There are many who advocate drinking with meals although animals and savages abstain from water at this time. Drinking with meals or soon thereafter is not compatible with good digestion.

While eating, large quantities of digestive juices are being poured into the stomach. If drink--water or beverages--is taken, these are diluted. The water passes out of the stomach in ten to fifteen minutes and carries the digestive juices along with it. The food is deprived of these juices and digestion is greatly retarded. Fermentation and putrefaction follow.

Drinking water and beverages leads to bolting of food. The food is washed down instead of being properly masticated and insalivated. Many foods are dry and require much insalivation before they can be swallowed. Washing them down with drink prevents the completion of this first and necessary step in digestion. Forego the drink and the glands of the mouth will meet the demand for fluid by a copious supply of digestive fluids.

Drinking water with meals and directly after meals, leads to dilatation of the stomach. Chronic indigestion, gastritis, ulcers, and even cancer follow in their logical order.

A fictitious thirst often follows a meal. This is especially so if the food has been salty, greasy or full of spices and condiments. This "thirst" should be ignored. If thirst following a meal is not satisfied with water, it will be satisfied with digestive secretions and these will bring along enough enzymes to prevent fermentation and accomplish digestion in good order. The intake of fluids with meals and immediately after meals interferes with all the digestive secretions and results in indigestion. One may safely drink fifteen to twenty minutes before meals.

The person who eats fruit, green and succulent vegetables, and avoids condiments and has overcome his drinking habit, will have little cause for drinking at any time and no cause for drinking at meal time or immediately thereafter. Let him not fear that his health will suffer therefrom. I can assure him that it will improve and quickly at that.

Drinking with meals is a frequent cause of overeating. It stimulates the appetite, sometimes even creating an enormous one. Trall says: "Some persons have boasted of the 'ravenous appetite' produced by drinking twenty or thirty tumblers of water a day; but I cannot understand the advantages of 'ravenous appetites'; they are generally indicative of excessive morbid irritation of the stomach."