Water: why do people in Malta think that you have to drink something instead of it?
Or rather, why do so many people in Malta not drink water?
I think the habit predates fizzy drinks. People didn’t have fizzy drinks on the table or stacks of them in the cupboards when I was a child (dak zmien id-Dark Ages tal-Labour) and yet people still did not drink water. Well, tap water was terrible and bottled water was a ‘waste of money’ – if you could get it.
So people just didn’t drink, I suppose, and the habit stuck. Or maybe it goes even further back than that, to when the only drinking-water available was brackish well-water that had to be boiled up and tasted foul. That clip there comes from yesterday’s The Sunday Times, an article called Children’s teeth are ‘terrible’ say dentists – Too many sugary drinks blamed for appalling oral health.
9 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
Even flavoured water still has a substantial amount of sugar. I think most people have so gotten used to chemically enhanced foods they find unadulterated flavours dull.
What’s worse is that there are some loose leaf teas that are relatively inexpensive and have some truly amazing tastes with no sugars or calories and a healthy amount of minerals. The best substitute for water if there ever was such a thing.
Technically, most flavoured waters don’t have any sugar added. Plenty of artificial additives but no actual calorie-containing ingredients.
Historically, before the advent of modern sanitation water was a dangerous substance, especially in urban areas where waste water was usually dumped into the water source.
If they could afford it people used to opt for alcoholic beverages such as wine and beer, a much safer beverage due to the fermentation process and the alcohol content.
“But what can you drink?”
Why, Koolaid of course.
I find myself drinking surprisingly little water too. I think it’s to do with the climate here. A combination of the weather and humidity. I have travelled a fair bit, and have had a dry mouth, felt thirsty etc. in most places I’ve been to, but hardly ever in Malta.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Why, breast milk of course! It solves obesity problems apparently, ask Chris Fearne.
I know of households where the Sunday lunch table groans mournfully under the weight of bottles of pop.
I have been called a miser at the ikla tax-xoghol because I protested about the ordering of so many soft drinks before we had even got down to “enjoying” the meal.
Could it be something to do with the “if we drink water, then we’re poor…and we’re not, or we pretend we’re not” mentality?
I can never fathom why the Maltese in general drink sugary soda drinks with their meals.
It just doesn’t go.
Kinnie, the national patriotic drink. Inkella x’Maltin inkunu, what?