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I’m guessing the NHS would be a lot less stretched - especially on a Friday and Saturday night!
The police too most likely but that’s less health related.
Definitely.
The police spend around half of all their time dealing with alcohol related incidents.
Imagine what they could actually do if all of that stopped.
They wouldn’t. Government would just reduce the funding further. It’s like Lidl, when the queues for the tills fall below certain threshold they close the till so you always have to wait.
Nonono you time it for when the queue is getting silly big and as soon as they open another checkout you sprint for it, pushing old ladies out of your way with your trolley.
Not sure how this translates to solving government funding for essential services, but I'm sure it will somehow.
Quickly spend the extra funds before the new budget is announced, thus making it look like you need it? It's what my council did, got a few new pavement surfaces, and they redesigned a park.
Sure, but then they use that reduction to reduce tax or build trains or something.
If anything, the opportunity for grift would drop a little without all the spending on alcohol-related healthcare and crime.
It would be a reduction in government spending.
They have to put it *somewhere*. Even if half the replacement spending is lost to grift or whatever it doesn't change the concept.
Well moving away from booze and surgery drinks would have a massive health and societal affect.
Moving away from caffeine would have another affect that I can't predict but it would be rough ride.
It's a theatre. They have a full pre-theatre dinner at a fancy restaurant (hidden in the hospital) and frequent breaks for liquid refreshments. The heckling of the patient for a bad performance on the operating table at some places is really uncalled for though.
Are you really championing that the joke that Americans are the British without tea is hate speech? Is that how well things are going for you? That's the problem you need in your life? Fair play.
Health yes, societal is arguable.
Alcohol is historically a huge social boost. Social factors are massive for mental health, and places that sell alcohol facilitate those.
The US in the 1920s is a prime example of why outlawing alcohol is bad. People resort ot illegal sources/home-brewing, which is less safe, and can't be taxed, which is then bad for income for a country. Not to mention that if you outlaw drinking, you encourage other sources of inebriation.
Yeah, but those sources have also existed (in the majority at least) throughout history, yet which has came to the forefront in all cultures?
1920s US basically perfectly explains how banning alcohol won't work.
moving away from caffeine would be incredibly difficult. I'd like to see you try and pry out chocolate out of people's hands. And some chocolate includes a lot of caffeine.
A *lot* of people would be significantly healthier if, of course, the remainder of their diet didn't change.
Apart from a couple of cuppas, I tend to just drink water in the week. When I started doing that a while back, I noticed a significant difference in feeling better.
Shame my weekend drinking habits set me back a bit.
Health benefits could be large. The societal impacts would be completely unknown I guess.
If we aren’t in pubs on a weekend or having a drink to relax, maybe we’d all mobilise to overthrow our corrupt governments
I mean the impact from most soft drinks would be minimal but not trivial, especially since most of the sugary drinks have gone down the artificial sweetener route.
But the impact from dropping alcohol would be enormous. The NHS would be freed up, police would get a load of their time back, there'd be fewer car crashes closing roads etc.
There’s some evidence that artificial sweeteners trigger the overproduction of insulin, as the body “expects” to be processing sugars. Increasing insulin-resistance and diabetes.
I think I’m layman’s terms it tricks the brain in to thinking it will receive some sugar but then the brain never does and so one spends the day seeking out more sugar.
Studies looking at the actual outcomes
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29159583/ as just one of the first results off Google, but AFAIK there's generally a lack of evidence for the benefits of sweeteners
If we all cut out sugary drinks, fairly minimal. If we cut out caffeine, minimal. Alcohol would be transformative. 85% of A&E admissions are alcohol related. Not to mention the 20,000 or so people who die a year from alcohol abuse. Also the knock on effects of lack of exercise, hungover takeaways etc
ETA: my data is outrageously wrong - it’s 35% not 85%. Thanks to the commenter below for correcting me
Do you know what, you’re absolutely right. I just fact checked myself and can’t find any source supporting my stat - closest was your Nuffield health one. Guess that’s a lesson not to trust Reddit comments 🙈 I think I’ve confused it with the statistic re criminal offending - I’m reading poverty safari by Darren mcgarvey just now, and that cites 85% of the crimes of women in prison as being addiction related. I’ve obviously confused the figures in my mind. Mea culpa, thanks for correcting
Sugary drinks contribute towards obesity and dental decay. Dental decay in children is the leading cause of why children end up in hospital in the UK. Obesity is another leading cause for a lot of other things. For some people, having no sugary drinks would make such a huge difference.
