Drinking water: ice cold or room temperature?

Just as an animal will always prefer to drink from a running source of water, most people prefer cold water as evolutionary pressures would favor those drinking from fresh (fast and cold) sources over those drinking from stagnant and warm (more likely to contain pathogens).

Cold water > warm water.

 

Just an observation - but if for whatever reason you are drinking water trying to lose weight... Every degree that cold water chills your body is that many more calories your body has to expend to maintain 98.6...

That said - I only drink water when I'm REALLY thirsty, otherwise the stuff makes me nauseous. They don't call it the universal solvent for nuthin'!

 

Damn Dan, slow day at Cauley?? LOL! I agree w/ David's assessment. Personally, I prefer room temp water as I normally only drink it for health reasons, not because I'm thirsty or like to drink it. Having said that, I drink about 16 ounces at a time and it's easier to guzzle it @ room temp vs. ice cold, but that's just me.

 

Your body has to warm the water before it can use it. If you're exercising drink room temperature water.

 

I prefer room temp water, all my friend think im weird. If its healthy for be bonus.

 

the thermodynamics involved are too small for any benefit, small c vs large C. molecular energy on a micro level vs macro. same goes for hot water, by that train of thought hot water would cause you to gain calories that would make you fat. it doesn't.

 

Drinking liquids that are too hot is more damaging. Randolph Hearst would never drink liquids that were too hot as he thought them to be bad for his health.

 

I like room temp

 

I like my water to be cold. Very very ice cold. Lots of ice.

Which of course leaves me always unsatisfied in Europe... would it kill that continent to buy a few ice makers? I mean, seriously...

 

i ll drink room temp h2o only.

 

+1

If your body needs water asap, use room temp water. Cold water will take longer to process as said above.

 

I assume that's where the "healthy" part comes in.

 

Room temp mostly...I really don't like water, but drink it for health and diet purposes.

 

very true. very true. i think they drink stuff warm just for spite.

 

I prefer it to be cool or cold. I mostly drink water when I am exercising, so the cold helps me cool off a little bit. When ever I drink warm water, it doesn't seem to do much, other than make me want to drink more and end up with a belly full of water..

 

ICED water is the only way to go! Water, on the rocks! But this here is country water, no municipal water or city water for me...not like that recycled water in NYNY that's been through seven people before you tap it into a glass.

 

If you drink cold, you'll lose weight because body will lose calorie warming up the water to body temperature.

 

I'd have to disagree. Did the math myself & if I drink one pint of ice water (assuming approx 35 degee F) my overall body temp (were the heat transfer to be nice & uniform) would drop from 98.6 F to 98.22 F. My CORE temp (where the cold water is actually doing the cooling) will actually drop more.

Good old howstuffworks.com says a 16 Oz glass of ice water will burn 70 calories warming it up - not a HUGE amount, but certainly isn't insignificant.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/question447.htm

Oh.. and it doesn't work the other way - else you'd either never get hungry or would get really fat in the summer Our bodies cool themselves by radiating heat into the environment, not by converting it into chemical energy and fat.

 

Plus, you can't ignore that pure water is absent the refined sugars, high fructose corn syrup, or artificial sweeteners in many soft drinks. Most soft drinks will ring up about 10 calories per fluid ounce, so I drink water at all times except for 2 cups of very lightly sweetened tea (no more than 1 packet of sugar per cup) and 2 cups of milk.

Oh, and a glass of scotch at night!

 

food calories are 1000 physics calories, so the calc would be for a kilogram vs gram of water or (1 liter) one centigrade degree from room temp. so consuming 0.5 liter of water 10c colder than you would consume 5 calories.

So in the best case with a 16-ounce glass of ice water, your body must raise the temperature of 473.18 grams of water from zero to 37 degrees C. In doing so, your body burns 17,508 calories. But that's calories with a little "c." Your body only burns 17.5 Calories, and in the grand scheme of a 2,000-Calorie diet, that 17.5 isn't very significant and zero C is 32F or damn near frozen.

But let's say you adhere to the "eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day" nutritional recommendation. In 64 ounces of water, there are 1,892.72 grams. So to warm up all that water in the course of a day, your body burns 70,030 calories, or 70 Calories. if once again your drinking water that is near frozen.

 

Pretty interesting thread....But I'll say that all of my drinks (tea/water/soda) are always ICE cold and packed to the brim with ice cubes in my house. I too am annoyed in Europe so I always just make it a habit to ask for 'heavy ice' in my drinks over there....especially London and Dublin. For some reason they despise ice