Why do we drink water cold when we are thirsty?

Factual Questions
1

Why do we drink water cold when we are thirsty? Do all cultures? I asked this question and the response i recieved seemed rather unsure.

“My guess is biological imperative – back in early days of our evolution, almost all water was cold (at least, colder than your body temperature.)”

This makes sense but, hot water in the form of springs and small bodies of water heated by solar radiation have existed just as long, certainly in lesser quantity, but could a civilization (possibly in the Polynesians) exist that had a large supply of warm water and hence now enjoys warm water when thirsty?

2

I would think that there would tend to be feeling of distrust towards naturally warm water. It tends to smell because of dissolved minerals, it’s got crud growing in it, etc. OTOH, the cleanest water (from natural springs) tends to be freakin’ freezing for some reason.

Plus there’s the whole ‘quenches your thirst better’ thing.

3

Wow, what an off-the-wall premier question! Congratulations! Now for a response:

Thruout most of mankind’s existance, he drank whatever water he could find, regardless of temperature. Baking in the sun in muddy pools filled with elephant dung, bubbling up from springs tasting of sulphur, melting on the ices surface under direct sunshine, he drank it 'cuz he needed fresh water or he’d die. Temperature was irrelevant. He could drink it hotter than body temp, but usually it didn’t come that way, and if it’s over 130 degrees fahrenheit, it causes damage to drink it that hot. The enjoyment of drinking water arose from being thirsty, drinking water, and enjoying the process of not being thirsty anymore.

Fast-forward to today: designer water, many temperatures. The europeans generally prefer their water only slightly cooled or at room temperature, probably ‘cuz they never have embraced superior ice-making technology. Here in the good ol’ US of A enjoy it colder as we associate being thirsty with being hot and thirsty. Cold drinks do the job.

I hope that obfuscates things for you.

The above is based on my personal biases and does not rely on any documented facts

Qadgop, MD

4

A friend of mine is teaching english in China. One of her cultural observations (she makes a newsletter-type thing that she e-mails to us, it’s very cool) is that when traveling, the average person carries a thermos of hot water. When thirsty, they sometimes add tea to a cup of it, but usually they just drink the hot water. She asked why, and was told that it was soothing and helped the digestion. That was her observation, anyway.

K.

5

For as long as I can remember, I’ve drunk warm or room-temperature water when I was thirsty. It seems to quench my thirst more effectively and doesn’t make my teeth or throat cold. I’m guessing any consistencies you see are culturally driven, not biological.

6

I deny the whole premise of the question, that we drink cold water to cure thrist.

  1. As someone else pointed out, not everyone does drink cold water. Some drink it hot. If you’re sick like me, you really like lukewarm Coke that has gone flat. It’s at least to some degree cultural. I drink hot tea at Chinese food joints, and enjoy hot chocolate when I can get it.

  2. Much of the time when you’re drinking water, you are trying to cool yourself. This is obviously more efficient with cold water than with hot water. Being thirsty is a different ball of wax – water temperature shouldn’t matter. I don’t know how you would decide how often we drink because of temperature or thirst, but there’s definitely a big confounding of variables there. Presumably if a person got to liking cool water for helping their temperature, they would associate that as pleasurable and also prefer it for slaking their thirst.

7

Hey, I like lukewarm flat Coke! And yes, most people think it is rather gross like that, but I hate really cold Coke.

I also prefer my water to be somewhere between “cool” and “room temperature”. I drink water throughout the day, and don’t like it to be icy-cold, just wet. I’ve never checked the actual temp of the water. Guess I should.

Milk, on the other hand, must be bone-chillingly ice-cold.
:slight_smile: Welcome to the SDMB, cainxinth!

8

I don’t pretend to understand the science behind it, but my dad (who’s a food and drink research scientist) says that drinking very cold drinks on a cold day is not good for you. After spending some time in Egypt he believes that a lot of “sunstroke” or “food poisoning” cases are down to tourists misjudging temperatures and drinking water so cold that their overheated bodies find it difficult to cope.

As I said, I may be a bit confused on the science, but the point may still be valid.

9

When you are hot & you drink cold water, the cold water absorbs some of the heat, thus you feel cooler. Obviously.

10

I know we’re all just guessing but my guess is that muttrox came the closest. In other words, his guess (his second guess, to be precise) was the same as mine – that we drink cold water to cool off, not just to quench our thirst.

So I guess this post boils down to “me too!”.

11

I just agreed with handy!

Can I change my answer?

12

Try drinking a large dose of water at body temperature. See how long it takes you to throw up. Most people just can’t handle large doses of warm water, and if there is any appreciable amount of salt in the water it is garaunteed to make you sick.

13

I have always preferred beverages at room temperature or warmer. I prefer tea warm, softdrinks at room temperature, and water at room temp or warmer, depending on my mood. One exception to the rule: Beer, but even even beer is better if it is only slightly cooler than room temperature. I don’t know when I why I started, but family and friends have accepted it as part of my loveable weirdness.

One advantage to my chosen beverage temperature preference is that drinking cold things causes the throat to tense up. As singer, choosing to drink thins warm puts me at an advantage since my throat is more relaxed. There are well-known singers who will not allow anything but warm water on the stage before or during a show for this very reason.

I often drink large amounts of warm water with no ill effects. I would bet that a big part of that is cultural conditioning. Eating a grasshopper would probably make me throw up, but some cultures would consider that a delicacy. I would agree with you on the salt water part, though. …the rest I would take with a grain of salt. :smiley:

14

It’s not cultural, though I suppose you could become conditioned to it. Hospitals and paramedics commonly use warm water as an emetic. Do you actually drink large (as in in excess of a litre) doses of water that are above body temperature?