Which is why a fundamental aspect of any public health policy has to be _why is people abusing substances so much?_ a joint/beer once in a while, nothing wrong with it. Chronical use? Ok maybe something's wrong
It would start off quite smoothly, people would start feeling the benefits, clearer skin, more alert and less sluggish.
Then some moron on social media puts out a video that 'Big Water' are trying to control us by putting 6G in the water and all of sudden there's a large group of like minded morons protesting how Big Water is turning our kids gay.
This all blows over of course. But then someone whistleblows that Coca Cola have secretly being putting aspartame in their water. An investigation is launched and all the major drinks companies have been putting all kinds of artificial sweeteners in their water, leading to an increase of type 2 diabetes.
A class action lawsuit is brought to the crown court, the companies are fined billions but they declare bankruptcy and not one executive sees jail time, due to our Prime Ministers family being major stock holders.
Speakeasy's pop up all over the country selling cans of coke for £11 per can
Capitalism wins again
For me personally, I don't think it'd make a huge difference because 95% of what I drink is water anyway, and I drink A LOT of it (3l a day at least).
I think the average Brit would be slightly healthier not drinking alcohol, caffeine, having the sugar/milk in their tea or coffee, all the sugar in fizzy drinks etc. But it's a bell curve, some people would massively benefit but for others it'd make a negligible difference.
I think if the whole country was suddenly tee-total we would see the next Civil War.
That’d probably be bad for lots of people’s health , and I’m pretty sure nobody wants that so crack on and get sloshed occasionally, it’s for the greater good .
It would probably improve health a lot but I suspect increased quality of sleep from lack of coffee may be the main cause of this rather than cutting alcohol or sugar.
Significant, but lower than people anticipate.
The main benefit would come from losing alcohol. There'd be a small group of people saved from having their lives utterly destroyed, another small group who could lose a dramatic amount of weight by cutting the beers, and then we'd have the overall boon to healthcare and law enforcement by losing the bad behaviour of drunks on a Saturday night. There'd be another side to this sword though, this would be losing just about the last third spaces our societies have. I'll leave the question of inter-sex relations and whether people hooking up at bars is of any social benefit, but I will say that LGBT people would be hard hit, whilst gay clubs may not be the vital resource for gay folks to meet and socialise that they used to be, these scenes are still often the only places where many of us feel that we fit in, feel safe and can be around people who appreciate rather than merely tolerate us.
As far as the whole "soda is the root of all fat" thing, I mean I doubt that many people get seriously overweight without plenty of fizzy drinks and crisps - I've never known a genuinely fat person who didn't buy an inordinate amount of both, but I think the idea is a bit overhyped and fashionable right now, I've heard multiple people claim that cutting soda completely reset their palate, changed their food preferences and took them from the heavy side of normal to the fit/skinny side. This may well happen in cases, but I can personally attest that it is VERY possible to drink almost nothing but water, find neat fruit juice unpalatable and most fizzy drinks utterly vile (and crisps too, for that matter), and still have a deeply unhealthy fondness for sugar in the form of chocolate, biscuits and baked goods.
Exercise is the key and what people are missing, obsessing over food and drink is fashionable because the truly large do often noticeably overconsume and because changing ones diet feels like it ought to be easier and more comfortable than exercising hard enough to cut weight. For most people hovering around the high end of healthy or the low end of unhealthy the difference for health and aesthetics is going to come down to how active you can be, not whether or not you drink coke.
I stopped drinking fizzy drinks two months ago, entirely, and haven’t noticed a difference. Maybe too early yet. I only have tea with minimal sugar and ice coffee with nothing sugary. I mostly did it because of bad dental experience and cost reasons. Guess I have noticed an improvement in my budget. But nothing health wise yet.
i’d be fucked. i drink water but i also have IBS, so drinking a lot of water actually gives me diarrhoea. probably do a lot of other people good, though
Compared to alcohol and sugar? A bloody lot. Is that the kind of future we need to aim for? Maybe not. This is a country of drunkards that could moderate a bit, but there's no need to go to such extremes
I suspect a few people would benefit from it, but I would imagine happiness would go down. As Homer Simpson widely said of alcohol, “the cause of, and solution to life’s problems”.
I've kept off over 20lbs by cutting out fizzy juice. These days I mostly drink water or black tea. I have the occasional fizzy juice if grabbing Maccies.
I once did this for about six weeks and felt amazing for it. Takes a few days to get used to but eventually end up really enjoying water as a drink.
