We’ve Been Hydrating Ourselves All Wrong: We Need To Eat Water, Not Drink It

Step away from the water bottle

First things first, what on earth does ‘eat water’ even mean? Sounds pretty weird…

Eat water refers to eating water-rich foods like cucumber and lettuce. Essentially, it's another way of saying 'fruits and vegetables are excellent - consume more of them'.

Apparently, these types of food provide our bodies with the necessary amounts of water more effectively than chugging bottles of the liquid.

‘Healthy hydration is about the water you hold in the body, not the water you drink that passes straight through,’ says Dr Howard Murad, associate clinic professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of The Water Secret.

Aquaholics aren’t necessarily doing their bodies as many favours as they might imagine because guzzling litres of water often does little more than make you need to use the loo an awful lot… and drinking six litres of water could be enough to send you in to a coma!

The smartest way to ensure you're getting all the health and skincare benefits of water is to consume lots of aqua-packed foods rather than flooding yourself with bottles of Evian all day long.

The Daily Mail reports that drinking loads of water can have an adverse effect on health because it can flush our bodies of vitamins and minerals before we’ve had a chance to absorb these important nutrients.

Water that you eat is different because it’s more likely to be held on to long enough to be used effectively. Water in oranges, for instance, is nicely packaged up with other molecules that aid absorption, helping the water to hydrate our cells.

‘When we eat water-rich foods, we absorb water more slowly because it is trapped in the structure of these foods,’ says Dr Murad.

‘That slow absorption means the water in food stays in our bodies longer, and brings a multitude of additional benefits.

‘You can drink eight glasses of water - and while that is still a way of putting water into your body, it could mean eight trips to the bathroom without it actually reaching your cells.’

Dr Murad also points out these tell-tale signs that your body is not handling water efficiently: puffy eyes, swollen ankles, bloated stomach.

New motto: eat more water.

WATER RICH FOODS

Iceberg lettuce 300ml Courgettes 142ml Orange 122ml Potato 118ml Apple/pear 115ml Tomato 109ml Cucumber 100ml Watermelon slice 92ml Cauliflower(8 florets) 73ml Handful strawberries 73ml Grapefruit 72ml Handful raspberries 69ml Handful blueberries 68ml 3 apricots 68ml Carrot 63ml Red pepper 50ml 5 radishes 40ml Celery 38ml Handful broccoli/spinach 26ml