Fletcher said, "Heaven will castigate those who don't masticate", leading me to conclude he completely misheard some of the most interesting sermons of his childhood.
Every time you kill a kitten, God masticates.

[Mangetout]

It's just a bit of folklore - there are similar things about not combining certain foods and/or drinks (for example, milk with fish - some versions say this will make you sick, other versions say it will kill you)

[constanze]

It's been said to me many time from my grandmother, and a few older friends.

Were you a young child when you were told?

Because with young children, as well as elderly people, the foremost concern I can see is "stuff going down the wrong pipe": risk of getting the drink into the air pipe and coughing.

Besides, it's also bad table manners. You're supposed to take your time to enjoy the meal that somebody spent time preparing, not hog it down like a wild pig.

So you eat one bite fully and swallow before you speak, and you swallow your bite and wipe your mouth before taking a drink from your glass. (this is not only more polite, but again also reduces the risk of choking).

What I heard as kid was "don't drink so much water, or you will be full too soon", meaning that the water was empty, so I would be hungry after 1 or 2 hours, but the next meal would be 4 hours away. With the big portions of today, this is a different problem.

[Exapno Mapcase]

Let me try that again.

I was responding to this part:
Virtually all people drink water, milk, soda, or alcohol to help them wash down their meals, but what this is actually doing is flushing the food through the belly much faster so individuals don’t get the feeling that they’re full until it’s too late and they’ve eaten way too much food. Try to eat a meal without drinking and notice how fast that awareness of being full comes.

Sentence one is wrong because food is not being flushed through the body faster. You don't feel you're full too late. You feel full sooner. Sentence two is wrong because eating a meal without drinking slows your awareness of being full.

Is that better?

And Alley Dweller, those with smaller stomachs are told specifically not to have soup, at least in the early stages of recovery.

Your stomach does literally shrink as it is emptied and then stretches when food is supplied. That creates the signals that tell you of fullness - and if you eat too much of feeling stuffed or very uncomfortable. Surgery that removes part of the stomach or the similar surgery that puts a band around the stomach eliminates how far a stomach can stretch and thus produces the signals of fullness much faster. If your stomach is literally tiny, even a small amount of liquid will set off the trigger. You will stop eating before you get nutritional sufficiency. That's not the same as liquids flushing foods through, which would produce the opposite effect - allowing you to eat more.

[Jackmannii]

My parents had a rule about not drinking anything at the table while eating - only afterwards was it permitted.

And they were both physicians. No health justifications were used, it just seemed to be a kind of warped etiquette.

Around age 12 or so I began ignoring the rule and drank beverages while eating (first major rebellion). :D

[Laggard]

Never heard of this either.

[Machine Elf]

That's not the same as liquids flushing foods through, which would produce the opposite effect - allowing you to eat more.

As you noted, liquids don't flush the food through. This is why it's so difficult to drink a gallon of milk in an hour. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_chugging#Medical_explanation) Pure water will pass through your stomach in short order, but a water-based slurry of fats and proteins (e.g. dinner ingested along with a glass or two of water) will be retained for a considerable time.

...drinking a gallon of milk is more difficult than drinking a gallon of water. The fat and protein in milk both inhibit the stomach from releasing its contents into the small intestine, forcing more of the liquid to remain in the stomach.

[Exapno Mapcase]

As you noted, liquids don't flush the food through. This is why it's so difficult to drink a gallon of milk in an hour. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_chugging#Medical_explanation) Pure water will pass through your stomach in short order, but a water-based slurry of fats and proteins (e.g. dinner ingested along with a glass or two of water) will be retained for a considerable time.

Liquid is shorthand for a continuum from water to sludge. Even so-called solid foods can be mostly water, as with many fruits. It's easier to talk about the effects of one end of one spectrum vs. the end of the other spectrum, but the real world is much more complicated than that.

Milk is a good example in many ways. People with lactose intolerance are told that having food move more slowly through their intestines puts the food in contact longer with the lactase-making cells so there is a greater chance that more will be digested and fewer symptoms develop. Eating dairy as a part of meals is a known way to reduce symptoms over just having a glass of milk by itself. There's some evidence that even the added bulk of chocolate milk produces fewer symptoms than white milk.

And at the extremes of digestibility, see eating contests, especially hot dog contests where the champs dip the buns in water to make them easier to get down, but which adds to the bulk.

[davekhps]

Let me try that again.

I was responding to this part:


Sentence one is wrong because food is not being flushed through the body faster. You don't feel you're full too late. You feel full sooner. Sentence two is wrong because eating a meal without drinking slows your awareness of being full.

Is that better?

And Alley Dweller, those with smaller stomachs are told specifically not to have soup, at least in the early stages of recovery.

Your stomach does literally shrink as it is emptied and then stretches when food is supplied. That creates the signals that tell you of fullness - and if you eat too much of feeling stuffed or very uncomfortable. Surgery that removes part of the stomach or the similar surgery that puts a band around the stomach eliminates how far a stomach can stretch and thus produces the signals of fullness much faster. If your stomach is literally tiny, even a small amount of liquid will set off the trigger. You will stop eating before you get nutritional sufficiency. That's not the same as liquids flushing foods through, which would produce the opposite effect - allowing you to eat more.

