Is It Harmful To Drink Water While Eating?

While watching any health program on television, you’ve certainly heard this: “Drinking water while eating is unhealthy, it can make you gain weight or dilute your stomach acids.” People usually don’t feel the need to research these kinds of things, or they don’t care too much.

Especially during Ramadan, many people consume plenty of water with their meals. So, is there any benefit or harm in consuming water with your meal?

What Happens to Water or Food in Our Stomach?

The digestive process starts from the moment you eat your food. When you chew food, you eat your food along with saliva, which contains the enzymes necessary for digestion. Then, the softened food enters our stomach. It takes 4 hours for the food you eat to turn into liquid.

Water does not stay in the stomach for long. It takes about 10 minutes for the water to come out of the stomach, so if you drink water while eating, tiny lakes will not form in your stomach. On the contrary, water allows food to be digested much more easily in our stomach.

Water or Other Liquid Foods Do Not Reduce Stomach Acidity

Our body is complex, but it has a very good system. If the stomach ‘feels’ that it cannot digest something, it produces more enzymes and increases the acidity of the liquids inside. Even if you drink half a liter of water, this does not affect the acidity level. However, some studies have shown that certain foods reduce the acidity of our stomach, but our stomach returns to normal very quickly.

Plenty of Fluid Consumption Doesn’t Affect Our Digestive Rate

Any food that is not fully digested goes to the intestine with the liquid. There is no scientific study that proves this situation.

So Can We Consume Liquids While Eating?

There is no harm in drinking water while eating. On the contrary, water helps you consume solid foods more easily. However, we should warn that you should not drink water before swallowing your food. Because, together with the necessary enzymes, the foods have to land in your stomach.

There are certain advantages to drinking anything while eating. Studies show that when a person stops to drink some water, it slows the eating process. As a result, people eat less slowly while drinking water. If you are one of those who like to drink tea with food instead of water, there is no harm in that either. Studies show that there is no difference in the acidity levels of the stomach after drinking tea or water.