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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Some people live or grew up in areas where the water source tastes weird or gross, so they might have a mental association of water with a negative quality. Some people remark that water is generally flavorless. I’ve heard this from other people on the spectrum. I prefer water with some kind of flavor. Water without a flavor is only satisfying on a hot day or if you’ve been working out. This is possibly a side effect of growing up with a high sugar diet where you expect everything to taste sweeter. So it might be attributed to the sugar industry’s “fat makes you fat, sugar is fine” lasting effect on the populace.
You are spot on. Water is absolutely not flavorless.
Fortunately I live in a place with high quality clean water, and on a warm day if I’m very thirsty, the taste of water is really really good, it clearly beats any soft drink IMO. I can even prefer it over a cold beer when I’m thirsty!
But even minor contaminants can make it taste way worse, if you live in a house with old plumbing, or if you can see buildup in the metal filter most taps have, the taste of your water is probably influenced by contamination besides Iron from the pipes. Good iron pipes are OK, but new synthetic pipes are better.If I drink a carbonized mineral water, I can also most definitely taste the carbonation.
If the water smells like rainy weather or wet skin or in some other way smells off, it is probably contaminated. However the water can have a slight metallic smell because there are actually naturally occurring minerals in the water. BUT if your water is discolored, it is definitely contaminated, and drinking it can make you sick.
Our water is pretty high on calcium, but there is for instance also a small amount of lithium. Lower calcium water taste a bit sweeter, so natural water definitely exist that is even better than our water.Remember always let the tap run for a short while before drinking from it.
If the water doesn’t taste good, it’s probably because it’s not good.I don’t think the cold water on a hot day is about flavor. Its just as flavorless as its ever been. Its neutral and you can’t get away from that without flavoring it. Bad water can taste aweful but the best is just going to be neutral. We like the taste of acidic things for some reason. Not sure why. The cold water when hot is more a craving and if for some reason you can’t get ice cold water but you can soda. Even if your not a soda drinker you may guzzle the icey drink.
Sad for you, but just because you can’t taste it doesn’t change the fact that water actually has taste.
pure distilled water does not. if water with taste is water then great. I personally have a bad habit of drinking a particular flavor of water called soda.
This is just not true. When my wife’s family moved to my home state they all though that the water tasted “sweet”. Good tasting water definitely exists.
If i moved there I would get it tested to find out why it had that flavor. Pure distilled water that is only h2o definitely does not.
Sometimes discoloration of water is just it being full of air. My HOA’s backup water well is like that. It’s been tested and is fine to drink, but it’s incredibly cloudy until it’s sat for a few minutes.
Also, if you’re on well water get it tested. Even if it was fine when you moved in, things change. Maybe the new farm down the road’s fertilizer is leaking in to the ground water. You won’t know unless someone tests.
If it’s only air it just gets cloudy, not discolored.
It can be disolored from iron, and that’s not a health problem AFAIK.I have never heard of anybody here in Denmark who has brown or cloudy tap water. That would simply not be considered acceptable.
Tap water here is always CRYSTAL clear, and generally higher quality than bottled water.
“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.
That’s the thing, though. People need about 2 litres of fluid a day, and most of that comes from their food.
Water? That’s where fish fuck in.
That was way funnier before you got morbidly obese.
Hard to even know where to start: https://www.dhmo.org/
Microplastics are just the tip of the iceberg. At this stage most of our planet’s water is almost indistinguishable from pure dihydrogen monoxide.
ITT: people with crumbling infrastructure under a corporate oligarchy discuss why they are unhealthy.
Good thing access to clean drinking water isn’t a human right. Oh wait.
Luckily the US of A has a sneaky trick called not ratifying shit and refusing to be held to the same standard as “third world countries” while saying they are superior.
Seriously the US actually hasn’t ratified most of the treaties that govern how warfare or being a functioning society.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
(not oc) yes, this happens.
Undiagnosed, but yeah it’s very probable that I am at least one of those.
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.
+1, ADHD and will forget to drink anything until I start feeling low BP. Usually good at feeling hunger thankfully.
For my fiance it’s due to autism, we live in annars with amazing water quality and I drink it without issues. She can’t handle the flavour sometimes though, she gets nauseous. The solution is to add sugar free flavouring to the water. Works pretty well and she actually drinks enough water now.
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”
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.
Yeah, we have a lot of those, and a lot of granite. Our water has some pretty nice minerals, the only downside is due to the granite some places have high radon levels so you have to check your local levels. But where I am that’s not an issue.
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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.
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.
If you have the money for it a water bottle with a filter (even just the carbon Brita ones) improve the taste immensely. I use an Epic water filter for everything and it makes nearly all water taste good*.
- The only exception I had was the Atlanta airport I have no clue what the fuck was going on their but the water was disgusting.
Also worth noting: don’t use a filtered water bottle for filtering water that has contaimints you are actually worried about consuming; none except for grayl actually match their claimed results with third party testing.
I installed a filter under our kitchen sink, with a separate small tap.
10/10 recommend this approach.
My husband hates drinking water because his parents only gave him water to drink when he was sick. Otherwise it was all juice and milk.
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.
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.
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.
My favorite beverage is a glass of ice water. Friends are always offering a beer or a soda, and all I want is a tall glass of ice water.
Now I carry a big Stanley cup of ice water everywhere I go.
I know two people who refuse to drink water, and even say that they HATE water.
totally agree, but you lost me at stanley cup
Not the hockey trophy.
It’s one of those big 40 oz insulated cups with a handle, lid, and straw. Put in some ice and cold water, and it will stay cold for 24 hours. They were made famous by the Stanley Tool company. The Stanley ones are about $45, but now there are lots of cheaper knockoffs. I got mine at Aldi for $13.
They’ve become an entire industry in themselves. They even make accessories for them. I saw a short news story on the wildly decorated house of a woman who designed a special purse that had two compartments, one for her stuff, and one for her big tumbler. She made them in all sorts of color combinations, and had them all displayed on shelves in her basement office. They’ve become extremely popular, and have made her rich.
Get one. They work great. I carry mine with me everywhere I go. When I leave a fast food place, I always fill my empty cup with ice, and dump it in my tumbler when I get in the car.
I’ll bet that’s way more about the “Stanley Cup” tumbler than you thought existed.
I think many people simply prefer a tastier option than “flavorless.”
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.
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 lots of water, but I add coffee…
I love water, easily my most preferred beverage; I’ll choose water even if my meal comes with a drink. But it makes me sick in the middle of the night or in the morning. I don’t get it. It makes me nauseous. If I cut the water with juice or I drink coffee it’s fine. If I wait until like 11:40 am, it’s fine. But if I wake up parched at 4 am and I chug water like I want to, I’ll feel sick. If I drink half a glass before breakfast? Sick. OJ? Fine any time. Coffee, apple juice, 2/3 apple juice with 1/3 water? All fine. What’s wrong with me?
Nothing comes close to a crispy glass of cool water
Might be electrolyte imbalance.
Sounds like something you should seriously ask your doctor.
Is it possible your tap water is low quality? An interesting experiment would be to boil some water for 5 min to kill any bacteria. Then let it cool, and then pour it in a container and pop in the fridge. Then try drinking that in the morning and see if it resolves your issue.
With the coffe it’s already getting boiled for a short time, with the apple juice and oj, you might not be drinking enough water for it to affect you, and it’s getting diluted.
It’s happened for years over many different houses and locations, even different states. That was a good and thoughtful response though, thank you!
In different states? Do you huff steam?
Har har har. I’ve been to different states in the US
