Mrs. Jesus believes that drinking cold water is unhealthy under certain conditions. I’ve been drinking it my whole life, with no ill effects.
I say that we simply adhere to different views of medicine which–like the different religions of the world–shall never agree. All we who are civilized can do, is hope that one day God may open the eyes of these poor ignorant souls, and teach them to renounce Tai-chi, Chinese medicine, and the regular propitiation of demons. On the offchance that some of these actually work, then they should do the right thing and have them peer-reviewed in somewhere respectable like Lancelet. (Except the demonolatry, for which a theology journal would clearly be more appropriate.)
But noooo, the Mrs. insists that Chinese traditions are just as good as actual science. And I hear the Indians and Tibetans have their own separate medicines too. And what about Traditional Texas Medicine? (Relies heavily on self-medication by means of whisky.) Does TCM have a single stinking advantage over TTM? Let’s just say I have my doubts…
Alas, whatever opinions she might have about health find themselves imbued with the aura of Tradition (which come to think of it, includes the tradition of the Aura) and clearly outweigh my own tentative uncertainties, based on nothing more solid than potentially falsifiable scientific findings. (Or at least, what I imagine what science would discover if it ever studied this stuff.)
This is an on-going debate - read argument - with me & the wife. She is stone nuts about this. I find it highly suspect - read utter nonsense.
Of course their may be certain times when pounding down a large amount of icy cold H20 may cause a problem…maybe. But I just don’t buy the ‘carved-in-stone’ belief in the total negative effects of cold water that I see here.
Its stone looney IMO!
You fellows know NOTHING! Come back to me when your wives start spinning some line at you about cold BEER being somehow less than nectar of the gods which cures everything that whisky can’t, and THEN tell me about silly theories.
Now THAT stuff really IS hazardous. At least it gave me CKS’s Revenge once. And another time, I saw a dog piss on one of the blocks of ice that had been set out, awaiting pulverization. Yum!
hogwash. as are many chinese medical superstitions, but certainly not all of them. be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. and TCM is actually an empirical science, at about the same stage that western science was at 100-200 years ago. this is not arrogance, just a fair comparison based on the scientific principles develped in the last 100 years in the west. don’t forget, western medicine went through more than 1,000 years of aristotle and galen as its sole unquestionable authorities, until vesalius and harvey stirred things up.
there may be some truth behind it, such as cramping of the stomach and oesophageal sphincter from too much cold too suddenly, but you would have to continue be an idiot to drink too much too fast after the first time it happens to you. cool or cold water taken internally can certainly help to cool the body down during or after hard exercise, like window-shopping or whatever. once it hits the stomach, it gets well diluted with body temp stomach liquids and is no longer a problem.
i think the TCM concept of drinking hot water comes from some part of reality tho:
boiling water was for a long time the only way to make sure you did not catch dysentry or cholera or etc etc when living in old time china… or old time europe or anywhere else for that matter. if the water was still hot, it was probably boiled at some time in the recent past.
there was another way that the british army used in india…
soldiers were forbidden to drink anythng other than hot tea or BEER (hot or cold was not an issue for the beer, it was all warm). this is the origin of the beer IPA: indian pale ale, a light(ish) beer that was capable of being carried around india on the back of a wagon in the heat for six months and was still potable.
another beer of interest in this thread was porter: another ale that could be transported wthout going off. sort of a potable and portable beer, and prob the ancestor of IPA.
if beer is still drinkable, it means that it has not been invaded by any bacteria. porters and IPA had enough active yeast in them to prevent bacterial contamination, even with leaky corks or wax seals.
there was a punishment regime for water drinkers, but i forget what that was. it’s been a while since the old empire collapsed, and owing to all the beer, my memory is not what it was.
Bottom line: cold water is good. There are no health benefits of warm water over cold water at all, except personal preference.
And the added benefit of drinking cold to icy water is they burn more calories! Tell that to most Taiwanese women and you just might be able to change their way of thinking. Just might.
Uro -
Good points all.
Except it is the ‘Hops’ in IPA’s that acted to preserve its drinkability during the long journey from Britain to the hinter parts of the Empire. And for this I am forever thankful!
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]Uro -
Good points all.
