I’ve mentioned the site Small Bites before – Andy over there is a working on becoming a Registered Dietician and has a background in journalism. His straight forward approach to the various food and nutrition items he writes have been on my “must read” list for a few months now.
Well, a couple weeks back on another forum, somebody posted how nobody, not even “normal stomach” people should drink while eating as it washes the food out of their stomach… I was skeptical (see my video on why when it comes to WLS types, Friends Don’t Let Friends Drink and Eat).
I figured I would pose the question to Andy, asking if there was any merit to the drinking/eating thing for non-WLS types. Here’s an excerpt of his response back…
None whatsoever. This is why armchair nutritionists on online message boards should rarely be trusted.
I’m not trying to dis the person that posted this… honestly, I can’t remember which forum I originally read this to even go back now and bring it up again… I’m just hoping to clear the air here.
Andy also sent me his response by email, and included a bit about his own background,
…my nutrition curriculum included anatomy & physiology, biochemistry (general and advanced) as well as organic chemistry, so we definitely got into the nitty gritty of the human body! I certainly feel comfortable commenting on the physical aspect of your question.
And in his posted response, here is where he explains the physical differences here;
A regular stomach not only acts as a large reservoir of now-liquified broken down food (it can hold roughly 1.5 to 2 quarts!), but also transports that into the small intestine in a controlled fashion thanks to a powerful, ring-shaped muscle known as the pyloric sphincter.
Bariatric surgery results in the pyloric sphincter being bypassed during digestion, hence the possible complications.
As a pouched typed post-op, we’re familiar with dumping, but in this case someone with a defective phyloric sphincter can have the dumping he describes in his posting, and this would be the rare case where a non pouched person would want to avoid drinking while eating as they would likely experience the effects of dumping many of us are all too familiar with.
So go check out the full response as well as his other topics. Andy posts a lot but as the title implies, they are in Small Bites, so it’s a lot of great info in a quick reading format.
