Paleolithic rate of water consumption

[coma]

Just a thought thats been growing and nagging at the back of my mind. Everytime I see recommendations about water consumption the advice almost always contains something along the lines of 'sipping it throughout the day'. However my understanding of tribal/animal behaviour is to visit a watering hole/spring and ingest a large amount in one sitting rather than make return visits.

This would seem to imply that large intakes of water a few times a day is closer to our paleolithic nature. Sewing was a fairly late paleolithic development, maybe the use of an animal stomach as a water carrying tool might explain this? Either that or the sipping advice has more to do with avoiding water toxicity than any kind of optimal water ingestion.

[ATZ]

Drink when you're thirsty I say, none of this 8 glasses of water a day AT LEAST!

[Ripped Barbarian]

I've got quite strong viewpoints on water consumption.

-People who boast about 'drinking 5 litres a day' are idiots.
-You only need as much water as your body asks, providing you are in good health and not entering a rapidly changing environment.
-Drink away from meals, water with meals decreases digestion ability through simple dilution.

My personal water intake is this:

-First thing in the morning, before food.
-Sometimes a little bit during the day at work, away from food.
-During /After exercise, before food.

That's it.
Generally my consumption of water is under 1 litre a day, take note however that i often eat a kilo of vegetables a day, which contain a good amount of water.

I feel a hell of a lot better than when i thought drinking loads of water was a good thing to do, it's not, it will flush minerals out of your body, downregulate adh and you'll be MORE dehydrated than drinking less water!
You'll also get cramps like knife wounds.

People who promote rediculous water consumption for 'detox' are wrong idiots, like gillian mckeith.

[coma]

I'm not too fussed about volume of water intake, more the frequency of the intake throughout the day. It makes sense to me both to eat away from meals since it's unlikely that paleolithic man would eat his kill at a source of water, but also to take a few medium size intakes throughout the day. This seems to make more sense since energy expenditure and hence dehydration is going to be higher while hunting foraging and not while they're lying back enjoying a feed.

[Ripped Barbarian]

In europe our ancestors never had much problem getting water, it wouldn't have been regularly available, like it is on a tap however and would require walking to the nearest steam, marsh, snow pile etc and would take more effort to obtain.

As you say, it is certainly unlikely that large amounts of water were drunk with meals.
However, it is noted in the animal world that carnivores such as wolves will drink a large volume of water an hour or two after eating a large amount of meat, this is to prevent uremic poisoning, your instincts will tell you this if you are a carnivore.

An interesting thing is how the australian natives have learnt to cope with very low water reserves, anything from sucking water out of frogs to digging several metres to get at wet sand.

[greg]

I simply drink when one is thirsty

[daffy]

Agree with RC on 5 litres being overkill.

I think your body has the mechanism to do ok on any of the protocols described above. When water is scarce, your body will store water, otherwise known as water retention, when water is plentiful, you will hang on to less water. Water intake probably fluctuated according to the period and time of year.

[NU_nutrition_TS]

I wish I could give a 'thanks' for an entire thread!

[NU_nutrition_TS]

Howzat?

[Gareth83]

they would have also drank water as cold as possible no doubt