How Much Water Should One Drink?

I already addressed this topic on my original blog, but unfortunately the URL has been taken down and is no longer accessible. I decided to post a new posting on water because most people do not understand how much water we need or do not need.

If you follow the mainstream they will always recommend that we drink at least 8 glasses (8 US ounces) of water a day. This amounts to about 2 liters of water a day. This recommendation of course is based on the typical American diet, which is a very highly concentrated diet of processed foods with tons of added salt, spices, additives and condiments.

In fact this recommended amount of water is probably way too low for the average American dieter. In order to clean out all of the toxins that they consume a lot more water than that is necessary. Almost all cooked food (except for boiled or steamed vegetables and possibly rice) is extremely dehydrated. For each ounce of cooked food at least 2 to 3 ounces of water are needed just to rehydrate the food.

More water than that is needed to help the body eliminate the toxins and the resultant toxins from our metabolism of these foods. In fact the recommendation is off by about 100%, at least 16 glasses (8 US ounces) should be consumed a day when eating a cooked diet.

If you are not on a cooked food diet or a dehydrated food diet (as the gourmet raw diet) and you consume only fresh, ripe, raw whole foods like fruits and vegetables then your need for water drops. Most fruits are full of water as are most vegetables.

If you live in a cooler or moderate climate and you do not do a lot of extremely difficult work or exercise then your recommended consumption of water would not be very high. This also depends on what kinds of fruits you are eating that day.

If your diet consists of a lot of low water fruits like dates and bananas then you will need to drink water to make sure you are hydrated well. If on the other hand you consume only very high water content fruits like citrus, mangoes, papaya, etc. then your need for water goes way down.

In fact if we still consumed the 8 or 16 glasses of water a day with a diet of high water content fruits you would actually be hurting yourself and not helping by over taxing your kidneys.

If your urine is clear and you go urinate at least 8 to 14 times a day then there would be no need to drink more water. That would only cause your elimination organs to unecessarily work harder than they should. Every organ of the body except the heart and lungs needs to have a rest, forcing the kidneys to work all day long is preventing them from getting sufficient rest.

Judge for yourself. If you are seeing clear urine and you urinate between 8 and 14 times a day then you do not need to drink more water. Waking up once or twice a night to urinate is also normal and not a sign of something wrong.

Do not just go out and drink more water just because somebody is telling you to, make sure that you are hydrated well by checking the color of your urine and how often you urinate. Depending on your level of activity and the climate where you live the amount can range from less than half of a liter to as much as 3 or 4 liters a day.