Video Post by: Andreas Moritz
Hello, this is Andreas Moritz, and today I would like to discuss the importance of not drinking water or other beverages during your meal. And this is something that is extremely important because it will determine whether you are able to digest your food properly or improperly.
Improperly digested food becomes a source of contamination in our intestines and absorption of toxins into your blood and lymph, which can cause multiple problems throughout the body.
So it is a very essential part of our health to not drink large quantities of water or other beverages during the meal for reasons as I will explain now.
One of the principle reasons is that when you drink large amounts of fluid with your meal, you dilute the digestive secretions including hydrochloric acid, the bile. Bile is necessary to digest fats and the bile that is secreted or discharged by your gallbladder is highly concentrated where almost all the water has been withdrawn and it’s a very, very sticky, thick substance that needs to stay that way, otherwise it can… it’s unable to help digest the fats, emulsify the fats, and interfere with the digestion of proteins and other foods. So it is essential that we don’t dilute our digestive secretions during the meal.
What you can do is to make sure that you stay well hydrated before you actually eat your meal and you do that drinking like a glass of water, an eight ounce glass of water, up to 20 minutes or 15 minutes before your meal, ideally about half an hour before your meal and this will ensure that your digestive secretions are plentiful and that also means that you will be able to digest your food properly and efficiently.
Also, when you drink a glass of water that time before, like half an hour or 20 minutes before your meal, then your blood will become enriched with that water and any kind of thickness in the blood will be diminished, and your blood consistence is normal. This allows the uptake of nutrients from your intestines into your blood to be much more effective as well. This means the nutrients applied to the cells of your body will be efficient.
The other reason why it’s good not to drink large amounts of fluids, more than a couple of sips which is absolutely fine during the meal to dilute some of the food that you have eaten, particularly if it’s very dry food like rice and potatoes and beans, you may want to take a couple of sips throughout the meal to help make the food more digestible but drinking a large amount of water will basically flush down the food like in the toilet using water to flush down waste, which is not very conducive to the digestive process but makes it much more difficult for the body to later on properly digest the food and take up nutrients from that food.
So, when you also drink cold beverages, which is very common in this country, the United States, and also throughout Europe, when you use ice-cold water, something else happens. There is a certain temperature environment that is needed for enzymes, digestive enzymes, that are released by the pancreas and by the small intestine to properly and effectively digest the food. Once you change that temperature, you drop it suddenly, when you drink an ice-cold beverage that will immediately change the temperature environment and prevent these enzymes from becoming activated and to act on the food that you have eaten. That means you leave behind a large amount of undigested food.
So drinking large amounts of water and drinking cold beverages during the meal will severely interfere with the digestive process and it also prevents you from properly masticating the food. It’s almost like you wash down the food instead of masticating and mixing the food with digestive enzymes that are secreted from the mouth in the form of salivary enzymes. Salivary enzymes are needed to predigest about 80 % of the carbohydrates that we have eaten, such as in vegetables and grains and other plant-based foods.
So it’s very, very important that we not drink a lot of fluid during the meal. We can drink half an hour before a meal and once again at least wait for one hour after having eaten the meal, particularly a large meal, wait for an hour or one and a half hours before you drink anything.
This is a very simple advice, anyone can do that, but it’s going to make a huge difference for your digestive system and your ability to make use of the food that you have eaten and to help nourish your body in a very efficient manner.
Thank you and have a beautiful next meal.
——————————
You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyperlink back to the web page
