It’s never made sense to me that some people refuse to drink water even if they know it keeps you functioning properly. The same people will complain of constipation or dry skin but don’t want to do the thing that fixes their issues.
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Had family who lived in an area known for having the highest quality tap water who refused to drink any water. One notably said “I’m not drinking what fish fuck in!”! I think they have never been truly dehydrated. I can’t tell you the ecstasy of a cold glass of water when you’re legit thirsty!
It sounds like somebody needs to spend more time watching documentaries on the mating habits of freshwater fish!
Give me all the squirms!(iykyk)
Former non-water drinker here.
I was addicted to caffeinated/carbonated sodas. I never had any problems drinking almost exclusively diet coke for a long time. My caffeine consumption was well over the FDA recommendation for maximum daily intake.
I would still drink water, especially when doing sports or exercise, but it wasn’t my go-to for hydrating myself throughout the day.
Several times in my life, I quit drinking them, but I would always circle back around to it because I missed the taste more than anything, and I had never noticed any kind of significant health benefit to stopping.
Recently some months ago, I was having some pretty severe bladder issues. Sudden onset urge to urinate. Like going from 0-100 in a racecar, the rapid urgency was the main issue. One minute I was fine and if you asked if I needed to use the bathroom I’d say “Nah”, and then 5 minutes later I’m literally dancing my way to the nearest toilet to just barely make it in time, like literally almost peeing my pants it was that bad.
Went to the doctor about this, obviously, and that was when he told me that the extreme caffeine intake is causing irritation in my bladder and diagnosed me with Overactive Bladder Syndrome. I was instructed to completely cut out caffeine from my regular drinking habits, no tea or sodas, but I could have a cup of coffee in the morning to get me going, although initially I would want to quit cold turkey to purge my system of caffeine and let my bladder settle down. So water it was. Within about a month, I started to feel more regular again and I didn’t need to rush to pee as often and when I did I could hold it for longer periods of time.
Now I pretty much drink only water all the time. I take a big 54oz jug with me to work and refill it towards the end of the work day. I’ll have a cup of coffee now and then in the mornings on weekdays, but I try not to make a habit of it, and I’ll have a sip of a soda at the movies or something, but I don’t even miss the taste of cola anymore. Occasionally I will buy the flavored waters at the grocery store just to get the carbonated experience, but I can’t drink those all the time. Water is great, it just takes forever to get your brain used to the idea that not everything you put in your body needs to have flavor. It’s super refreshing to get the filtered water pitcher right from the fridge, maybe pour it over a glass of ice, and drink it straight that way.
In short, chugging sodas never used to bother me at all, but I guess as I’m getting older my body is just not having that shit anymore. Just like how I can’t eat straight junk food and not gain any weight like when I was a teenager, my metabolism has finally caught up with me on my soda/caffeine addiction and I had to cut that out too. I realize that I am better off now for it and I’m going to try and keep up the good habit I’ve started to form and keep drinking water.
It doesn’t make sense to me that I don’t like drinking water. When I lived in the desert, I would drink it all the time, but it’s a habit that I’ve fallen out of. Strangely, I went back to the desert on a trip and immediately resumed drinking water again.
For me, I don’t like the taste. I can taste the chlorine and fluroride and other stuff in the water. I have an RO system with carbon filter and then I need to have it near freezing. Even then, I need to put stuff in it like berries, cucumber or mint. I don’t drink pop, sports drinks or other stuff like that. I do drink tea and coffee.
Yeah, my doctor told me that I’m dehydrated, so I’m trying.
Because their parents never taught them to.
Wait until they get kidney stones from being chronically dehydrated
For me it’s because I’ve been drinking carbonated drinks for so long that flat water is awful to drink. I know it’s good for me, I know I need to stop the carb drinks. I know I’ll live a longer life if I do this. But it’s somewhat like an addiction for me, it’s really hard to quit and move to water.
The tap water in my area tastes pretty gross. I’ve tried the flavored water and never really found one that was good and didn’t have weird taste or drinking effects. I would do carb water but it’s so expensive, more expensive than my carb drinks now. So it’s hard to even find a replacement.
Get a filter for your tap water, then get the water cold. Both will reduce the flavor of the water, leaving you with crisp, neutral flavored water. If that doesn’t do it for you, look into an at home carbonation system, there’s guides for making your own if you don’t wanna do premade.
I suggest ZeroWater. The filters don’t last as long because they have more layers, but that means they filter out more things.
You might be a super taster like me, you can get a genetic test for it if you really want to know. Obsession with diet soda seems to be a common thread as is the distaste for water.
I drink it now…on town water lol. Growing up outside of town proper in my area it did not taste good and left you more thirsty than when you started drinking it. The water was hard enough taking a shower felt like washing down with iron wool and if you stayed in more than five minutes you came out peeling. I was actually amazed the first time I lived in a town center on town water and the water didn’t make my skin feel raw lol. I was floored when I lived in a beach town and not only was the water mild, something in the area made the water taste slightly sweet and enjoyable to drink instead of “somewhat metallic from old pipes, but inoffensive cause it’s thirst quenching instead of thirst exacerbating”.
