I've never before heard anything negative about drinking water. And if so, I wouldn't have listened. I cannot imagine having a meal without water. Makes me think of suffocation.

Yes, tap water always plus sparkling water, if somebody wants some. Very cold, sometimes with lemon slices. I'm thirsty now...

For many years, my beverages of choice were not quite healthy. Iced tea with too much sugar, soda, etc. In the last four or five years, though, I've found that I enjoy the refreshing taste of water (tap, in my town, tastes pretty good) instead.

Since discovering lactose-free milk a couple years ago, I alternate that with water, depending on the meal.

Some things though just lend themselves to a less healthy option - pizza and soda, for example.

But in any case, dinner would definitely not be the same without water.

I always serve filtered tap water, sometimes with lemon/mint/cucumber. Cold water with food also seems to generate a lot of negative theories, like fats in food solidifying. So I stopped serving cold water, unless someone asks for it or its summer. Am thinking about taking green tea with food. Any ideas?

95% of the time I only drink plain filtered Brita/Pur water. Though I have noticed over the years that verrrry few guests have ever picked water as their choice beverage. ...actually I can only think of one occasion.

Lately, I've been drinking hot lemon water with my meals as I think it helps me digest my meal better but other than that, its just regular ol' tap water-sometimes infused with bubbles, sometimes not.

My favorite water is lemon with aniseed. You have to put it in a blender and then strain it, but it has an awesome flavor.

I drink almost nothing BUT water, and a lot of it, all day long. I've actually run into troubles when having guests because I forget that other folks drink other things!

When I was living in Korea, I picked up their practice of drinking water (filtered) before and after a meal. It seems to help in digestion, plus your focused more on the meal.

Tap water for me, "spring" water for my husband (shh... don't tell, but half the time I've refilled the jug in the refrigerator with tap water... all that really seems to matter is that it's cold). Even when we're having beer or wine with our meal, we always have water as well. Perhaps a few times a year we'll have soda or milk.

@sberry: if a host is offering Brita or Pur filtered water, I always drink something else, even though I prefer water. For one thing, both of those filters make water taste weird (I assume that you get used to them if you use them regularly). For another, I never know how rigorous my host is about filter maintenance, and I'd rather not think about it.

Freezy cold fizzy water from our SodaStream for my husband, room temp filtered water for me. I have also heard about not drinking water with meals, think it does indeed have something to do with the temperature, turning fats into solids, etc. Food-Lover, I prefer my water room temp and sometimes will have a cup of warm green tea at dinner. Tastes great, easier on my stomach, and you get all those green tea benefits. I recommend!

Our tap water is horrid tasting and fairly high in arsenic and uranium so we have the big bottles that we refill at the store (yes, I know it's just filtered tap water but their filters are a lot better than the little Brita filters.) I like room temp water with my meals because cold water makes my teeth hurt.

We have water with every meal (even if we also have beer or milk). Usually sparkling, sometimes filtered, almost always cold. I've been drinking water with every meal for most of my life, so I have no inclination to listen to people telling me that drinking water (or drinking cold water) is having horrible effects on my body. I don't enjoy room temperature water, so I don't drink it. In the same way, I think having a glass of water with my meal makes me enjoy my food more; it slows down the rate that my taste buds get acclimated to whatever it is that I'm eating, so I'm going to keep doing it.

To be fair though, I pretty much always have a glass of water (cold, often sparkling) in front of me, meal time or not. At meals I just move it from wherever I was before (the kitchen usually) to the table.

I was lucky to grow up drinking the most wonderful artisanal well water, then during those pre-Brita years in the city we paid to have jugs delivered. Now I have a sweet tasting well and find myself drinking an ocean of SodaStream fizz throughout the day. But usually it's beer or wine with dinner.

The thing about water solidifying fats and harming digestion is total email-fwd-from-that-one-friend garbage, and the notion that it dilutes stomach acid is also pretty questionable, unless you already have a subnormal level of stomach acid.The notion that drinking water is basically ever bad for you seems pretty ludicrous. At any rate, being hydrated is a huge aid to digestion, so if you aren't drinking water with meals, you should at least be drinking it throughout the rest of the day.

We always have tap water with lunch and dinner, room temperature with no ice unless it's very hot out. Even if we've got beer or wine. I do keep a Brita pitcher on hand - it improves the taste of our water - but we don't drink fizzy water or soda and I tend to only buy it for parties. I grew up with room-temp no-ice water with meals so I thought it was normal, but I can tell now it's not that common in the US and we probably do it like that because my family is Italian. My husband's from the south and his family either has cola or ice water with every meal.

Um, I'll also say that anyone who says drinking water with a meal is bad for you because it dilutes your stomach acid has never suffered through dry mouth. You need moisture to chew properly, too.

My water bottle is always with me and always full of fridge-filtered water. I can't imagine having a meal without water! I like mine cold too! I can't stand flavored waters, it's never a strong enough flavor to really seem like a flavor to me, but instead just is kind of lurking in the background, making me wonder what is wrong with the water. Even if drinking water with a meal is supposedly "unhealthy," there is no way I'd give it up.

At my father's house and my grandmother's house, every meal was served with iced, cold water. It is the prefect compliment to ANY meal, in my opinion. It is flavorless, cleanses the palate, and quenches your thirst (because it's water, duh!).

When I have guests over, I offer wine and/or water. That's it.

I am a bit strange, as I drink almost nothing but water with meals (no soda or juice or milk in the house). But I absolutely must have the water be freezing cold, I cannot have water at room temperature under any conditions, it actually makes me physically gag if I do.

Tap water. During the wet season it tends to taste a bit earthy so we filter it them but don't bother year round. I'll happily drink it at room temperature but usually keep a jug in the fridge.

Besides wine or beer the other other drink we regularly might have with meals is iced tea (unsweetened) during summer.

When I was growing up, we never had water during our meal, only after. I remember my mom saying it was better for digestion to refrain from drinking beverages during your meal...not because of diluting your stomach acid or solidifying fats, but because drinking water made it to easy to swallow big chunks of food.without the extra lubrication of drinking water, you're forced to chew your food really well before swallowing...and that is good for digestion. Plus you eat more slowly, so you enjoy your food more and get full faster!

For what its worth, I'm Korean.

That diluting-stomach-acid stuff is BS. Millions of people take PPIs (Prilosec, etc) that pretty much eliminate all of your stomach acid. Turns out that it isn't really needed for digestion after all. An acidic environment allows for better absorption of some minerals like calcium, but I can't imagine that water with dinner would do anything except possibly help by dissolving food more quickly into chyme.

I remember once when I was a little kid, my family went over to this old couple's house for dinner. They served nothing to drink, not even water. I had to ask for some and they acted like it was rude. I don't think I've ever had a meal since without some kind of beverage (at home, water or juice or milk, when I'm out, water or soda) alongside it. The idea is just weird; what are you supposed to do if something is too hot or too spicy or too dry? Suffer quietly?

Unless it's a special occasion and we are drinking wine, it's water with every meal. Plain old tap or filtered water, none of this sparkling nonsense.