| The Case for Bottled Water |
| Wednesday, 19 August 2009 20:27 | |||
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My wife and I have been big-time bottled water drinkers for years. My reason for switching from tap was motivated by pain: I was running 50-60 miles a week and wasn’t replenishing my system with the water I was losing. As a result I suffered the pain of three kidney stones – for three Octobers in a row (after a summer of running in our Missouri heat and humidity.) I had no adverse effects, but will never forget the hurt.
I didn’t like (and still don’t) the taste of the water provided by our municipal system. That’s what caused my problem; what comes from our tap is good but not perfect water (there have been recent issues of too high a percentage of toxic stuff floating in our reservoirs) – and is indicative of water quality in any city of good size in this country – so we’re not special in that regard; few can say their stuff is pristine. However, the product we drink is as close to pristine as you can get, has an almost neutral pH factor, and comes from an aquifer near Sedona, Arizona. It never leaves the ground as it’s transported from source to plant. Nothing is added to it, and nothing taken away. It isn’t distilled nor does it go through reverse osmosis. The only ‘treatment’ it receives is that the water, before being placed in a #2, non-BPA bottle, passes through a patented process that lowers the size of the water molecules to the cellular level. As a consequence, by drinking one or two 24 ounce bottles daily, you’re hydrating yourself at a greater clip than you might with other similar products. It may sound like snake oil to you, but it works – and has been tested thoroughly at a third-party laboratory in California. Subtle plugs aside, what brings me to write this commentary is something I read recently that came to us as one of the many national PR releases we receive, the best of which we re-write and add to the pages of our Healthy Newspaper. This one, from an outfit called the Environmental Working Group, (EWG) have taken upon themselves the idea of ‘rating’ waters for safety, quality, general health, etc. First of all, a position statement like this one is subjective at best. Secondly, although I am not a scientist (are they?), but a student of what’s good and what isn’t where water is concerned, I can tell you these people have much to learn. They tell us that filtered tap water is the best water any of us can drink. I’m sorry, but this is simply not true. Filtering systems that can be purchased and attached to your kitchen sink can certainly help, but cannot separate out the elements in your community’s drinking water that might not be the best thing for you to ingest – or which adversely affects the taste and odor of what you’re putting in your mouth. A good bottled water is almost always a better substitute. It is true that municipal water utilities are subject to laws that do not apply to bottled waters, but these companies have been doing a good job of self-regulating and doing what’s necessary to provide a decent product. Meanwhile, water utilities are not without their own problems, and moves to eliminate potentially dangerous elements from certain municipal waters are sometimes slow to come, are unaffordable, or borderline (meaning the ruling authority lets the municipal provider continue on, serving up stuff that may be harmful to their constituency.) EWG provides a “full” report on the 200 or so waters they list, indicating they looked at ‘labels and websites’ – and found an absence of facts they say can affect safety. While EWG may have hit upon some information that’s good to know, the methodology they supply doesn’t mean any brand of water in question is bad news; the ‘absences’ they note may be due to something not required by the company making the product – and we already know the FDA does not regulate this area. EWG says that the claims they report seeing (or not seeing) on labels and site are not necessarily false, but can be misleading. But I couldn’t help but notice that those few brands they gave a ‘passing grade’ were to this connoisseur some of the worst tasting bottled waters I’ve made the mistake of sampling – while some of the better-known national brands, which continue to be purchased over and over by our nation’s consumers, landed in the “D” or “F” category. As with any food or beverage, it comes down to individual tastes, how they feel in our mouth and when they go down our throats. In other words, it’s personal. My advice where bottled water is concerned: Read the labels, check out web sites, look for a non-BPA number on the bottom of the bottle, (like a ‘2’) and trust your own judgment. Sample many, then go with what tastes best to you – but keep an open mind and don’t believe the filtered tap water story. To remain as objective as possible, as I have written this rebuttal I have purposely not mentioned brand names – nor have I revealed the identity of my personal favorite (beyond source and content) – and besides, my water didn’t even make EWG’s list. Maybe that’s a good thing.
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