Drinking cold drinks with your meal

Healthy4us

New Member
I read an article that suggests that you should drink something hot with your meal, not a cold beverage. It was thought that when you drink something cold, it hastens to harden the fats you took in your meal. Over a period of time, this can cause a blockage. The hot beverage is supposed to help to break down the fat as it makes it journey through your body. What are your views?
 

CrunchyMama

New Member
I think that's silly, personally. Internal body temperature affects everything one ingests. Unless you change the internal temperature of your body (drastically), it shouldn't be an issue. Additionally, if the fats are congealed, they would (to put it as delicately as possible) go directly through and come out the other end pretty much as they went in.
 

boobah

New Member
I heard opposite

It is hard to know what to believe. I heard that you should drink cold drinks because it helps you burn more calories as it tries to warm your body back up.
 

SaltandPepper

New Member
Honestly, I don't think it makes a difference. The digestive system will adjust to handle a whole lot. There is no way the fats can cause a blockage in the whole works. The digestive juices take care of breaking down the fats you ingest.
 
I doubt body temperature makes a huge difference in the amount of body fat. Are there any credible scientific sources confirming this?
 

SifuPhil

Member
I'll still stick with room-temperature water. Cold and hot water are a "shock" to the system, albeit a small shock. Think about athletes - do THEY drink ice-cold water in the middle of a sporting event?

Moderation in everything. ;)
 

Anna T

Member
I really can't stand to drink things that are neither cold nor hot :( I almost never drink anything that's lukewarm.

That said, I don't like things that are too hot, like really hot coffee or tea. I usually have to let mine sit a bit and cool off before I could drink it.

Interesting post by the way. I had never heard of such a thing happening from just drinking cold beverage while you eat ...
 

chabella

All Lady
That is really weird honestly and even if its true its not something I could really deal with. I seldom drink hot drinks, maybe coffee now and then (maybe 4x a month?) but any other time its always something cool to drink.
 
I think that's silly, personally. Internal body temperature affects everything one ingests. Unless you change the internal temperature of your body (drastically), it shouldn't be an issue. Additionally, if the fats are congealed, they would (to put it as delicately as possible) go directly through and come out the other end pretty much as they went in.
Then again, unless you're consuming waaaay too much fat (which is itself an issue) a little congealed fat can't possibly be that much of a problem for the digestive system to handle.
 

Myrrh

Member
I think I have heard about this before but I didn't actually take it seriously. To begin with, I am not a huge fan of cold drinks. :) I always drink water with a meal though.
 

Esperahol

Active Member
I seriously have to doubt this, because if it were something serious or even mildly troublesome the news network would have been all over this. Really there isn't anything likely to happen regarding fats because no one person generally eats blockage levels of fat in one setting. Besides which the drink would need to be cold enough to lower your overall body core temperature for this to work. I mean maybe if you sat outside and ate snow while swallowing fatback something would happen, but other then that? No. Besides as someone else mentioned you would end up defecating the harden fat not storing it or anything.
 

Waynefire

Member
I have never really thought about this before, but it would make sense. I mean if you are drinking something cold, then it would cool your food right away which would harden your fats. So it makes sense for you to need to drink something hot to keep the foods from hardening before they can get digested.
 

shaunche

Member
I have read this and it does make sense. I tend to avoid drinking cold water when eating fat. Another reason to not drink cold water is because it conflicts with your natural body temperature, ideally you would drink body temperature water.
 
I have read that article, too. But I think it has been misunderstood. Fats solidify because of a cold temperature. When they are in a solidified state, they become much harder to break down. I don't know what really happens inside the stomach, but I think what they were pointing out is that we should make the fats that we eat easier to digest for our stomach and intestines, by not solidifying them.

I still don't know how true this is, so I don't necessarily believe it 100%. I drink warm drinks after my meals whenever I can just because I am more comfortable with it than cold drinks.
 

aphil

Member
My view is that you shouldn't drink anything with your meal because it interferes with your digestion. My personal experience has been that once I stopped drinking and eating together, it relieved a lot of indigestion and stomach aches. I always wait 15 minutes after drinking before I eat and one hour after I eat before I drink.
 

Parker

Member
I had always heard that room temperature water with a meal was better than cold. Here's a link that proves us all wrong. Nice cold water for me from now on.

Is It Bad To Drink Cold Water With A Meal? | LIVESTRONG.COM
Thanks for the link to this article. I don't drink cold water because it gives me a headache. I prefer room temperature water. But I did think drinking cold water wasn't good for you. This article has cleared up my misconception.
 

jblythe4

New Member
I've read about this a few times and the claims come from the far east, mainly China and India. There cultures have been following this rule for centuries! Seems that they may know something that the rest of us don't.
 
I never heard anything bad about drinking cold water while eating, but I have heard of the benefits of drinking warm liquid such as tea or coffee. I heard warm liquids makes it easier to digest food.
 

artistry

Member
That is interesting about the cultures in the Far East. I love cold drinks every once in a while, but moslly I drink room temperature water. Thanks for all the information.
 
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