This doesn’t really fit with my understanding of what hard water is and I’m very concerned.
The place I live now has hard water that is way different from what I grew up with, but it just means that I have to use a lot more soap to clean any oils off my skin or hair, and every faucet gets a ton of lime buildup obnoxiously fast.
Bit confused here. There’s levels to water hardness and what I listed you’d know pretty much instantly. It doesn’t sneak up on you or anything. If it makes you feel better I grew up in a town on a ravine lol it was all rock. You may not be dealing with the same situation.
ETA also limestone wasn’t the mineral that was the issue there, was a different one
My understanding of hard water is just that there’s more calcium and magnesium ions than would otherwise be present in softer water. The varying degrees of hardness would just be the varying concentrations of these ions.
The way you experience as a human (as opposed to measuring this with a water probe) is that soap will form a complex with these ions and maybe precipitate out a little soap scum, and this reaction will happen at the same time as the reaction which complexes with any oils or dirt so it’ll effectively be wasting some of your soap and you will have to use more soap.
So you’ll be shampooing your hair and you’ll use the same amount as you used back in the soft water city and you’ll be thinking “I used the same amount of shampoo as I always do so why does my hair still feel oily?”
I have one of those articulated segmented hose things on my shower head so you can pick it up and move it around while it’s spraying and the whole thing gets all covered in limescale super fast because the hard water evaporates and precipates out the magnesium and calcium as calcite or aragonite crystals. I had never seen this happen so fast and it ruins the hose so often that I thought I was dealing with excessively hard water.
Well, hard water means it could be Ca+2 or Mg+2 ions, but it doesn’t have to be. Any metal or mineral in a “high” concentration (often as a dissolved salt) would make water hard. e.g. Salt water is hard compared to tap standards.
The water for the above user certainly could have been corrosive, or an allergic reaction could be the explanation. With a rural, rock ravine environment, any number of minerals could be in the water. You’re also more likely to get other contaminants like toxins in water not properly tested and treated.
I’m not a mineral person going to be honest (I work in healthcare lol), so not sure I can really answer your questions. Also sorry being a bit cagey didn’t want to dox myself before a google, like felt 99% sure this was a common mineral, but again not a mineral person.
Basically I lived in some foothills along a ravine made of granite. Home 1 I think we had a neighborhood well and home 2 was a personal well. I can’t list the equipment being used to soften the water (if at all), I just know neither were on town water and home 2 I helped my dad install a softener since there wasn’t one (which tbh didn’t help too much besides making the water coming out of the faucet less cloudy and mildly less thirst inducing).
I don’t think my hometown has a lot of limestone (idk may be wrong, like said I’m not a mineral person, all I know it’s a granite ravine) so can’t comment too much beyond that. This was just my experience with water growing up and what put me off it for a long time.
Basically they’re people who got caught in the food industries propaganda.
They might consciously know they need regular water, but their body is now craving sugar with every sip. If it’s missing, it feels wrong.
Sugar needs to be much more regulated, especially for kids… Adults may be responsible enough to handle it but without regulation the industry will run wild and make everyone addicted.
I’m on the opinion that marketing anything related to addiction is immoral and should be illegal. This includes cigarette, gambling, sugar, drugs (looking at you oxycontin), alcohol and even caffeine.
There is a backdoor into people’s brains that should not be used. Allow people go get their own coffee and sugar but don’t remind them it’s missing when they’re quitting.
(Coffee has been shown to be beneficial in reducing the overall death rate in adults when consuming something like 2+ cups a day so marketing it could be beneficial but the chance kids getting addicted to caffeine is something to avoid regardless.)
Absolutely agree. It is horrible how our governments allow corporations to use that backdoor to extract as much shareholder value from us as possible
As a counterpoint, I don’t replace water with anything sugary/flavored. I just… don’t get thirsty, like ever, unless I’m working outside in hot weather. Most people’s bodies remind them to drink. Mine doesn’t. I try to remember to drink water throughout the day rather than just at mealtimes, but if I don’t have a glass next to me, I will almost certainly forget. I feel like I can’t be the only person like this.
Hmm, interesting point. Thanks for sharing.
The food industry’s propaganda is that you need to drink 2 litres of water a day. You don’t.
In 1974 the book Nutrition for Good Health, co-authored by nutritionists Margaret McWilliams and Frederick Stare, recommended that the average adult consumes between six to eight glasses of water a day. But, the authors wrote, this can include fruit and veg, caffeinated and soft drinks, even beer.
Honestly not sure where to start with this one.
