I KNOW water is the best, buuuutttt...

I don't like plain water unless I'm really thirsty so it's always flavoured sparkling water and diet sodas for me

I personally feel there is no substitute for water. That being said, I love the flavor add ins. I just use them as a reward for meeting my water goals as a treat. Back when drinking water was a challenge I did use them more and just began mixing them weaker to get used to drinking more water.
Maybe some will have good results counting any liquid as water, but that never paid off for me. I always lose better sticking to the basics.
Milk is never a good replacement as just drinking milk can dehydrate you. My son passed out a few times due to drinking only milk and green tea.

stevencloser wrote: »

JulieSHelms wrote: »

CoffeeNCardio wrote: »

JulieSHelms wrote: »

I can't stand the taste of water (since I was a kid). With the exception of after I exercise and I put it on ice. Then I can't taste it--it's just cold and wet and perfect. So I drink a total of one cup of water per day as long as I worked out. Otherwise its diet soda, V8, and raw milk.

What is "raw" milk?

@CoffeeNCardio Straight from a grass-fed cow--not pasteurized or homogenized. Pasteurizing removes all the healthy enzymes and helpful bacteria. Homogenizing breaks the fat down into a less healthy form.

ETA: and the taste is just amazing.

And pasteurizing also reduces the risk of catching any sickness off of it a hundredfold.

This is absolutely true if you buy milk from feed lot dairy cows (ie milk from the supermarket). Raw milk from pastured cows is rigorously tested and perfectly safe, not to mention a whole lot healthier.

I drink only a lot of water at work. At home, I have water for when I'm reaally thirsty. If I'm wanting something "better" with a meal, I do a 12oz of Dr Pepper as long as I have the calories to spare. Sometimes I drink orange juice and grape juice.

stevencloser wrote: »

JulieSHelms wrote: »

stevencloser wrote: »

JulieSHelms wrote: »

CoffeeNCardio wrote: »

JulieSHelms wrote: »

I can't stand the taste of water (since I was a kid). With the exception of after I exercise and I put it on ice. Then I can't taste it--it's just cold and wet and perfect. So I drink a total of one cup of water per day as long as I worked out. Otherwise its diet soda, V8, and raw milk.

What is "raw" milk?

@CoffeeNCardio Straight from a grass-fed cow--not pasteurized or homogenized. Pasteurizing removes all the healthy enzymes and helpful bacteria. Homogenizing breaks the fat down into a less healthy form.

ETA: and the taste is just amazing.

And pasteurizing also reduces the risk of catching any sickness off of it a hundredfold.

This is absolutely true if you buy milk from feed lot dairy cows (ie milk from the supermarket). Raw milk from pastured cows is rigorously tested and perfectly safe, not to mention a whole lot healthier.

Apparently not if you look at the CDC statistics.

“Using government figures for foodborne illness for the entire population [...] you are about thirty-five thousand times more likely to get sick from other foods than you are from raw milk,”
http://www.foodrenegade.com/government-data-proves-raw-milk-safe/

shellyld2016 wrote: »

Milk is never a good replacement as just drinking milk can dehydrate you.

Do you have any sources for this belief? Since milk is mainly water, this is counterintuitive.

The only reason I would avoid a lot of milk is that I prefer eating my calories instead of drinking them.

I completely agree with La Croix...just wonderful. Also herbal teas both hot & iced. You can get some really fantastic tasting ones like hibiscus. Yum!

stevencloser wrote: »

JulieSHelms wrote: »

stevencloser wrote: »

JulieSHelms wrote: »

stevencloser wrote: »

JulieSHelms wrote: »

CoffeeNCardio wrote: »

JulieSHelms wrote: »

I can't stand the taste of water (since I was a kid). With the exception of after I exercise and I put it on ice. Then I can't taste it--it's just cold and wet and perfect. So I drink a total of one cup of water per day as long as I worked out. Otherwise its diet soda, V8, and raw milk.

What is "raw" milk?

@CoffeeNCardio Straight from a grass-fed cow--not pasteurized or homogenized. Pasteurizing removes all the healthy enzymes and helpful bacteria. Homogenizing breaks the fat down into a less healthy form.

ETA: and the taste is just amazing.

And pasteurizing also reduces the risk of catching any sickness off of it a hundredfold.

This is absolutely true if you buy milk from feed lot dairy cows (ie milk from the supermarket). Raw milk from pastured cows is rigorously tested and perfectly safe, not to mention a whole lot healthier.

Apparently not if you look at the CDC statistics.

“Using government figures for foodborne illness for the entire population [...] you are about thirty-five thousand times more likely to get sick from other foods than you are from raw milk,”
http://www.foodrenegade.com/government-data-proves-raw-milk-safe/

5% of food-related disease outbreaks where the food in question could be identified were linked to raw milk.

http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/rawmilk/nonpasteurized-outbreaks-2012.html

Don't know where that Dr. Beals got his numbers from, but it sure isn't the CDC.


http://www.cdc.gov/features/rawmilk/
http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/rawmilk/raw-milk-questions-and-answers.html

Only 1% of milk sold in the US is raw milk, but of all milk-related outbreaks over a time period, depending on the time frame up to 80% were from raw milk.

@stevencloser All of your links are from the CDC, a government organization with a total crusade against raw milk for political reasons.
http://www.westonaprice.org/press/fda-and-cdc-bias-against-raw-milk/

They have a well-documented history of singling out raw milk and/or other organic products. Typically, when there is an outbreak, if they can find one person who drinks raw milk on the list, they assign raw milk as the culprit, eventhough the rest of the affected individuals didn't drink raw milk, the cows tested clean, and the milk itself had no sign of whatever bacteria in question.

At my local dairy, a customer got sick (along with many other non-milk drinking people) and the dairy was ordered to close and thousands of gallons of milk were ordered dumped. All local residents were warned against them. Before the milk was dumped, the health dept tested milk from every batch, plus they tested milk from the person's fridge that had gotten sick and a collection of other customers' milk who hadn't. Weeks later, no results had been released. My dairy took it to court. The government entity in this case was forced to admit that no milk tested had been tainted and they had no reason to think the campylobacter came from the dairy. But of course my dairy already knew this because all of their milk is tested before being sold in the first place. That was it, no apology, no big announcement exonerating them. Just bullying.

Did you read the report from the CDC where over 200,000 people were sickened and 18 died in a massive salmonella outbreak of pasteurized milk? No, I didn't either. You can only find that information from third-party sources. Here is a study (unrelated to raw milk) examining salmonella outbreaks from pasteurized milk where you can see a history of such outbreaks including the massive one mentioned here. (It's listed in a table as >150,000 affected). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3323239/

In my state (Pennsylvania), raw milk testing (done on EVERY batch) is required to be 5x cleaner than pasteurized milk. So yeah, pasteurization kills most of the nasties, but there is a whole bunch more in it to start with that need to be killed--yummy.

Like anything, a person needs to do their own research and discover if it is an option right for themselves and their family.