Debate: Does Tea and Coffee count towards your water intake?

Personally, there is no debate......the food I eat contributes to my hydration so why should a cup of coffee not, and no, the diuretic effect doesn't negate all the water.

I count herbal tea only, as water - nothing with caffeine in it and especially not coffee with milk

Same for me. I don't have a problem drinking 8 cups of water, I usually drink 10 to 12 a day.
An actual cup of water once you measure it out isn't much. 2 drinks and it's gone.
My glass holds 3 cups of water, so 3 of my glasses of water is 9 cups. No problem. :drinker:

The only part of anyone's body that actually differentiates water mixed with dried leaves or ground beans (or sugar, or wrapped up in an orange, or well, you get the picture) is the part of the brain that is forming the thoughts and opinions on the subject. The rest of the body's systems only care that they are receiving enough H2O to function properly, no matter what the source.

Also, from Snopes.com


Origins: "You need to drink eight glasses of water per day to be healthy" is one of our more widely-known basic health tips. But do we really need
to drink that much water on a daily basis?

In general, to remain healthy we need to take in enough water to replace the amount we lose daily through excretion, perspiration, and other bodily functions, but that amount can vary widely from person to person, based upon a variety of factors such as age, physical condition, activity level, and climate. The "8 glasses of water per day" is a rule of thumb, not an absolute minimum, and not all of our water intake need come in the form of drinking water.

The origins of the 8-10 glasses per day figure remain elusive. As a Los Angeles Times article on the subject reported: Consider that first commandment of good health: Drink at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day. This unquestioned rule is itself a question mark. Most nutritionists have no idea where it comes from. "I can't even tell you that," says Barbara Rolls, a nutrition researcher at Pennsylvania State University, "and I've written a book on water."

Some say the number was derived from fluid intake measurements taken decades ago among hospital patients on IVs; others say it's less a measure of what people need than a convenient reference point, especially for those who are prone to dehydration, such as many elderly people.
Back in 1945 the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council stated that adults should take in about 2.5 liters of water per day (which is roughly the equivalent of eight glasses of water), but it also noted most of that intake level was already satisfied through the consumption of food without the need for the additional drinking of water. And as other nutritionists of the time noted, any shortfall in water intake could be made up through the consumption of beverages such as coffee, tea, milk, or soft drinks; one need not specifically drink water only in the form of water.

As Drs. Aaron E. Carroll and Rachel C. Vreeman reported in an article on this topic: There's nothing wrong with liking water, but there is no scientific proof stating that you need to drink anywhere near eight glasses a day. One doctor who has made this his research focus, Dr. Heinz Valtin, searched through many electronic databases and also consulted with nutritionists and colleagues who specialize in water balance in the body. In all of his research, and in all of the research we conducted to double-check his work, no scientific evidence could be found to suggest that you need to drink eight glasses of water a day. In fact, scientific studies suggest that you already get enough liquid from what you're drinking and eating on a daily basis. We are not all walking around in a state of dehydration.
Other medical experts have also disdained the notion that one need drink at least eight glasses of water per day to remain adequately hydrated: Kidney specialists do agree on one thing, however: that the 8-by-8 rule is a gross overestimate of any required minimum. To replace daily losses of water, an average-sized adult with healthy kidneys sitting in a temperate climate needs no more than one liter of fluid, according to Jurgen Schnermann, a kidney physiologist at the National Institutes of Health.

One liter is the equivalent of about four 8-ounce glasses. According to most estimates, that's roughly the amount of water most Americans get in solid food. In short, though doctors don't recommend it, many of us could cover our bare-minimum daily water needs without drinking anything during the day.


ome nutritionists insist that half the country is walking around dehydrated. We drink too much coffee, tea and sodas containing caffeine, which prompts the body to lose water, they say; and when we are dehydrated, we don't know enough to drink.

Can it be so? Should healthy adults really be stalking the water cooler to protect themselves from creeping dehydration?

Not at all, doctors say. "The notion that there is widespread dehydration has no basis in medical fact," says Dr. Robert Alpern, dean of the medical school at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Doctors from a wide range of specialties agree: By all evidence, we are a well-hydrated nation. Furthermore, they say, the current infatuation with water as an all-purpose health potion — tonic for the skin, key to weight loss — is a blend of fashion and fiction and very little science.
Additionally, the idea that one must specifically drink water because the diuretic effects of caffeinated drinks such as coffee, tea, and soda actually produce a net loss of fluid is erroneous: Regular coffee and tea drinkers become accustomed to caffeine and lose little, if any, fluid. In a study published in the October issue of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, researchers at the Center for Human Nutrition in Omaha measured how different combinations of water, coffee and caffeinated sodas affected the hydration status of 18 healthy adults who drink caffeinated beverages routinely.

