Nutrition 101– Water
Nutritionists tend to throw terms like ‘carbs’, ‘vitamins’
and ‘minerals’ around like everyone knows what they are. But
many people, if asked, couldn’t actually tell you what a vitamin
is, or why your body needs them. Yes, organic food usually contains more
vitamins and minerals, but what does this actually mean for your health?
Well, welcome to this series of explanations of the most used nutritional
terms – what they are, what they do, and how to get them. This month:
Water
The human body is two-thirds water. It’s your most essential nutrient,
and without it you’d be dead in four days. Water is involved in
every function of your body – aiding detoxification by helping transport
nutrients and waste products in and out of cells, facilitating all your
all digestive, absorption, circulatory and excretory functions as well
as the utilisation of the water-soluble vitamins, and helping maintain
proper body temperature. By drinking the correct amount of water each
day, you can ensure that your body has all it needs to maintain good health.
So how much do I really need to drink?
Six to eight glasses per day. On a normal day we lose 1.5 litres of water
in urine, 750ml through the skin, 400ml in our breath, and 150ml in faeces.
That’s a total of 2.8 litres a day. So you might think that this
is the amount you need to drink, but it’s not that simple. Firstly,
your body makes about 300ml of water as a by-product of energy production.
Plus the food you eat each day contains around a litre of water (most
vegetables are around 90 percent water!). This totals 1.3 litres, leaving
1.5 litres you need to drink, or around six glasses a day. Two additional
glasses per day will help your kidneys excrete toxins and keep you well
hydrated while exercising, but more than this can result in over-hydration
- over-burdening your kidneys instead of helping them.
At the other end of the scale, drinking too little water’s not
a good idea either. Mild dehydration can lead to headaches, lethargy,
constipation, and an increased risk of kidney stones and urinary tract
infections. Losing just one per cent of body fluids can raise your body
temperature and make concentration more difficult. It’s around now
- 1 to 2 per cent loss of body water - that your thirst reflex kicks in.
If you ignore it or misinterpret it as hunger, dehydration can continue
to around 3 per cent, where it seriously affects both mental and physical
performance. Sports nutritionists have found that a 3 per cent loss of
body water results in an 8 per cent loss in muscle strength.
What kind is best to drink?
Water is best consumed as water. Natural mineral water in fact, or well
filtered tap water. Other drinks, including tea, coffee, juice, milk and
soft drinks, also provide hydration, but can have other effects too, including
disrupting blood sugar balance, robbing the body of other nutrients, or
providing calories but no nutritional value. Alcohol is a known diuretic
– causing a net loss of water from the body. On the other hand it’s
now known that, contrary to popular belief, tea and coffee do not result
in a net water loss from the body.
But if you want hydration, go for water. If you don’t like water,
try flavouring it with lemon, lime, ginger, mint or herbal teas.
Organic food and water
A few interesting issues come to mind with regards to water and organic
food. Firstly, because chemical fertilisers promote rapid lush growth
and make a plant draw up more water, non-organic fruits and veggies tend
to contain more water than organic fruits and veggies, such that, for
example, four organic carrots can contain just as much ‘carrot’
(the non-water bit) as five non-organic carrots of the same size. This
may partly explain the better taste of organic produce - the flavour is
less diluted by excess water.
Second is the issue of water contamination. Inevitably, some of the 25000
tonnes of agrochemicals used in the UK every year end up contaminating
water supplies, and hundreds of millions of pounds are spent every year
cleaning them out of drinking water supplies. However tap water still
sometimes contains pesticides at concentrations above EU safety levels.
Filter it well, using a filtration system able to remove pesticides, for
example reverse osmosis.
And finally, as water shortages become more common around the world,
organic farming holds an important advantage - the higher humus content
and better water-holding capacity of organic soils results in less run-off
from the land when it does rain, and when it doesn’t rain, less
irrigation is needed to produce healthy crops, helping conserve limited
water resources.
Wishing you the best of health,
Shane Heaton
Nutritionist
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