The Practical Nutritionist, LLC

Audrey J Pellegrino, M. Ed, M. HN

Holistic Nutritionist/Educator

603-768-3214

practicalnutrition@gmail.com

www.pnutritionist.com

YOU ARE WHAT YOU DRINK?!

There is an Irish prayer/toast that hopes you are never thirsty and another that tells you to leave the table thirsty.  Even hundreds of years ago there was conflict as to what and how much you should drink.  Today we have drinks that would have been unrecognizable just twenty years ago.

This is when we have to ask ourselves, “If our parents would not have recognized it, will our bodies?”

I believe that everyone recognizes the truth that our bodies need water.  Without water we would die in three to four days, that is because of bodies are primarily made up of water and it is essential for digestion and circulation.  But often people go for days without drinking water and drink other liquids instead.  While these may quench the thirst, they do not quench the needs of your body.  That is because the liquids have other substances in them which require more work from your body to process.

The new high caffeine energy drinks are a perfect example.  Their primary ingredients are caffeine and sugar in the form of glucuronolactone, sucrose and glucose.  So they will give you a lot of energy, but they will also make your liver and kidneys work very hard.  They are cyclical, which means you will get an energy boost but then you will also have an energy crash, this is also the cycle that is believed to set people up for type two diabetes later on in life.  Do you really need all that to be happening in your body, when all you really wanted was not to be thirsty anymore?

Coffee is a known stimulant and millions of people use it each day to jump start their sluggish system.  However if you grab the ice coffee with mocha syrup and 2% milk, you have just added

350 calories, before your day begins.  In ten days you have added an extra pound of weight, in a year you have added 36.5 pounds, all from your morning drink.   A smoothie should be delicious, nutritious and wholesome yet the supersize, commercial smoothies you buy at the beach or the local coffee shop could hold up to 720 calories, that means at the end of a year you will have drank the equivalent of over 75 pounds.  Yikes!

People ask me how much wine and beer they can drink and still be healthy.  There has been research that red wine has health benefits and possibly dark ale.  The biggest reason believed is that they relieve your stress level, allowing you to “unwind” internally so your body can function without stress.  It is recommended that a woman has one drink and a man two, each drink being equivalent to four ounces.  Anything over that and you no longer drinking health benefits and the alcohol begins to have a reverse effect on your health.

 I recently read a report that stated it takes 32 glasses of water to reverse the acidic buildup of one glass of cola.  That seems extreme to me, but with further testing it may be proving absolutely true.  I do know that a cola has twelve teaspoons of sugar and diet cola has several substances, such as artificial sweeteners that may actually slow down your metabolism and have other detrimental effects on your body. Liquid calories count and they should often be classified as food, as that is how your body will have to process them. This summer don’t deny yourself a liquid treat, but don’t fool yourself into thinking you can have a treat every day and not have an effect on your health.  You are what you eat, but remember you are what you drink as well.