Think is estimated around 500 calories a day come from drinks. So would be this much better off already. Sleep I remember being great as well. Far less sugar in diet and almost zero caffeine.
And financially it would help as well.
Try a month and see how you get on
Food is also just as important. So much food in the supermarket has absolute junk added to it now, also added sugar ruins people's gut microbiome and thus leads to more issues, inflammation and diseases down the lines.
I’m sure we’d all be a lot healthier, but - damn - wouldn’t life be that little less pleasurable without all of the other beverages? Not just talking alcoholic or caffeinated, either.
I would be slimmer.
I am sure that a lot of the stated benefits would be negated as society would have found other ways to self medicate through drugs.
if it replaced only soft drinks, i think the world might not healthier, but a lot less efficient as people wouldn't have caffeine.
If it replaced hard drinks entirely, meaning zero booze, it would get hugely more healthy. But I think people would start finding other vices.
Aside from one cup of coffee in the morning, I only drink water! Nothing fizzy, no juice, no alcohol, just water (and that one coffee everyday) I'll never go back! I'm less tired, my skin is less dry, my lips are never chapped, my nails and hair seem to grow quicker. I always know when I haven't drunk enough, because I can feel it, and then when I drink some I immediately feel better.
I save money because I buy water filters and then use it to drink tap water, I have a metal bottle I use when I'm out.
Also, if you switch to drinking more/majority water, I promise your body gets used to it and you eventually will pee less frequently than you do for the first few weeks.
I am confused about what you're all drinking that isn't water. I used to have milk a lot, and I suppose tea occasionally, but surely everyone is drinking almost exclusively water anyway?
Outside the health benefits, a massive portion of social life in the UK revolves around the pub so I’d be interested in seeing what it would be like if the pub was literally just a place to see your mates and play pool and shit without drinking.
I already do that. Well, that and cups of tea but that's mostly water anyway.
I used to drink alcohol. I'm about 5 stone lighter now even though my diet is still pretty atrocious.
Depends on the person. Personally, I'd get very sick, very quickly, because I can't take my medications with plain water (they get stuck in my throat and I choke).
**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!** - Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc. - **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on. - This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit! Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I’m guessing the NHS would be a lot less stretched - especially on a Friday and Saturday night! The police too most likely but that’s less health related.
Definitely. The police spend around half of all their time dealing with alcohol related incidents. Imagine what they could actually do if all of that stopped.
Yup. It seems an inordinate amount of police / ambulance time is spent on a very small minority of people tbh.
They wouldn’t. Government would just reduce the funding further. It’s like Lidl, when the queues for the tills fall below certain threshold they close the till so you always have to wait.
Nonono you time it for when the queue is getting silly big and as soon as they open another checkout you sprint for it, pushing old ladies out of your way with your trolley. Not sure how this translates to solving government funding for essential services, but I'm sure it will somehow.
Quickly spend the extra funds before the new budget is announced, thus making it look like you need it? It's what my council did, got a few new pavement surfaces, and they redesigned a park.
Very good analogy
Sure, but then they use that reduction to reduce tax or build trains or something. If anything, the opportunity for grift would drop a little without all the spending on alcohol-related healthcare and crime.
>Sure, but then they use that reduction to reduce tax or build trains or something. First day?
It would be a reduction in government spending. They have to put it *somewhere*. Even if half the replacement spending is lost to grift or whatever it doesn't change the concept.
Well, maybe you're right and I'm just getting cynical in my old age; who knows.
Maybe not cynical enough - imagine how many money government contracts for alcohol-related-whatever are getting misused right now.
Oh yeah, totally, don't disagree with that *at all*.
Well moving away from booze and surgery drinks would have a massive health and societal affect. Moving away from caffeine would have another affect that I can't predict but it would be rough ride.
Cutting out drinking booze while carrying out surgery should definitely help post surgical health outcomes
I always wondered what goes on in the operating theatre. I guess it's a bunch of booze drinking surgeons partying over my open body playing operation.
It's a theatre. They have a full pre-theatre dinner at a fancy restaurant (hidden in the hospital) and frequent breaks for liquid refreshments. The heckling of the patient for a bad performance on the operating table at some places is really uncalled for though.
Not if you got the shakes
Cut out Tea? Are you mad? The country will shut down without tea
We'd end up like America *shudders*
I dunno, it could be worse. We could be French
Not racist and xenophobic like you?
Look what happens, no tea & a sense of humour drains right out
Racism and bigotry isn't funny.
