For years, we have been told to drink lots of water to stay hydrated. It sounds simple enough, but what if I told you that hydration is more nuanced than that? When we understand this nuance, we can make better decisions surrounding what we drink.
Since the fluids in your body aren't made up of straight H2O, the water you drink must have minerals in it. Water filtering systems typically strip away most minerals. If you are drinking plain water (especially if you have a lot of it), you can dilute the complex mineral-rich fluids in your body. This makes "gel water" a great choice.
Let’s explore gel water and the role it can play in keeping us hydrated.
What Is Gel Water?
In their book Quench, authors Cohen and Bria explain that “for many years, we’ve operated with the assumption that the path to hydration was drinking eight glasses of water daily—the picture is actually much more complex.”
Gina Bria was an anthropologist studying how desert cultures survived with very little water when she found out that her mother was suffering from chronic dehydration. Bria knew the Tarahumara people of Mexico used chia seeds to aid in hydration, so she instructed her mother's caregiver to add ground chia seeds to her mother’s morning orange juice.
Doing this did the trick, and her mother stopped struggling with dehydration. Bria found that the gel water found in fruits, vegetables, & seeds (like chia seeds) is a powerful tool for our hydration today. In Quench, Cohen and Bria describe gel water, or living water, as a “newly identified phase of water that’s not quite liquid, vapor, or ice. (It is) identified by an extra hydrogen and oxygen atom, so the molecular structure is H3O2.”
According to Dr. Gerald Pollack, a bioengineering professor at the University of Washington, gel water is actually “better at hydrating than regular water because its absorptive properties help retain more water in the body.” Dr. Stacy Sims, a nutrition scientist at the University of Waikato in New Zealand and author of Roar, explains that plain water has a lower concentration of particles like glucose and sodium. As a result, it does not stay in our bodies as long as gel water, so it is not as effective for hydration.
Quick Tips for Hydration
While ancient cultures didn’t know the chemistry behind this type of hydration, they used gel water to sustain themselves when water was scarce. Today, we can use this knowledge and intentionally boost our hydration.
Dr. Schaefer, a promoter of gel water, offers some simple ways to incorporate gel water in your daily life.
- Start your day with 16 oz of gel water before you put anything else in your system (including coffee). Water with lemon is a great choice for a morning drink.
- Stir 1/16 teaspoon of table salt in every eight ounces of regular water you drink. This boosts the osmolality of your water.
- Encourage the production of gel water by adding citrus fruit (lemon, lime, grapefruit, etc.) to water throughout the day.
- Eat lots of fruits and vegetables. They are full of gel water and contain naturally occurring electrolytes. They are also high in fiber, which helps the body absorb the gel water.
- Drink and cook with bone broth. It is full of both collagen and gel water.
- Mix a teaspoon of crushed chia seeds into smoothies and other drinks.
- Cook with coconut and ghee. Both are full of gel water and electrolytes.
Fun Recipes to Increase Hydration
- Aloe Water
- Sports Drink
- Watermelon Drink
- Infused Water
- Chia Pudding
- Blueberry Chia Seed Jam (If you make this recipe, you can use it in the Blueberry Chia Smoothie and the Blueberry Chia Ice Pops.)
If you decide to try any of these tips, be sure to post a picture on the DuPage Family Wellness Facebook page! We would love to see it.
Dr. Jamie