OT sort of; bottled water

[Pete C.]

when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

The Berghoff is gone? I haven't been to Chicago in quite a while, but recall having a few nice dinners there. Bummer.

[Pete C.]

Please provide a cite to an example of a municipal water supply being of higher objective quality than the bottled water of the "big guys" i.e. Aquafina or Dasani.

Standards set minimums, product quality can readily exceed those minimums.

No, tap water goes through specified processing, bottled water may or may not go through various processing.

For example:

A "spring water" may undergo little or no processing, but it must be tested to insure it meets the standards for bottled water.

A "purified water" may start as municipal water, having already undergone processing to meet municipal water standards, before being further filtered and sanitized at the bottling plant to meet the standards for water used for the production of soft drinks and significantly exceeding the standards for bottled water.

This will almost certainly be a test performed on a "spring water" or other minimally processed water, not a "purified water" which is a very different product.

Again standards set a minimum quality and products regularly exceed those minimums.

Technically correct, however there is a very large difference between a water meeting the standard for potable water which is rather low and a clean, pure water. Potable water won't make you sick, but can still be rather disgusting to drink, while clean, pure water will actually be pleasant to drink.

If your tap water tastes sufficiently good to you, by all means drink it. Do not however assume that because your tap water tastes good and all municipal water in the US is potable, that other people's tap water tastes equally good.

I've traveled around the US a bit and I've found places with tap water that I considered quite acceptable and places where I wouldn't use the tap water for any consumption (drinking or cooking) and was leery of using it for brushing my teeth. Most places I've been fell somewhere in between.

For those in between places, if I was going to live there, my drinking and cooking water would come from my own reverse osmosis filter (and did in one place I lived). Where I live now I have well based water from a coop that is quite good quality, both subjective and objective (though a bit high ph) so I don't filter it further for cooking purposes. For drinking purposes it gets filtered by a basic filter in the refrigerator. I purchase a limited amount of bottled water for my emergency supply.

Hard water isn't generally the issue. I've lived where I had well water that was quite hard, but was perfectly palatable. The problems generally are taste and smell issues, or people who do not wish to consume the chlorine and other chemicals that are in municipal tap water and are not present in nearly all bottled water.

Pete C.

[gfretwell]

As long as you understand drinking bottled water is analogous to drinking a coke or a beer it is not confusing. Drinking bottled water around the house is silly if your tap water is drinkable but on the road it is just a soft drink, that is better for you than sugar water or the chemical equivilent in a "diet" drink..

[Edwin Pawlowski]

I remember the salt tablet dispensers where I used to work over 30 years ago. Today, most people take in too much salt under normal conditions and it was causing more problems with high blood pressure, etc. Now the Gatorade and similar drinks is the way to go.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

So where does your bottled water come from? The same sources that have the salt, fertilizer, hospital waste and fish poop that your local source uses. No way around it. You may have local problems, but that bottle of water you just bought may have been my urine last week. I use a charcoal filter for my water.

[Eigenvector]

That's how I view it. I bottle of water every month or so to obtain the bottle, then refill it as needed. Toss bottle after while to prevent alge, mold, and bacterial growth.

[Pete C.]

You seem to loose sight of the fact that the municipal water supply treats water so that it meets the standards for municipal water, while the bottling plant takes that municipal water and treats it to a higher standard for beverage production, a standard that is a good deal higher than what your charcoal filter will produce.

[celticsoc]

when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

Yes, it is gone. There is a Berghoff Cafe or something downstairs of the former restaurant. It closed about a year ago, I think.

[celticsoc]

Please note that I did not mention any particular brand name, so my comments were directed generally at the concept of purchasing bottled water. That being said, here is an example:

is one of many examples that can be found regarding tap vs. bottled water. I am not necessarily talking about any particular brand, nor am I opposed to anyone selling bottled water. Because inflection can't come through here, you are perhaps misunderstanding the "tone" of my comments.

I am well aware that minimum standards can readily be exceeded by producers, and regularly are. Its really a cost/benefit analysis in my mind: the difference is inconsequential relative to cost. Additionally, you are guaranteed a minimum with the municipality in my example (Chicago). There is little to prevent Pesico or Coca Cola or any other bottler from reducing company standards to below that of any particular locale, as long as they remain above the legal standards set nationally. They could do so and people would not know it, and would not even be harmed by it. That is my point: the difference is so inconsequential in most places that people would not be affected.

Penn and Teller did a piece on this, with people drinking "boutique" water. It literally was being filled with a garden hose in the back of the reataurant. The comments being made, even different comments about supposedly different water that came from the same source, ,leads me to believe that (A) the water was perfectly fine and (B) people were fooling themselves into believing there was more to it than there was.

