Well as I mentioned in my last rant.. blog entry, I've been watching a great documentary series put out by the BBC called The Truth About Food
and they have quite categorically blown away some widely held beliefs regarding what makes us healthy and what is pure myth. All of us have heard over the past 10 years at least that you must drink at least 2 litres of water daily in order to aid digestion, clean out the system, enhance your skins elasticity, hydration and youthfulness. Numerous diets have extoled the virtues of gulping down 8 to 10 glasses of water a day and many of us obliged all in the name of good health.
The BBC's team decided to test the theories and took a set of identical twins, depriving one of any water for 5 days, while the other had to drink 2 litres on top of her regular consumption of drinks for the 5 days. At the end of the period both twins were tested and the results compared to the original readings. The result was that neither twin exhibited any major change after five days. Their skin's elasticity and moisture levels were exactly as before.
Why? Well, it turns out that the average adult loses up to two litres of water each day through our regular activities - just breathing, sweating and going to the bathroom. This could be where the myth that we need two litres a day originated.
What we all lose sight of is that any drinks we consume during a given day, (apart from alcohol), count towards making up this amount - including tea and coffee - and more shockingly - a third of our water needs comes from our food.
The rest of the water we force down just flows right through us and out the other end!
Flush that myth out my friends!
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1 comment:
I thought the suggestion by "medical experts" was to drink 2 litres of gravy a day. No wonder I've put on so much weight. At least the gravy was being poured on "lean beef".
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