15

Years ago, probably before you were born, in prehistoric times, the conventional wisdom said don’t drink cold water when you’re hot and sweaty. It’s not good for you. Of course, now we know that is not true. You have to replenish the water you lose. I read somewhere sometime ago (don’t ask me for any citation) that cold water is absorbed more quickly than warm water. I also like the refreshing taste of a cold drink when I’m hot.

16

I don’t drink liter doses of water at once at all.

But I drink cups (8-14 oz) of hot water all the time. (The same temperature that tea is - how hot is that?) and prefer it to room temperature water, which I greatly prefer to cold water.

I usually have everything room temperature or hotter, though. I own ice trays, but I never end up using them for anything.

17

When I was a teenager I worked in the bush with old French-Canadian lumberjacks. On a hot summer day, if these old guys had worked up a sweat and were going for a drink out of an ice cold spring on a hillside, they would first splash the cold water on the insides of their wrists. This was because of the veins there close to the surface. They said it prepared their hearts for the ice cold jolt when they drank the spring water, so they wouldn’t have a heart attack.

18

Good question. Apparently, from the responses, faulty premise. We don’t all drink cold water when we’re thirsty.

I drink lots of water; I like water. But I rarely drink cold water, unless as has been commented on by others, I’m hot and am trying to cool off. That’s a different case from simply being thirsty.

I tend to like other beverages at near room temperature and, I’ve noted, several of my acquaintance will request water without ice when dining at a restaurant. When I drink a glass of water, I usually drink it all pretty quickly. If it’s cold, that’s uncomfortable. The same with coffee; I like it fresh brewed, but warm, not hot, so I can just drink the cup of coffee, now, and be done with it.

It’s not my case, but I know some people’s teeth are sensitive to temperature extremes and thus prefer beverages closer to ambient temperature.

So I suppose there’s some combination of cultural conditioning (all those ice-cold beverage ads; all those Asian tea drinkers) mixed in with personal preferences that determines how we like our water.

19

Amarinth

Tea is made using boiling water, so 100[sup]O[/sup]+. I suppose it would be 70[sup]O[/sup] or so when I drink it.
I don’t know where you’re from, but in the areas I work, and in the areas where humans presumable evolved any water drunk at room temperature will actually be at or above body temperature quite frequently. This is universally the case for water exposed to sunlight if it isn’t in very, very large pools. I also find it necessary when working outside to consume large quantities of water (in excess of 10 litres a day). I can’t possibly carry this sort of quantity with me and so don’t have the luxury of drinking in small doses, so I regularly drink in excess of a litre of water in a sitting. I don’t think anyone could stomach that amount of warm water. If I didn’t chill my water I would rapidly die of dehydration.
What I’m suggesting is that humans originally wouldn’t have had the luxury of carrying water with them, and probably only drank a few times each day. This would require drinking huge amounts in one sitting. It is possible people have developed an instinctive dislike of water above room temperature because it makes us ill. This has hung over even when we moved to colder climates where room temperature water is quite safe.
Just a theory. What I’m wondering is what it is about warm water that makes us sick.

20

If drinking warm water is impossible, makes you sick, how do you explain the drinking of tea, coffee, and hot cocoa? I have to agree with muttrox and meephead on this. It isn’t your stomach, it’s your brain.

In Asia the culture is 180 degrees the other way. Drinking warm water is healthy and drinking cold water makes you sick. I wish more Americans could travel in Asia and experience the way of life as the Asians do. They would come to understand the cultural relativity of American customs they had always assumed to be laws of physics.

In East Asian restaurants, not only do they not give you ice in your drinks, they fill your glass from a teakettle of hot water. You have to let it cool some before you can pick it up. (This does not apply to McDonald’s and places that cater to American tourists, where they ice the drinks; I’m talking about the native Asian places.)

In traditional Chinese medicine it is taught that iced drinks are very injurious to the system over time, especially to women, and will shorten the lifespan. This view of health applies all over East Asia, not just in China. Similarly, the medical theory of Avicenna, followed in Islamic countries (especially Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the subcontinent), says that you should never drink anything cold on an empty stomach; cold will harm digestion while warmth will help it. Always has to be warmed. Muslims in those countries break their Ramadân fast at sunset with soup, or else just warm water or tea. I think the traditional Jewish medical theory of Maimonides says the same thing.

The Ayurvedic system of the Hindus classifies people into three psychosomatic types. Of these three, one is hot in nature and will benefit from cool drinks. But the other two need warm drinks. The Arabs like to cool their milk before drinking, but the Hindus always heat it. Ayurveda says that it makes the milk more beneficial to drink it hot.

Even when Asians have reason to drink cool liquids, they don’t use the insane amounts of ice that Americans do. Having lived in Asia, I never, ever use ice in my drinks. Besides, they cheat you when 60% to 70% or more of the volume of a cup is filled with ice first. I always request no ice and get the full value of what I pay for. The drinks are chilled anyhow, before ice is added. What good is all that ice?

As for the quenching of thirst, warm water will work just as well as cold to replenish the cells of your body. The effect of coldness is just psychological. Here is an alternate way of increasing the thirst-quenching efficiency of water, attributed to Prophet Muhammad, the prophet of Islam: Drink three sips. Then breathe three times before drinking again. Alternate three sips and three breaths. Don’t guzzle.