What if you can’t take plain water?

For some people, taking plain water is nearly impossible. Take 35-year-old Sarah Nakibuuka who finds herself almost throwing up whenever she takes water.

She explains, “There’s a way it gets stuck in my throat that I cannot swallow it. So I prefer taking very many other fluids to compensate for my inability to drink plain water.”

On the other hand, Fred Ssazi gets acid reflux or heart burn whenever he takes water. “I can’t drink it by itself, I have to eat something like a cake or hard corn and then wash them down with water. I also can’t take it on a full stomach because it gives me heart burn, something that soda doesn’t do,” he says.
Just like Nakibuuka and Ssazi, there are so many people for whom the taste of water is repulsive. They can even throw up if they drink pure water especially if they have to swallow medicine with it.

Benefits of plain water
The benefits of drinking plain pure water cannot be underscored though. Water is important for significant bodily functions like regulation of body temperature, metabolism and transportation of nutrients to places where they are needed in the body. Mangosteen-natural-remedies.com, a website on nutrition adds that water is responsible for a healthy skin, remedying of headaches and migraines, and a good mood. Water is also ideal for helping flush toxins from the system into the intestinal tract where they can be eliminated.

Furthermore, expert nutrition information asserts that anything other than water is not good enough. So what can people like Nakibuuka and Ssazi, who have different aversions to drinking pure water do? Is there a way they can improve the taste of water say, by adding a flavour like chocolate or vanilla the way it is with milk? Or can taking lots of other fluids like Nakibuuka does compensate for not drinking pure water?

Peter Rukundo, a lecturer in the department of Human Nutrition at Kyambogo and the Secretary General of Uganda Action for Nutrition affirms that there is no replacement for drinking pure water. He says that additive flavours come reinforced with preservatives which may react with the minerals in the water. This will generate new compounds instead, thus the body will not get the required nutritional value the way it is supposed to, from pure water.

He adds that much as juices, teas and soft drinks have water in them, none of these can substitute the nutritional and health importance of drinking pure water regardless of the quantities you take.

Mr Rukundo explains further, “When you take food with coca cola for example, the caffeine complexes (reacts creating a new compound in the body) with the vitamin C, and minerals like zinc, manganese and chromium in the food. The body will get the calories from the sugars in the drink but the vitamins will be lost and the body, something which wouldn’t happen with pure water.”

What to do if you find it difficult to drink plain water
Although he thinks that the largest percentage of people that have revulsion to water simply get addicted to other beverages and soft drinks over time, Mr Rukundo says that sinusitis, a nostril sensitivity that causes lots of sneezing in the morning could also be responsible for allergies to water in some people.

The adage of ‘too much of anything is not good’ applies to water intake as well and could be responsible for the oral acidity some people get from taking water. “Water contains fluoride. Too much fluoride will dissolve calcium in the teeth creating an acidic compound,” the nutritionist explains.
For people who get an acidic after-taste with water, this could be the problem. Instead of adding flavours, Mr Rukundo recommends sparkling water, a bottled drink that can help to reduce the blandness most people complain about. Natural spring water is the other alternative as it has a taste many people tolerate better than boiled tap water. Different mineral waters too have different tastes that you may find more accommodating if you have a problem taking the usual boiled water.

Hajji Hassan Kiggundu, who also finds it a problem taking ordinary boiled water, has found that he can tolerate and drink water from a smoked pot. “My wife smokes the pot, then pours in boiled water and it stays there for sometime before we cool it in a fridge,” he says. You could also try this.

And for the people who are addicted to other beverages, Mr Rukundo suggests change of behaviour. This will not happen overnight though. So start out by taking juice instead of soda as accompaniment for your food, he suggests. Much as fresh juice has sugar, you at least start out by cutting out the additives that are typical of soda. You can then gradually move on to small amounts of water.

With all the nutritional benefits of drinking plain water-at least eight glasses a day or three litres, in mind, and the respective dangers of substituting it with other beverages, it is important that whatever your reasons for dislike towards water, you use any of the above suggestions to ensure you start a journey with the unadulterated drink.