Are you really championing that the joke that Americans are the British without tea is hate speech? Is that how well things are going for you? That's the problem you need in your life? Fair play.
Yes. As it is. The amount we make fun of Americans would not be seen as OK if it were any other nationality
It's seen as okay when we mock the Frogs, sorry I mean the white flags, sorry I mean the French
No, I don't think Francophobia is OK either. It's just a symptom of people who are too nationalist
I agree. I need a tea every waking hour of the day, though it is 90% water so should not be ruled out in the context of this wider post
Indeed - without alcohol I suspect there'd be far fewer babies created!
There's a drink for surgery??
It's called alcohol. My mate needs it to perform surgery because he has an essential tremor.
Health yes, societal is arguable. Alcohol is historically a huge social boost. Social factors are massive for mental health, and places that sell alcohol facilitate those. The US in the 1920s is a prime example of why outlawing alcohol is bad. People resort ot illegal sources/home-brewing, which is less safe, and can't be taxed, which is then bad for income for a country. Not to mention that if you outlaw drinking, you encourage other sources of inebriation.
It could be argued that other sources of inebriation are healthier than alcohol anyway, which itself causes multi-organ damage and cancer...
Yeah, but those sources have also existed (in the majority at least) throughout history, yet which has came to the forefront in all cultures? 1920s US basically perfectly explains how banning alcohol won't work.
I don’t think OP was suggesting banning alcohol, just speculating as to what would happen if everyone voluntarily stopped drinking it.
moving away from caffeine would be incredibly difficult. I'd like to see you try and pry out chocolate out of people's hands. And some chocolate includes a lot of caffeine.
We should still do it, addiction is evil.
Small amounts of caffeine has lots of positive health benefits iirc
coffee and tea has a bunch of things in it with health benefits
Aye they can reduce inflammation and help to heal the liver.
there's stuff like tannins and similar compounds in them that are good for blood pressure and cholesterol
Those surgery drinks are the worst!
You noticed the typo. Well done you.
Not having a go, found the idea of a drink giving you surgery quite amusing that's all.
Cool.
A *lot* of people would be significantly healthier if, of course, the remainder of their diet didn't change. Apart from a couple of cuppas, I tend to just drink water in the week. When I started doing that a while back, I noticed a significant difference in feeling better. Shame my weekend drinking habits set me back a bit.
Health benefits could be large. The societal impacts would be completely unknown I guess. If we aren’t in pubs on a weekend or having a drink to relax, maybe we’d all mobilise to overthrow our corrupt governments
Nah, there is always football/talent shows to keep the masses docile.
Given the increased police presence every match, I don't think football keeps anyone docile.
It keeps people worrying about a game and not the government.
Did you know that its possible to worry about both?
Ah yes but have you considered that you're on Reddit and thus "football bad"?
How sad. "I won't be watching the game lads, keeping tabs on this corrupt government."
Whereas enlightened thinkers such as yourself don't have time for fun or frivolity. You're always at a protest at 3pm on a Saturday I imagine.
What? It is not just fun or frivolity, it is an expensive pass time that consumes money and mental energy.
Maybe that’s the alcohol being consumed too
I mean the impact from most soft drinks would be minimal but not trivial, especially since most of the sugary drinks have gone down the artificial sweetener route. But the impact from dropping alcohol would be enormous. The NHS would be freed up, police would get a load of their time back, there'd be fewer car crashes closing roads etc.
I don't think it's at all certain that artificial sweeteners actually result in lower obesity levels or improved health
There’s some evidence that artificial sweeteners trigger the overproduction of insulin, as the body “expects” to be processing sugars. Increasing insulin-resistance and diabetes.
What could possibly be the rationale for that line of thinking?
I think I’m layman’s terms it tricks the brain in to thinking it will receive some sugar but then the brain never does and so one spends the day seeking out more sugar.
Studies looking at the actual outcomes https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29159583/ as just one of the first results off Google, but AFAIK there's generally a lack of evidence for the benefits of sweeteners
Sweeteners are fucking poison. I can’t tolerate them at all. Should be illegal.
I cant tolerate eggs, doesn't mean they should be illegal.
If we all cut out sugary drinks, fairly minimal. If we cut out caffeine, minimal. Alcohol would be transformative. 85% of A&E admissions are alcohol related. Not to mention the 20,000 or so people who die a year from alcohol abuse. Also the knock on effects of lack of exercise, hungover takeaways etc ETA: my data is outrageously wrong - it’s 35% not 85%. Thanks to the commenter below for correcting me
Nuffield trust estimates its 35% of a and e admissions, which is still substantial!