Except it is the ‘Hops’ in IPA’s that acted to preserve its drinkability during the long journey from Britain to the hinter parts of the Empire. And for this I am forever thankful![/quote]
Unusually, I agree with TC here; it was the hops in IPA, not the yeast that prolonged the life of the beer. Hops act as a preservative.
BroonAle (a-HAH! got to finally use the Ale suffix)
A dialog between me and the potential future mother in law:
She: Can you drink cold?
Me: Sure, why not?
She: Well, do you have 那個?
Me: 那個?
She: Women can’t drink or eat cold thinks when they have 那個.
Me: Oh, really, I didn’t know that.
She: (in total shock) Did your mother not tell you that??!
[quote=“BroonAle”][quote=“TainanCowboy”]Uro -
Good points all.
Except it is the ‘Hops’ in IPA’s that acted to preserve its drinkability during the long journey from Britain to the hinter parts of the Empire. And for this I am forever thankful![/quote]
Unusually, I agree with TC here; it was the hops in IPA, not the yeast that prolonged the life of the beer. Hops act as a preservative.
[/quote]
thanks guys. i just had a bit more of a look online and am now further refreshed!
more hops, more alcohol, sounds just like a good beer should be! happy new year
Some of the things my Taiwanese coworkers have told me about hot/cold has been really amusing. I had a bad cold, and was eating an orange to try to boost my immune system a bit, and they all freaked out because I was eating a “cold” fruit which would, according to TCM, make me sicker. They told me I should eat a tangerine instead. :loco:
Then another coworker suggested I drink hot tea. I agreed with her, that the hot liquid is good for soothing my sore throat. She elaborated: “No, the hot water kills your cold! Viruses can’t live in temperatures hotter than 19 degrees.”
If only!
This is the same one that told me that “electricity is dangerous to your health.” She was pointing to computer cables. Maybe if you bit down on one.
just go and have a mango shaved ice. that’ll get them worked up…
(mango-cold fruit)
there is an american theory (hypothesis? urban legend?) that pizza and ice cream cancel each other out: the cooling effect of the icecream means your body has to burn calories to get back up to 37 degrees, calories that it takes from the pizza input. so they cancel… great!
just as reasonable an idea as the hot/cold foods thing. we had a similar thing going several hundred yeara ago in western medicine. astrology was central to scence, and every plant was ruled by a particular sign, so you could combat diseases (coming under a bad influence of a particular sign) with the appropriate plants and foods. this has mostly disappeared from science now, and no-one still practices this except for some die-hard naturopaths and self-proclaimed witches. check out old editions of culpeper and otehr herbals from 1500-1700. earlier ones are nigh on unreadable, but say much the same.
astrologists find themselves in a pickle with the adoption of pluto (dscovered in 1930 or so) as a planet, and then having to disown it again following its downgrading to a planetoid last year. wonder what that did to their herbals? they will have to rewrite them all again, i suppose.
Pizza and ice cream cancelling each other out? That’d be righteous. I haven’t heard that one before, but I do know folks who put the junk food on the top shelf because “calories are afraid of heights.” I always liked that one.
I guess the difference between western astrology and Chinese medicine is that today, the mainstream considers astrology entertainment. Meanwhile, national insurance covers Chinese medicine, last I heard.
Interesting anecdote: when I was in China a couple years ago, I was talking to a Chinese friend about western vs. Chinese medicine. I had a slight cold, and he wanted me to drink some god-awful powder mixed with hot water. After taking a sip of the vile stuff, I nicely told him I didn’t think it would work but thank you. He assured me it would, “just really slowly.” As slow as it takes to get better on my own?
How about avoiding bananas if you’ve ever had a broken bone or other joint injury?
I am recovering from being hit by a car while I was walking across the street and have a torn ACL. My student’s mother told me I should stop eating bananas now, because they’re bad for you if you’ve been injured. She said she broke her arm when she was a child, and if she ever eats a banana, her arm still hurts.
Stop… eating… bananas… forever?!? No thanks.
(And I was always told that bananas helped muscle cramps!)
This is a huge bone of contention for me and my 100 closest Taiwanese friends. One thing that works surprisingly well is to say that Western bodies are different from Chinese bodies, and cold water is actually not harmful to the Western body. Whereas pig intestines are. It stops the arguments and no one loses face.
