Water With Dinner Is Linked to Eating More, Not Less
In filmed meals, sipping between bites was tied to larger meals, possibly by keeping the mouth comfortable and flavors fresh.
Nautilus · Drinking Water With Meals May Make You Eat More, Not LessPeople who drank more water with dinner also ate more food, at least in one close look at filmed meals. Food scientists reviewed videos of 49 healthy adults eating bowls of tikka masala or chili served with water, and for each 100 grams sipped, people took in about 39 extra grams of food.
People who switched back and forth between sips and bites showed the same pattern, with each switch tied to just more than four grams of extra food. The researchers describe this as an association seen in the videos, not proof that water causes people to eat more.
Paige Cunningham, a food scientist at Cornell University who led the study, said the team's proposed explanations start with how quickly water leaves the stomach. Because water empties quickly, she said, it likely does not keep people full for long.
Instead, she said, water may help people keep eating by keeping the mouth wet and making swallowing easier, and by preventing a dry mouth that can cut short enjoyment of food.
The team also proposes that switching between water and food may dull or delay sensory-specific satiety, the drop in enjoyment that happens as you keep eating the same dish and the tenth bite tastes less appealing than the first. In this hypothesis, water cleans the palate between bites, so the next bite tastes newer and the meal continues.
That idea is still unproven. Cunningham said the analysis looked at associations and that follow-up work is underway to test whether the link is causal.
Questions people ask
Should I stop drinking water with meals to eat less?
No. Plain water has no calories, and your body still needs fluid with food for swallowing and digestion. If you are trying to eat less, the finding suggests paying attention to how sipping affects your own appetite, not avoiding water.
Do soda or juice do the same thing as water?
Probably not in the same way. Sweet, flavored, or carbonated drinks add their own strong tastes and calories, so they do not clean the palate the way plain water does. They can also fill you up differently because of sugar, bubbles, or other ingredients.
Why does the same food taste less exciting after several bites?
That fade is normal sensory-specific satiety, the built-in drop in pleasure after repeated bites of one food. It is one reason a new dessert can sound appealing even after a filling main course, because variety restarts interest.