Hydration Nation, What’s Your Libation?

Summer is upon us and it has already been a doozy. 

Smoke from over 200 Canadian wildfires blanketed the area for days, followed by intense rains and humidity, followed by more smoke and more hot rain in a pattern. In early July 2023, Califon had flooding that shut down the downtown for a while, with the lumber yard hit the hardest. As the barometer moves all over the place in summer – often with significant jumps in a single day – it is important to stay hydrated. Barometric changes can cause headaches in people, and even though humid days don’t dry out the body like hot dry ones can, the heat in the air still takes its toll. Let’s look at some ways to stay hydrated during the peak of summer and beyond. 

Water, Salt, Heart 

Many heart-related symptoms that worry people are just simple cases of mild dehydration since the heart is the body’s main muscle working 24/7, 365 days a year. (This is not to say you shouldn’t take serious heart conditions seriously.) The heart needs plenty of water to run optimally. Some people avoid water like the plague or have a fundamental distaste for it, and while the body does extract water from the food it receives, there is a point where the body will let you know that it’s running low. Headache, fatigue, and general malaise are often signs your body could use a top-up. As we’ve written about previously, salt is not necessarily a societal evil to be avoided or minimized, but helps the body’s cells open up to nutrients, and you need a good salts-H2O balance to be at your best. Potassium is so important that it’s one of the elements that’s essential for life in the universe – and the 7th-most abundant material in the earth’s crust. 

Not All H2O is Created Equal 

Dehydration can lead to all sorts of problems in the body, and finding your body’s right level of juice can be dramatic: when people who’ve run their bodies low on water increase their intake, they often notice a variety of positive symptoms, from muscle flexibility to increased energy to an overall sense of well-being. Massage therapists will often note healthier muscle tones in the well-hydrated. 

But the quality of water matters too. Contaminated or dirty water is to be avoided, of course, and if you develop your palate enough you’ll begin to notice subtle but important differences between water that is well, city, alkaline, filtered, tap, rain, hard, soft, etc. Coffeehouse baristas are often trained in their Javarian duties to learn about how the input water impacts the coffee experience. Some water is salival, some are sweet, and some are bland. Some folks will say that water is neutral and tasteless, but with a little applied or natural sensitivity you can tease out more specific, subjective qualia. 

The Evolution of Water 

Caffeine and alcohol are both dehydrators, and many people get on the caffeine-day and alcohol-night cycle that can make good hydration challenging. Food provides about 20% of our body’s water needs, but the problem is that food also requires water for it to be processed by the body: proteins, especially. If you are particularly active in the hot summer months, you’ll need to be getting that extra hydration. A popular trend that recently made the rounds on TikTok saw younger generations marveling at Generation X childhoods, which were largely spent outdoors, in light-combat conditions, and hydrated by good ol’ garden hose water. It wasn’t until the 1980s that fancy waters became part of status symbol culture. 

Chef Becky on Water

“I’m not a big fan of sugary waters like Gatorade or even coconut water,” Chef Becky opines. “Nothing against coconut water – it’s very healthy and hydrating – but it has a taste I’m not into. I recommend Gerolsteiner mineral water: it’s not as intense as seltzer water but provides excellent hydration. Pre-internet, water was just kinda water, but in the information age, we know so much more: about microplastics, the human body, forever chemicals, and alkalinity – in a short amount of time, we’ve come a long way from the garden hose.” Just like everything these days, people have hacked pricey mineral waters and figured out how to home-brew it: the key is brewer’s salts, aka Burton salts. This is a trilogy of magnesium, potassium, and calcium – all good for the body and a way to jazz up plain ol’ water. 

More to Water than Meets the Eye 

Water is fascinating the more you look into it: there’s heavy water in energy production, the hydration and energy demands of Tour de France contestants, and the presence of water or not as a key indicator of the search for other life in the universe. And as important as water is and necessary for life, it’s amazingly simple: 2 hydrogen atoms combine with 1 oxygen atom, and voila. There’s nothing like being thirsty and miserable and then quenching that thirst. 

Come to Bex for our coffees, teas, grab-n- go beverages, and nutritious food offerings! As busy as life gets, take a hydration break.