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.

  • ch00f@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

  • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

  • Phoonzang@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    “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.

  • silly goose meekah@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

    • Pandemanium@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      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.

    • Caveman@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      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.)

      • silly goose meekah@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Absolutely agree. It is horrible how our governments allow corporations to use that backdoor to extract as much shareholder value from us as possible

    • starlinguk@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      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.

      • silly goose meekah@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        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.

  • froh42@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I can stand carbonated water and hate plain water. When I was a kid, my family wouldn’t drink water but other beverages.

    My kids (17 and 20 now) grew up with drinking water at home. Water was the thing to drink if you are thirsty, everything else was allowed but “something special” like a sweet. Going to a restaurant also was special, they could choose what they like.

    While I still struggle with water - I manage, but I still drink sugar free soda as well, my adult kids can’t understand how I like that sweet stuff all the time.

    So I firmly believe your preference is what you grew up with. You can change it, but it takes effort.

    • Landless2029@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      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.

  • Gerudo@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Grew up on well water, it tasted funny. Most water I tried to drink was from water fountains, tasted like copper. First bottled water I drank was Deja Blue, and it tasted like hose water. So I thought all water tasted like ass.

    I didn’t get that water could taste good until I drank actual bottled spring water. Now I have nice water filters that make my tap taste just fine, and I know what brands of water to buy if I need to.

    • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Can confirm most public sources of water taste like garbage. Drinking fountains taste like liquid metal, city restaurant water tastes like chlorine, some people’s tap water is straight up gross. But good water is SO GOOD. Filtered water or bottled spring water are safe bets, but the best water is actually good tap water; the minerals enhance it imo.

  • HenchmanNumber3@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    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.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      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.

  • Dammam No. 7@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

  • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

  • Zenith@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    It tastes gross

    It was probably the last thing to change as I got older but for most of my life I hated to drink water cause it all tasted bad to me

  • PassingDuchy@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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”.

    • topherclay@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      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.

      • PassingDuchy@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        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

        • topherclay@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          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.

          • PassingDuchy@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            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.