Avoiding eating and drinking together - could it help?

[Lizzie]

General advice you often read in newspaper health articles etc is to wait about 20 minutes between eating and drinking so as to aid digestion (to avoid diluting stomach acids, I think). I have never managed to stick to this advice, as like most people I was brought up to have a cup of tea during my meals.

I'm just wondering whether this could have any relevance to IBD symptoms? Is there any chance that avoiding eating and drinking at around the same time could help with a flare up, for example? I would love to know if anybody has tried this and seen an improvement. Apologies if it's a bit of a silly question, though.

 

[Spooky1]

Not a silly question. My best friend is a retired GP and she says I'm weird having tea with a lunch out. The only way to find out whether it helps to abstain for 20 mins is to abstain. I might try it but even drinking water with gastric dumping syndrome is awkward. Give it a try if you can. Oh, and do let me know.

 

[kiny]

We had to do this in school, I went to a boarding school run by nuns, and they never allowed us to open our little box with juice until our meal was finished. I didn't have crohn's disease at the time, but I always was uncomfortable eating meals without liquids, I often cheated and opened my box of juice under the table. It's just not very easy to eat big meals without a drink.

I also wonder if we are so inclided to add water to our meals, why this would be a bad thing, it is obviously an instinct. We instinctly try to add liquids to our meal, even after years of being in taht school, I still felt the need to add liquid to my meal, even if it was just water. I think there must be a reason we do this.

Regarding crohn's disease, you add your liquids straight into your nutrients with EN, and it seems to help, I really doubt not adding liquid to your meals would have any positive impact on crohn's disease. Not worrying about something like that probably has more benefits, like less stress. Shrug.

 

[Second e]

I love this question. As soon as I saw it I was thinking someone else is having trouble drinking while eating like me. Not exactly what it was but great anyway. When I was little I never drank while I ate. I never thought anymore about it. But now if I do drink while I eat, especially with scrambled eggs, orange juice or bread I will throw up immediately. I have no idea why that happens. I'm not nauseated at all I just can't keep it down. I rally have to either drink before or awhile after I eat. I wish I could enjoy both at the same time.

 

[vonfunk]

There is no point to waiting 20 minutes between food and liquid. It takes on about an hour and a half for your stomach to start emptying into the small intestine and 4-5 for the stomach to empty completely.
This might be less for someone with digestive issues, but in no way would it be down to 20 minutes.

 

[Orchid]

Funk beat me to the punch, unless you are waiting two hours to be absolutely sure there's no solid/liquid intermingling there's no point in doing this unless you have issues eating and drinking at the same time.

 

[vonfunk]

Also waiting an hour to swim after eating is also garbage.

 

[Orchid]

The overall lesson here is everything you were taught in high school was a lie.

 

[Spooky1]

Orchid, I couldn't agree more, lol.

 

[Lizzie]

So it's all just a myth? One less thing to worry about, I suppose.