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Written By: Editorial Team | Updated : January 14, 2020 11:14 AM IST
drinking water mistakes
"You shouldn't drink water during meals it's bad for your digestion." You may have heard this many a times from your parents, grandparents or other senior persons. This is one of the myths that have passed down from one generation to another, assuming it to be true.
Many believe that drinking water while eating dilutes digestive juices, interferes with the breakdown of food, impair nutrient absorption, and leads to stomach bloating. All these claims are baseless -drinking water during meals may actually help make the digestion process smoother.
But to understand how water will help in digestion, you need to first understand the normal digestive process.
Digestion begins in the mouth as you start breaking down the food by chewing. The enzymes in saliva further helps break down the food. The food then passes down the esophagus to the stomach, where it gets mixed with acidic gastric juices. The food then turns into a thick liquid known as chyme. When this moves into the small intestine, it gets mixed with digestive enzymes from your pancreas and bile acid from your liver. This is the stage where most of the nutrient absorption (75 percent) takes place. Only a small portion is processed in the large intestine and then excreted. The complete digestion process can take between 24 and 72 hours, depending on what you eat. Through your bloodstream, the nutrients then travel to different areas of your body.
The answer is no, according to many health experts, who also refute the claim that water would dilute the digestive juices in the stomach. They say that water in your stomach would not interfere with digestion of the food. Here are some explanations they have given while busting the myth -
Drinking water while eating could in fact aid in digestion process. Water can help soften food while chewing and make it easier to move down the esophagus. It can also aid in the excretion stage by making the stool soft and helping moving through the bowel.
