# Why do people tell you not to drink while you're eating? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 13, 2011, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090 "2011-12-13T22:14:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Covered\_In\_Bees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090/21 "2011-12-14T08:17:36Z")
Oh good, I’m not the only one who was confused. Whew. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090/22 "2011-12-14T09:31:18Z")
> [@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? 😕 > 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. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090/23 "2011-12-14T12:27:54Z")
> [@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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090/24 "2011-12-14T12:45:39Z")
I’ve heard of this off and on throughout the years and I agree, the explanations have always been full of woo. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090/25 "2011-12-14T13:33:32Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090/26 "2011-12-14T13:43:56Z")
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) ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090/27 "2011-12-14T14:12:36Z")
> [@Anonynomnom](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090/28 "2011-12-14T15:47:12Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090/29 "2011-12-14T17:23:03Z")
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). 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090/30 "2011-12-14T17:39:11Z")
Never heard of this either. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090/31 "2011-12-14T17:45:33Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > 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. > [@Wikipedia](#): > > …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. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090/32 "2011-12-14T17:55:57Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![davekhps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@davekhps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davekhps)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090/33 "2011-12-14T18:01:34Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![slm2955](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c6cbf5/32.png) [@slm2955](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slm2955)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090/34 "2011-12-14T18:04:01Z")
Because it supposedly makes digestion faster and makes you hungrier, or something like that. (So I heard) ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090/35 "2011-12-14T18:43:05Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090/36 "2011-12-14T20:32:30Z")
> [@davekhps](#): > > 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. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tell-you-not-to-drink-while-youre-eating/606090.md?page=1)