"We found no significant differences at all," says nutritionist Ann Grandjean, the study's lead author. "The purpose of the study was to find out if caffeine is dehydrating in healthy people who are drinking normal amounts of it. It is not."

The same goes for tea, juice, milk and caffeinated sodas: One glass provides about the same amount of hydrating fluid as a glass of water. The only common drinks that produce a net loss of fluids are those containing alcohol — and usually it takes more than one of those to cause noticeable dehydration, doctors say.

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/8glasses.asp#xEsdy6mO4dHUOLfu.99

And from Harvard University (http://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/HEALTHbeat_091405.htm#art1)

We’ve heard it for decades: Drink at least 8 cups of water a day. Not only can three out of four adults recite this bit of health wisdom, but many even feel guilty if they don’t meet the standard. However, this advice may be based on a misunderstanding. Some trace it to the 1940s, when the National Academy of Sciences published a recommended daily allowance of 1 milliliter of fluid for each calorie burned—a little over 8 cups for a typical 2,000-calorie diet. However, the statement also explained that most of this fluid could be obtained via the liquid contained in foods.

Regardless, the 8-glasses-a-day dictum caught on. Today people frequently consume much more as they tote giant water bottles, buy super-size soft drinks, and follow programs that promise you can lose weight by drinking as much as a quart of fluid at a time.

In a 2000 survey conducted for Rockefeller University and the International Bottled Water Association, 2,818 adults in 14 cities reported drinking about 6 cups of water a day—a result that was presented as alarming evidence that Americans are becoming dehydrated. But if you include the sodas, coffee, tea, milk, juice, sports drinks, and alcoholic beverages these respondents drank, their average fluid consumption was 17.6 cups a day—enough to have you urinating every waking hour, even if you don’t have any problem with bladder capacity.

More recently, a kidney specialist at Dartmouth Medical School searched the scientific literature for studies that might support the idea that people need 8 glasses of fluid a day. Not only did he determine that no such evidence exists, but concluded that the research that has been done "strongly suggests that such large amounts are not needed."

I had a health instructor in college that taught us this:

Once you add ANYTHING to water, it stops being water. Count only H20 as water. Coffee and tea (which I love and drink a lot of) should not be included in your water intake goals. At least that's my belief....

This is why instead of drinking a cup of coffee, I drink a cup of pure water (followed by a mouthful of instant coffee granules). That way, I am getting both my caffeine fix AND taking care of my water requirement! Simples!

This is why I distill all my water that I drink at home. You THINK you are drinking pure water from the tap or a bottle. HA-HA

My tap water contains any of the following:

Calcium
Sodium
Potassium
Flouride
Magnesium
Bicarbonate
Nitrate
Chloride
Copper
Sulfate
Arsenic
Lead

I can't tell if you are trying to be funny or not....? I mean... is it really worth going to the effort of distilling your water to remove absolutely tiny trivial quantities of those substances (some of which are actually beneficial, by the way)

Of course he's serious! Only PURE WATER hydrates! If you don't distill all those things out of it, you will quickly die of dehydration. Don't die of dehydration!

The 8 glasses a day myth is an example of what Lenin called:
"A lie told often enough becomes the truth."

Your body has perfectly good mechanisms to regulate your hydration levels - that hydration comes from all sources and not just water. If you feel the need to check then urine output and colour will tell you all you need to know.

Also, "A lie can make it halfway around the world while truth is still putting its boots on. "
Ex. Dr. Oz

I had a health instructor in college that taught us this:

Once you add ANYTHING to water, it stops being water. Count only H20 as water. Coffee and tea (which I love and drink a lot of) should not be included in your water intake goals. At least that's my belief....

Some people NEVER drink plain water and they aren't dead, so I don't think it's true that it doesn't count.

For the "water only" people, (and I never log anything but water as water) what if a person just can't drink that much water by itself, without something like added electrolytes, or something like Mio, or tea? If I drink more then 24 ozs of water across a day where I haven't been working out like crazy, I get nauseous and even vomit. Me drinking 8 glasses of water is enough to have me vomiting up everything I've eaten and dry heaving besides.