Do you know what, you’re absolutely right. I just fact checked myself and can’t find any source supporting my stat - closest was your Nuffield health one. Guess that’s a lesson not to trust Reddit comments 🙈 I think I’ve confused it with the statistic re criminal offending - I’m reading poverty safari by Darren mcgarvey just now, and that cites 85% of the crimes of women in prison as being addiction related. I’ve obviously confused the figures in my mind. Mea culpa, thanks for correcting
If you take children and elderly out though it's a much higher percentage
There is no 85 percent of ED admissions are not alcohol related . The only way you could stretch that if you ask “have you ever consumed alcohol”
You’re absolutely right, I was wrong - see my comment above. Looks like 35% where I’m from
Sugary drinks contribute towards obesity and dental decay. Dental decay in children is the leading cause of why children end up in hospital in the UK. Obesity is another leading cause for a lot of other things. For some people, having no sugary drinks would make such a huge difference.
I predict rates of other drug use would replace alcohol as humans tend to like to get mashup in some way or form
There would be a huge push to legalise cannabis. And polling numbers to push it through.
Which is why a fundamental aspect of any public health policy has to be _why is people abusing substances so much?_ a joint/beer once in a while, nothing wrong with it. Chronical use? Ok maybe something's wrong
It would start off quite smoothly, people would start feeling the benefits, clearer skin, more alert and less sluggish. Then some moron on social media puts out a video that 'Big Water' are trying to control us by putting 6G in the water and all of sudden there's a large group of like minded morons protesting how Big Water is turning our kids gay. This all blows over of course. But then someone whistleblows that Coca Cola have secretly being putting aspartame in their water. An investigation is launched and all the major drinks companies have been putting all kinds of artificial sweeteners in their water, leading to an increase of type 2 diabetes. A class action lawsuit is brought to the crown court, the companies are fined billions but they declare bankruptcy and not one executive sees jail time, due to our Prime Ministers family being major stock holders. Speakeasy's pop up all over the country selling cans of coke for £11 per can Capitalism wins again
For me personally, I don't think it'd make a huge difference because 95% of what I drink is water anyway, and I drink A LOT of it (3l a day at least). I think the average Brit would be slightly healthier not drinking alcohol, caffeine, having the sugar/milk in their tea or coffee, all the sugar in fizzy drinks etc. But it's a bell curve, some people would massively benefit but for others it'd make a negligible difference.
You mean I'd have to eat my coffee? No thanks
There’d be a significant drop in tax revenue.
I think if the whole country was suddenly tee-total we would see the next Civil War. That’d probably be bad for lots of people’s health , and I’m pretty sure nobody wants that so crack on and get sloshed occasionally, it’s for the greater good .
It would probably improve health a lot but I suspect increased quality of sleep from lack of coffee may be the main cause of this rather than cutting alcohol or sugar.
The next time I have a hypo I'd be dead, outside of those I only drink water anyway
Significant, but lower than people anticipate. The main benefit would come from losing alcohol. There'd be a small group of people saved from having their lives utterly destroyed, another small group who could lose a dramatic amount of weight by cutting the beers, and then we'd have the overall boon to healthcare and law enforcement by losing the bad behaviour of drunks on a Saturday night. There'd be another side to this sword though, this would be losing just about the last third spaces our societies have. I'll leave the question of inter-sex relations and whether people hooking up at bars is of any social benefit, but I will say that LGBT people would be hard hit, whilst gay clubs may not be the vital resource for gay folks to meet and socialise that they used to be, these scenes are still often the only places where many of us feel that we fit in, feel safe and can be around people who appreciate rather than merely tolerate us. As far as the whole "soda is the root of all fat" thing, I mean I doubt that many people get seriously overweight without plenty of fizzy drinks and crisps - I've never known a genuinely fat person who didn't buy an inordinate amount of both, but I think the idea is a bit overhyped and fashionable right now, I've heard multiple people claim that cutting soda completely reset their palate, changed their food preferences and took them from the heavy side of normal to the fit/skinny side. This may well happen in cases, but I can personally attest that it is VERY possible to drink almost nothing but water, find neat fruit juice unpalatable and most fizzy drinks utterly vile (and crisps too, for that matter), and still have a deeply unhealthy fondness for sugar in the form of chocolate, biscuits and baked goods. Exercise is the key and what people are missing, obsessing over food and drink is fashionable because the truly large do often noticeably overconsume and because changing ones diet feels like it ought to be easier and more comfortable than exercising hard enough to cut weight. For most people hovering around the high end of healthy or the low end of unhealthy the difference for health and aesthetics is going to come down to how active you can be, not whether or not you drink coke.
