water

[paulz]

I'm doing my best [nagged by Mrs p.] to increase my intake of water, it's supposed to be a minimum of 2 Litres a day - I'm told. Does it have to be just water? - it gets so boring! Does tea or Coffee count? what about water in scotch?

[anthomson]

Bad news I am afraid - caffeine acts as a duretic, helping to extract water from the body ( as does alcohol I believe ) - best to drink herbal teas or just add a bit of juice to water to give it some flavour (Drinking juice on its own is not good as it is full of sugar). Incidently I have never yet found a herbal tea that you would want to drink by choice - try peppermint it is not as bad as the others.

[whiskygalore]

Your body may need 2 L of water daily, but that isn't necessarily the amount you have to drink. Most foods contain water and although tea / coffee is a diaretic (sic), if it's only a couple of cups a day, that can count too, plus you can always switch to decaf tea - Tetley's is good. Basically, go by the colour of your urine - if it's almost clear, you're drinking enough, otherwise increase your intake gradually until you see a difference.

[violaine]

As anthomson said, adding a bit of juice to water really helps to add flavour. I used to find drinking 2 litres of water a day difficult until I started adding a small amount of Robinson's Forest Fruits High Juice to the water. It makes it taste much better than plain water and now I have no trouble drinking 2 litres a day. What can also help is buy a 2 litre bottle and pour out water from it into glasses for drinking, so when you reach the end of the bottle you know you've drunk your daily 2 litres.

[Gef]

Surely pure fruit juice (not diluting juice or fruit juice drinks) counts. I always drink 500ml of tomato juice when I get up. Occasionallly, I go off that and try either grapefruit juice or V8 ( a delicious mix of 8 different fruit/vegeatble juices).

[KARL]

I am not entirely convinced about directives on quantity of water to drink and base this on the fact that I have never drunk liquids unless I was thirsty, including when living and working at temperatures as high as 50 degress Celsius. Diuretics (caffein content drinks, etc.) are obviously unhelpful as are alcohol and sugary drinks (which still allows pure fruit juices and milk, among others). Food (such as soups, not salty ones though) including fruits contain substantial amounts of liquid and the blind stipulation of X litres of water per day seem to me to be a rather unintelligent approach. I have never suffered any ill effects attributed to too low fluid intake - in fact I have been described as astonishingly healthy at all times, but if I believed the pundits I should expect to keel over any day now.