I have traveled throughout much of the country as well. I will be the first to tell you that water in some other parts of the country is not as pleasant-tasting as Chicago's water. I will also tell you that there are places where I can't tell the difference. I don't assume that everyone's water tastes equally good. I do assume that the differfence in virtually all parts of the United States is not worth the additional cost on an ongoing basis. If you are visiting, for example, and the water tastes awful, you might wish to purchase bottled water.

As for hard water, it isn't as much the taste as the mineral deposits in coffee makers and such that might propmpt one to use bottled water.

I am thrilled any time someone can find a legal way to make money. There are entrepreneurs everywhere. If you are connected in some way to the bottled water industry, I hope you make tons of money at it. I am an absolute lover of capitalism. I am simply saying why my money is not spent that way.

[gfretwell]

When you say a bottle of water costs a buck, that assumes you are buying one from a convenience store cooler and it costs about as much as a coke. What is your other option? If you want a cup of water from the self serve fountain it will cost as much as a coke too. They charge you for the cup, no matter what you put in it. Same as bottled water..

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Perhaps. Some municipal water is better than some bottled water from test results I've seen. Varies, or course, but bottled water was still subjected to the same contamination the OP was trying to avoid. It did not come from some pure reservoir.

[Pete C.]

Unless you differentiate between bottled spring water which could well be comparable or lower purity than municipal water, and bottled purified water which will pretty much always be higher purity than municipal water, you're not making a valid comparison.

[Pete C.]

This is one of many examples that can be found regarding tap vs.

Tone has nothing to do with it, you made specific claims that are not true:

This claim is simply not true. The bottled purified water absolutely goes through more processing than the tap water. Bottled spring water however goes through little or no processing, only testing.

Without differentiating between bottled purified water and bottled spring water, all claims or comparisons to "bottled water" are invalid.

People would indeed know it and be harmed, since neither bottled spring water, nor bottled purified water contain the chlorine, chloramines, fluoride and reaction byproducts found in tap water. Many people choose to drink bottled water to avoid consuming the chemicals added to tap water.

Now there is a scientific test for you. Probably just like the testing that the soft drink industry uses in claiming that people can't tell the difference between cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup. I for one can absolutely tell the difference, it is quite significant, for example comparing a can of "regular" HFCS based Dr. Pepper and a can of "Dublin" cane sugar based Dr. Pepper. I can also readily detect chlorine in tap water.

Many people consider pretty much any municipal tap water to taste terrible due to the chlorine. It's likely that those who have been drinking it for most of their lives are so accustomed to it that they don't notice it and therefore don't detect the difference between municipal tap water and bottled water. Those of us who have spent most of our lives drinking chlorine free well water detect the added chlorine in a picosecond and find it repulsive. There are also the people who consider the health aspects of not consuming toxic chemicals like chlorine, chloramine, fluoride or their reaction byproducts.

That really isn't a bottled water issue per se. Bottled spring water is hard water in many cases, and municipal water varies drastically in hardness from area to area. A home water softener is typically a better choice than bottled water since it also addresses the problem of mineral scale buildup in pipes, plumbing fixtures, toilets, sinks, tubs, etc. as well as the laundry issue where hard water necessitates increased detergent usage.

Again you're implying that bottled water is simply a money making scheme with no benefits, which simply isn't true.

Pete C.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Does not matter, that was not my original point. My original point was that the OP says he is using bottled water because municipal water comes from nasty sources. So does bottled water. If I take a leak today, someone is going to drink it next week be it in a bottle, tumbler, spring, lake, whatever. Just the way the water system of the planet works.

[Pete C.]

Yea, and the water you consumed to make that piss was part of a steaming dinosaur turd at some point too. None of that has any relevance to the quality of today's water, be it tap, spring or purified.

Pete C.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

That was my point, It cannot be avoided. Thank you for recognizing it.

[jJim McLaughlin]

No, there aren't. Just more of your usual ill informed bull.

Prove your assertion.

Provide the cite to a peer reviewed medical journal with a paper demonstrating any empiracle evidence for he utility of consuming

8 glasses of water per day.

We'll wait while you try to use adictionary to undersand the challenge.

We'll wait longer while you search in vain for such a paper.

If you can't or won't produce such an article, we'll all know what you are.

A loudmouth ill informed liar.

Have a nice day.

[jJim McLaughlin]

SNIP HAPPENS

ROTFL.

What, its no longer dihydrogenmonoxide?

[clifto]

He didn't say anything at all there about processing. He said that the standards are higher for tap water, not that the processing is better. He's right. There aren't many legal requirements for bottled water.