Speaking as someone who just had a vertical sleeve gastrectomy after going through six months of bariatric surgery education from a nationally-recognized bariatric center of excellence... what you've written here is COMPLETELY THE OPPOSITE of what bariatric surgeons tell people.

Perhaps the medical professionals are wrong, but what we were explicitly and repeatedly told is the following:

- Stop drinking 30 minutes before eattng.
- Take no more than 30 minutes to eat.
- Begin drinking no sooner than 30 minutes after eating.

The reason for this iron-clad rule? Drinking before you eat lubricates the stomach, drinking while you eat flushes food through that you instead want to sit in your stomach to provide that "full" feeling.

Period, full stop.

The worry about a stomach increasing in size is a long-term worry, but that's unrelated to combining liquids with solid food, instead focused merely on overeating solid food. Even then, the risks vary by surgery (lowest with Lap Band- overeating will likely cause the band to slip well before it increases the size of your pouch-- and highest with gastric bypass, not because it increases your stomach size but because it risks blowing out the new sphincter point at the bottom of your re-directed stomach).

The only other fact that's somewhat related to this is a prohibition against carbonation for fear that carbonated drinks can expand the stomach unnecessarily; however, the research is very inconclusive in that arena, so it's more of a precaution than anything (practically, carbonation is rarely well-tolerated, particularly by bypass or sleeve patients, but there are even exceptions there).

Anyway... perhaps my surgeons were wrong, but the reason they gave was clear: at least with a bariatrically-reduced stomach, combining liquids and solid foods is a recipe for rapid movement of the solid food into the small intestine, and thus defeats the purpose of having the bariatric surgery (i.e., artificially restrict your stomach size to keep smaller amounts of food inside your stomach longer until it signals your brain that it's full). Their empirical evidence is that the number one reason for bariatric failure is returning to the habit of drinking while eating.

Please note: none of this may apply to a *normal* stomach. In fact, I'd be surprised if it did.

[slm2955]

Because it supposedly makes digestion faster and makes you hungrier, or something like that. (So I heard)

[Annie-Xmas]

Harvey & Marilyn Diamond of the Fit For Life Diet give the "liquids dilute stomach acids" explanation.

Macrobiotics is very down on drinking anything. They believe you should only drink enough to pee twice a day!

I always drink at least 10 glasses of fluid a day. If I haven't had at least eight by suppertime, I find myself gulping my drink and ignoring my food.

[Exapno Mapcase]

Perhaps the medical professionals are wrong, but what we were explicitly and repeatedly told is the following:

- Stop drinking 30 minutes before eattng.
- Take no more than 30 minutes to eat.
- Begin drinking no sooner than 30 minutes after eating.

The reason for this iron-clad rule? Drinking before you eat lubricates the stomach, drinking while you eat flushes food through that you instead want to sit in your stomach to provide that "full" feeling.

Period, full stop.



I agree completely that's the medical advice.

My understanding from reading a lot on the subject is not at all what you said. There's no such thing as lubricating the stomach. Drinking does not flush food through.

Weight Loss Surgery Recovery (http://www.yourbariatricsurgeryguide.com/surgery-after/)
# Chew your food slowly and thoroughly, to reduce it to very small pieces. You may want to grind your meat before eating it.
# Wait two to three minutes between bites.
# Drink fluids at a time other than when you are eating, to avoid a premature feeling of fullness that may make you feel like vomiting.

Life After Bariatric Surgery: The Weight Loss Surgery Lifestyle (http://www.obesityhelp.com/content/lifeafter.html)
Don't drink fluids while eating. They will make you feel full before you have eaten enough food. Fluids consumed with meals can cause vomiting and dumping syndrome, and can lead to feeling hungry sooner after a meal.

Notice the mention of dumping syndrome. That is a possible problem, but it is not caused strictly from liquids, but by consuming the wrong foods in the wrong way.

Mayo Clinic (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/gastric-bypass-diet/my00827)
# Drink liquids between meals. Drinking liquids with your meals can cause pain, nausea and vomiting as well as dumping syndrome. Also, drinking too much liquid at or around mealtime can leave you feeling overly full and prevent you from eating enough nutrient-rich foods. Expect to drink at least 6 to 8 cups (48 to 64 ounces or 1.4 to 1.9 liters) of fluids a day to prevent dehydration.

# Eat and drink slowly. Eating or drinking too quickly may cause dumping syndrome — when foods and liquids enter your small intestine rapidly and in larger amounts than normal, causing nausea, vomiting, dizziness, sweating and eventually diarrhea. To prevent dumping syndrome, choose foods and liquids low in fat and sugar, eat and drink slowly, and wait 30 to 45 minutes before or after each meal to drink liquids. Take at least 30 minutes to eat your meals and 30 to 60 minutes to drink 1 cup (237 milliliters) of liquid. Avoid foods high in fat and sugar, such as nondiet soda, candy, candy bars and ice cream.

I'm guessing you're remembering the warning about dumping syndrome. That may be a problem. But the basic reason for not including liquids is to avoid fullness and that applies to everyone.