My go-to drink at any restaurant is a water… with lemon. If they forgot the lemon I let them know. I’d rather not drink it without one. I figure this tastes great, is low in calories and it’s free. It’s a win, win, win! All my life I’ve been taught that lemon water also has health benefits, so I wondered, what were they? And to what extent are they beneficial? I did my research.
Lemon water is at it’s peak beneficial properties when drank at room temperature, according to this article. While you may enjoy lemon water while out to dinner in a tall glass that is containing mostly ice, the ice cold water makes the lemon more difficult to digest in your system and is not all that much of a benefit. Likewise, piping hot lemon water isn’t all that great either. While it may be a nice alternative to tea and seem very “healthy”, the hot water wipes away some of the key enzymatic properties in the lemon juice, so you’re not getting a lot of nutrients there either. Plain old room temperature water is the best option for lemon water drinkers who are looking to get the most out of the benefits and not just the taste.
There are a lot of benefits of lemons that I have never heard of until researching that make it such a healthy drink. While I thought that lemons just contained a vitamin or two, they appear to be much more than that. As shown in this article, lemon’s have many properties that make it a great flavor for your water. One of these properties are that they rich in Vitamin C. Vitamin C is what works against sicknesses like the cold or flu, so drinking lemon water around these times of the year would do you well. The citric acid in lemons can help to dissolve kidney stones which is a major blessing in disguise. Lemons strengthen both your eyes and your blood vessels. They are also beneficial for cleaning your bowels by promoting waste elimination.
I kept reading up on lemon water and saw over and over again that it “helps you lose weight” or “helps shed pounds off”. When I looked up if this was true or not, I was shocked at my results. This health website wrote a specific article on three beverages that help you lose weight more efficiently as opposed to drinking lemon water. The three drinks listed were ice water (which shocked me the most), green tea and coffee. Who knew?! These drinks apparently speed up your metabolism faster than lemon water ever could. While ice may not be good to put in lemon water to get the most out of the lemons benefits; it certainly is still great for your body!
While I now know that lemon water may not be the best for losing weight compared to other drinks, it still tastes good and doesn’t harm you, so I will go on enjoying my favorite drink!
I found this blog very intriguing. I used to be a kinesiology major, and I actual did a study on the health benefits of putting lemons in water. We did a control group study were we had people drink lemon in their water for a month, and compared them to the people who didn’t drink lemon in their water. We everyone drank the same amount of water throughout the day, and had the same amount of meals and exercise each day. At the end of the study we found that lemon actually helps people lose weight, along with other good health benefits as well.
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/11-benefits-lemon-water-you-didnt-know-about.html
I find it so interesting that you’re writing about this! Just this past Sunday I was out for lunch and the waitress asked if I wanted lemon with my water. Honestly before this, I never questioned lemon in water. I was really struck this time with the question of why? Is lemon anything more than a flavor that people become accustomed to when they drink water out at restaurants? Your blog got me thinking about not just lemons, but other fruits as well. I see people all the time with strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, or cucumbers in their water bottles. And as I’m sure you know, the list could go on. After reading your post, I would be very curious to learn if these additions come along with benefits others than a flavor boost. Does the water become infused with vitamins if fruits are added? Flavor is good, but putting fruit in water would mean something completely different if health benefits came along with!
This topic is really interesting and relatable. I hate drinking water unless I put lemon in it. It’s good to know all the possible health benefits I’m getting from drinking lemon water. I found this article (http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/11-benefits-lemon-water-you-didnt-know-about.html) that talks more about the benefits of lemon water.
I really enjoyed reading this blog post for the simple fact that the topic about lemons. I love to drink lemonades and I also get water with lemon when I go to restaurants. What really caught my attention about this blog post was learning that drinking ice cold water with lemon make it hard to digest the lemon. I did not know that drinking lemon at room temperature is the best way to receive the best beneficial properties.
When I order a lemon with my water I have never truly stopped to think about the possible health benefits of it. Truly the only thing that comes to my mind is the flavor, and whether or not I want to put one lemon or two into my drink. Now your blog post got me thinking about the the difference in just squeezing the contents of the lemon into your glass versus placing the entire lemon, rind and all into your glass. As it turns out placing the whole lemon in your water could actually have some health risks. An article published by the Huffington Post delves into this issue by comparing experimental results that require the swabbing of the rind in order to test for microorganisms. In all of the studies discussed in this article contaminates on the rind including bacteria and even in a large number of cases, human fecal matter. It was also discovered that many employees were caught handling the fruit with bare hands. Now our immune systems can usually combat these small portions of microorganisms, but there is still a probability of getting sick from just putting a lemon in your water. Now while one may reap the health benefits of the citrus fruit, I would suggest squeezing its contents into the glass.
I too only drink water at restaurants, although I do also drink club soda/seltzer as well. I always assumed lemon water at any temperature was beneficial. Well, according to your research we were all wrong. But why did we believe this in the first place? Well, our parents probably. But why did we believe them? Simple. Appeal to authority doomed us all! We should never have believed them because they didn’t have any evidence of this. Additionally, they also might have suffered from confirmation bias. Our parents may have read somewhere on the news that lemon water should be at room temperature for health benefits but they just rejected that hypothesis or deleted it from their mind entirely. I will not do the same mistake!
Interesting, I never really thought about there being more to a lemon in the drink beyond a slight flavoring and decoration. As a kid, I always tried to squeeze it all out into the drink, and when it didn’t turn into lemonade, I figured it was pointless. When you think about it, because many people don’t eat lemons straight, this is a very smart way to get it into your system.
Caroline, I completely agree that water with lemon makes water taste so much better! Also as a healthy alternative to lemonade, I like squeezing multiple lemons in my water. I definitely learned the health benefits lemon water provides us, as it speed up our metabolism and helps us loose weight. I think if you could have added a study or paper that tested the effects lemon water has rather than regular water your blog would be even stronger. Also I am still interested in other benefits lemon water has in order for me to make a change in my life and start drinking more lemon water. Since this risk is small it wouldn’t impact my life dramatically.