I’m sure the blanket statement of needing to drink 2 liters of water is misleading in plenty of situations but I really don’t think this is what we should be focusing on. This is the last thing from the food industry that I’d consider propaganda. Not to mention that it’s really not a bad recommendation, and a 50 year old book 2 people wrote (no matter their qualification) isn’t really a solid foundation for an argument like this.
Of course water intake is highly individual. Athletes may drink 10+ liters per day, but most people are probably fine with just drinking when they’re thirsty.
I don’t think anyone is saying that 2 liters are necessary for survival. You can get away with much less. The thing is, it’s easy to drink more than enough, it has many benefits, and there isn’t really much of a downside to it. The 2 liters are a rule of thumb, not an exact required amount for everyone.
Regarding the beer, we know nowadays there is no amount of alcohol that is healthy. Sure, beer might be able to hydrate you when enjoyed in moderation, but it’s plain counterproductive when recommended as a healthy diet.
Eating and drinking are almost entirely habit. I would say the main driver is parents not teaching kids to just fucking drink water. You don’t need something with fizz, color or flavor. Water’s been keeping humans alive forever.
People who don’t drink water make me unnaturally irritated. It’s just so crazy. “I don’t breathe air because don’t really like the taste”.
I know I sound like an asshole. It shouldn’t matter to me what you do. It’s your body and your life.
Still…c’mon, like what? It’s water. It brings life. It’s the original thirst quencher. It’s what your body needs. Just drink it.
No
I wondered this for a long while, but I’ve realized that I’m in a pretty privileged position. Where I live (the Netherlands) the tap water is not only drinkable, it’s actually almost indistinguishable from mineral water. Certainly for me at least. I’m not much of a traveller, but when I was in Oostende in Belgium I remember the tap water was absolutely vile. It was (or at least tasted like) desalinated seawater. Instead of hydrating and refreshing it tasted stale and salty. If that was the only water I knew I probably would be drinking more refreshing stuff like ice tea or cola all day as well. When I got back to the Netherlands my first glass of tap water tasted like heaven.
Similar to my ex-wife who grew up on well water with loads of minerals. She found tap water to be disgusting and said it tasted of chemicals. And everywhere I’ve lived in America, the tap water is indeed loaded with chemicals.
For anyone wanting a cool experiment to try: Turn your tap water on full blast and fill a cup. Immediately hover your nose directly above the water and take a deep smell. Now set that glass in the sun for an hour or three, or just leave it on the counter for a day, smell again.
For a longer term experiment: Water identical plants with a) only tap water, b) only rainwater. I catch rainwater and have found a profound improvement in my house plants and terrariums.
Living off flavored drinks and craving that sugar is stimulation you don’t get from plain water.
This is my issue. Now I use water additives like PureLemon and MIO to spike em. I try to drink 4-8 cups a day and feel better when I do.
I still slip into my days of 4 cups of coffee with no water often.
Yeah, it can sorta be a “boredom reliever” kind of thing.
The pipes in my residence are at least 60 years old, made of metal, and the resulting water tastes a bit suspect. I get water from the grocery store and put it in the water cooler. Costs about $10-20ish for 20 gallons, but probably far safer than what the tap provides.
Replacing all of the pipes would cost $19,000+. 😨
ITT: people with crumbling infrastructure under a corporate oligarchy discuss why they are unhealthy.
What would you suggest we do? Take precious profits away from stakeholders and repair shit? Sounds like communism to me buddy. Up against the wall.
Good thing access to clean drinking water isn’t a human right. Oh wait.
Some people don’t have access to decent tasting tap water and bottled water is expensive.
Tip: If your water tastes like chlorine, just fill a pitcher and put it in the fridge. Whatever chemicals they use will off gas overnight and it’ll taste great in the morning.
Some people don’t have access to decent tasting tap water
Most people IMHO. Most places I’ve been where they claim that the tap water is potable, it either tastes like public pool or swamp. Except for Galveston who somehow made it taste like both with residents believing “It’s OK”
You should try it in Iceland. Tap water is so clean you practically ruin it by putting it in plastic.
Never been, but I’m sure their tap water is great for the same reason mine is: Plenty of mountainous lakes, and not that many people around them.
I generally don’t drink nk bottled water… It tastes… stale.
My tap water is pretty good, too bad we can’t send taste over the internet
Where do you live, if you don’t mind me asking?
Southwestern NH
Looks like there are plenty of mountainous lakes, so that makes sense.
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Yes chlorine is a very volatile chemical and dissipates quickly.
The water at my office smells like chlorine. It’s dreadful. I wouldn’t even use it to make coffee, I fill up a nalgene at home and bring that in. My home water is well water and tastes a tad high iron, just the way I like it. (HOA regularly tests the water and it’s always within legal limits, yay.)
I don’t know if offgassing is the reason the water tastes better when cooled overnight. I would do this with an enclosed bottle (no off-gassing possible) and it would taste equally better.
Definitely cooling it is an improvement, I always thought it tasted different due to how our mouth/taste buds responds to the dropping temperature.