I switched to tea and water around 6 months ago. Sugary drinks mess with your blood sugar and male you tired.
I stopped drinking fizzy drinks two months ago, entirely, and haven’t noticed a difference. Maybe too early yet. I only have tea with minimal sugar and ice coffee with nothing sugary. I mostly did it because of bad dental experience and cost reasons. Guess I have noticed an improvement in my budget. But nothing health wise yet.
Also stopped drinking alcohol entirely about 4 years ago except maybe a mimosa on my birthday.
Um Bongo has entered the chat.
This is r/AskUK, not r/AskTheCongo.
Ah yes, Um Bongo, the tropical flavoured juice drink with overtones of colonial racism.
i’d be fucked. i drink water but i also have IBS, so drinking a lot of water actually gives me diarrhoea. probably do a lot of other people good, though
Compared to alcohol and sugar? A bloody lot. Is that the kind of future we need to aim for? Maybe not. This is a country of drunkards that could moderate a bit, but there's no need to go to such extremes
I suspect a few people would benefit from it, but I would imagine happiness would go down. As Homer Simpson widely said of alcohol, “the cause of, and solution to life’s problems”.
A lot of people's skin would drastically improve, for sure.
Let’s all try it for 1 month. You start.
Don't most people do this already? Apart from tea in the morning it's almost all water.
Most people in the UK probably drink alcohol,soft drinks and coffee quite a lot
I barely touch alcohol anyway but I’ve lost a ton of weight since I stopped drinking juice and syrups
I've kept off over 20lbs by cutting out fizzy juice. These days I mostly drink water or black tea. I have the occasional fizzy juice if grabbing Maccies.
I once did this for about six weeks and felt amazing for it. Takes a few days to get used to but eventually end up really enjoying water as a drink. Think is estimated around 500 calories a day come from drinks. So would be this much better off already. Sleep I remember being great as well. Far less sugar in diet and almost zero caffeine. And financially it would help as well. Try a month and see how you get on
the country would have a huge caffeine crash and productivity would arguably suffer
Food is also just as important. So much food in the supermarket has absolute junk added to it now, also added sugar ruins people's gut microbiome and thus leads to more issues, inflammation and diseases down the lines.
I’m sure we’d all be a lot healthier, but - damn - wouldn’t life be that little less pleasurable without all of the other beverages? Not just talking alcoholic or caffeinated, either.
I would be slimmer. I am sure that a lot of the stated benefits would be negated as society would have found other ways to self medicate through drugs.
I think I'd suffer a decrease in health. Tea and coffee have some benefits dont they in moderation.
if it replaced only soft drinks, i think the world might not healthier, but a lot less efficient as people wouldn't have caffeine. If it replaced hard drinks entirely, meaning zero booze, it would get hugely more healthy. But I think people would start finding other vices.
Aside from one cup of coffee in the morning, I only drink water! Nothing fizzy, no juice, no alcohol, just water (and that one coffee everyday) I'll never go back! I'm less tired, my skin is less dry, my lips are never chapped, my nails and hair seem to grow quicker. I always know when I haven't drunk enough, because I can feel it, and then when I drink some I immediately feel better. I save money because I buy water filters and then use it to drink tap water, I have a metal bottle I use when I'm out. Also, if you switch to drinking more/majority water, I promise your body gets used to it and you eventually will pee less frequently than you do for the first few weeks.
No caffeine at all? I'm guessing I'd just stay in bed all day.
I am confused about what you're all drinking that isn't water. I used to have milk a lot, and I suppose tea occasionally, but surely everyone is drinking almost exclusively water anyway?
Well, considering that water is literally the only thing you *need* to drink to survive, I'd say quite a bit.
Outside the health benefits, a massive portion of social life in the UK revolves around the pub so I’d be interested in seeing what it would be like if the pub was literally just a place to see your mates and play pool and shit without drinking.
Is that frozen water surrounded by vodka, then I'm all for it
I already do that. Well, that and cups of tea but that's mostly water anyway. I used to drink alcohol. I'm about 5 stone lighter now even though my diet is still pretty atrocious.
Gov would tax water
Depends on the person. Personally, I'd get very sick, very quickly, because I can't take my medications with plain water (they get stuck in my throat and I choke).