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!
“Because I’m not poor! I got all the water I need from food”.
My boomer dad, constantly suffering from health issues because of poor hydration. Does not help that the only liquids he consumes are beer and wine.
Maybe if you gave him a wet food diet, like a cat or something.
Don’t eat cats, that’s gross.
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.
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.
Perchance do you have autism and/or ADHD? I ask because I experience the same thing as you do, and for me, it feels like it derives from my autism/ADHD. Like, sometimes the first cue that I am severely dehydrated is that I get a headache. I get a similar thing with hunger, where I could legitimately go for multiple days without noticing I’m hungry if I don’t get reminded that food is a thing.
ADHD here and I do this way to often. I have reminders set to drink water or I will often go a whole day without eating or drinking anything. It is absurd.
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.
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
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
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.
The water in some USA cities does taste terrible. Some rural and city water is unsafe to drink. Grow up in one of those places, and one may hate it.
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.
water? like out of the toilet??
Fish fuck in water.
Giggity!
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.
I drink as much water as I can handle at work so I can go take a leak and have my phone out and not risk getting in trouble with the boss. I don’t eat breakfast or lunch. Since starting work 3 months ago I lost 30lbs. I’ll eat anything for dinner and I haven’t been trying to lose any weight.
I will add that moving to first shift after over a decade of second shift has been hard on my system and I’ve vomited in the mornings before work more often than not. It’s like clockwork. I have learned that I’ve got a window of about 4 hours after work during which I can eat. Sticking to that keeps morning nausea at bay thanks to an empty stomach in the morning.
Anyways water is great. The other guy at work brings cases of bottled water which I try to understand. The water quality here is quite good and a majority of my water at work comes out of the tap. I have no complains and I wouldn’t spend a dime more than I am now for what I get in addition to microplastics.
You should go to a doctor if you haven’t already.
I appreciate your advice and will do that as soon as new job insurance kicks in but I am a sweat machine doing a physical job in increasing heat. Its a birth defect I was born with that had pediatricians warning my parents it could be a sign of cystic fibrosis. I am in OK condition currently and far past the CF terminal years. Back in gradeschool I would have salt on my cheeks after recess from dried sweat.
If I step out of my fan zone at work I’ll be sweating in under half a minute and beads will roll off my face two minutes later. I’ve been wearing my winter coat at work in the heat to remain comfortable while in the fans. I am not always standing in my fans.
I also started back on nicotine vapes. Everybody at work smokes cigarettes and I’d rather have firsthand smoke as opposed to secondhand smoke. When in Rome and all. It sucks and isn’t the wisest life choice but that’s the breaks.
Thanks again for your concern. If I didn’t have a litany of ways to lose weight going on I’d be more worried. I’m not doing anything I don’t have to do to lose it. I was over 200lbs from being a couch potato for a year. Now I’m only a potato 2 days a week and I bought a new chair.
Some people are addicted to sugar to the point where every beverage must be sweet flavoured.
I have water, but othertimes I am sugar addicted so I want a different beverage.
Also I have had tap water in various places across Canada. Most are decent, some are especially delicious, some have awful after tastes and even smell weird (sulfur or chlorine). If that stuff runs to your home I can understand why people prefer bottled water, tea or soda instead of tap water.
Ive seen people who grew up with flavored drinks because the parents were basically lazy or something and now as adults are simply conditioned to not drink anything without artificial flavor because to them artificial flavor is the normal baseline
I worked with someone who would never drink water. It was weird to me. I always preferred water because as a kid it was free at all schools I went to, allowing me to save half of my allowance. As an adult it still cheaper and very low calorie, practically zero calories.
It’s not “practically zero”, it’s zero.
Growing up, I didn’t like water either because I didn’t like the taste. No one around me could understand how I could dislike it because water supposedly tastes like nothing. BUT IT DOESN’T. WATER HAS FLAVOUR. Anyway, I later figured out that filtered tap water tastes a lot better than the bottled kind.
Exactly the same here.
Plus, some people are really sensitive to tastes and textures. When we’re not them, we call them picky eaters. When I was a child, I couldn’t stand the taste of water, and there were other foods I found repulsive. Even a different brand of ingredient from the one I was used to made me gag.
Somehow, I completely grew out of that and I’m now very adventurous when it comes to food. But it did leave me with empathy when I encounter someone who has a limited palate, which is pretty common among my nerd-spectrum peer group.
When you think about it, eating the wrong thing is a quick path to sickness or death, so it makes sense that food can trigger extreme reactions of disgust. If you ever ate something and got sick afterward, even if the two were unrelated, it’s very hard to un-make that connection.
The gaslighting people do about taste is insane. “Celery doesn’t have a taste” “sweet potato tastes like candy” “Water doesn’t have a taste” What planet do these people live on
Whenever I hear that in my family, it always comes from smokers, which basically means their taste buds and olfactory senses have already been compromised
Those people are parroting harmful ideologies or have shitty sense of taste.
My friend from work doesn’t drink water. Like. At all. She drinks Diet coke like all day. She’s in her 50’s and has a ton of health issues. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
That is insane to me.
Same, you offer me a Coca-Cola or a glace of tap water, I go with water any time. Cola will just make me more thirsty and my mouth will taste unpleasant sugary for hours. It’s just isn’t nice.
