If, on the other hand, the food is not thoroughly masticated, water is most essential to furnish that which the saliva would otherwise supply to soak up and dissolve the food, in order that the gastric juice may more readily reach all parts of it.
It is singular that the use of water at meals has long been considered unwise when the free use of milk, which is about seven-eighths water has been recommended.
The copious drinking of cool water from a half hour to an hour before a meal will cleanse the stomach and incite the flow of saliva and gastric juice. Moreover, the digestive cells secrete their juices more freely and the sucking villi absorb more readily when the stomach and intestines are moderately full, either of food or water, and to fill the stomach with food requires too much digestion. The water passes through the stomach before the food.
In building up about seven thousand thin women, results show that the free drinking of liquid at meals has a tendency to put on flesh. Probably one reason for this is because of the cleanliness and greater freedom given to the absorbing and secreting cells of the mucous lining of the digestive tract, as well as to the stronger peristalsis.
It will be noted that water drinking at meals has many more arguments in its favor than against it.
One important use to which water is put is to cleanse the digestive tract and the kidneys. This cleansing within is more necessary than the cleansing of the surface of the body. One cannot form a better habit than that of drinking two to three glasses of water upon first arising and then working the stomach and intestines by a series of exercises which alternately relax and contract their walls, causing a thorough cleansing of these organs.
In case of gastritis, or a catarrhal condition of the stomach, often a pint of slimy mucus will collect in the stomach over night and the cleansing of the mucous lining of the digestive tract is then most important.
The drinking of warm (not too hot) or cold water in the morning depends upon the condition of the individual. If in good condition, two to three glasses of cold water, the vigorous exercises for the vital organs, and deep breathing of pure air, followed by a cold bath, will do more to keep the health, vigor, clear skin, and sparkling eye than fortunes spent upon seeking new climates, mineral waters, or tonics. There is no tonic like water, exercise, and fresh air, as above prescribed.
Soft water, that is water containing no lime or other mineral matter, is best for cooking purposes; hard water, which causes any degree of curdling of soap, or a lime crust in the bottom of a tea kettle, is hard on digestion. Bacterial germs are killed and much of the mineral matter deposited by boiling the water. For drinking purposes it should be aerated that it may regain its original, fresh taste, otherwise boiled water tastes flat or insipid. It may be aerated by filling a jar half full of water, leaving the other half for air, and then shaking the water in the jar so that the air passes through it.
Many claim that one’s thirst, as in the desire for food, is the only safe guide, as to the amount and time of drinking, but these desires are largely matters of habit, and tastes are often perverted. Unless the condition is abnormal or the mind becomes so intensely active that one fails to listen to the call of nature, the system calls for what it has been in the habit of receiving and at the stated times it has been in the habit of receiving it. The safe method is to form the habit of eating and drinking a stipulated amount at regular periods and not allowing this regular habit to be broken, unless, for some cause, the system be out of order, and then the habit should only be broken for a time.