PepsiCo to disclose aquafina ingredients: tap water
 

http://www.reuters.com/article/healt...0070726?rpc=92

heh. big business suckers the general public once again. :thumbsup:
seriously though, people, just get a water filter. with this info out, what now is the difference? the brita one works wonders.
i quit with the whole 'pristine bottled water' crap the minute i got one, and that was quite some time ago. because i don't care how you look at it, straight non-filtered DC tap water still tastes like ass.

Meh, I like my Chicago tap water. It's downright tasty.

Pebble Beach/Monterey tap water, however, tastes like ass, as does Charleston, SC tap water. I have a hard time brushing my teeth with that stuff, let alone drinking it. Filters are definitely the way to go in some spots.

I've always said that Aquafina tastes like it was filtered through...another person. but I still prefer to cook with and drink from the filter I had installed in my sink.

Fuji and Evian are the only ones I know of that aren't just glorified tap water. Oh, and Ill take country well water of city chemicalized water any day. If I'm in a city however it's Evian or Fuji only.

Why is this even newsworthy?

-Dasani is the same thing.. it never claims to be spring water... it's only drinkable ice cold.

The only reasons I've ever had for drinking bottled water - I'm traveling and staying in hotels and the tap water is intolerable, or I'm stuck in the car for hours on end and it's simply a convenient container. :) One more down in the snob department

Yeah, I thought that most people knew this...

A lot of the water companies use artesian well sources that are also used for public water sources--though that can be a huge step up depending on where your tap water comes from. For instance, a water company uses an artesian source in Central Oregon that is also used for public water, but I guarantee that bottled water tastes far better than any tap water in the Southwest.

Dasani and Aquafina are reverse-osmosis filtered, so they can taste better than tap water--but that's relative.

A few years ago, when my parents moved back to a rural area where they have their own well, I did a highly unscientific taste test comparing Arrowhead water to my folks' well water. Every person surveyed in the taste test (about 10) thought that the well water was the Arrowhead, because it tasted better.

Really, it all comes down to how your water tastes.

I drink bottled water, mostly Aquafina-the label doesn't state it's anything but purified (read: filtered) tap water.
I don't like Poland Spring and Dasani is passable, but I can get a 12 pack of Aquafina for $5 or less-beats getting it out of a machine or at the convenience store.
Bottled water is a convenience and anyone who wants to glorify it otherwise is fooling themselves. I will state, though, that our tap water here tastes disgusting and smells of chlorine-I use a Brita filter pitcher at home.

You should have seen the furore that happened when that became public in the UK, IIRC they claimed to be mineral water, and quickly had to withdraw from the shelves. That and despite using a public water source they managed to increase the levels of carcinogens.:confused:

Chicago tap water is great (not sarcasm). Only time I bother with bottled water is when I want something to carry with me. Hopefully this will encourage others to waste less money on it.

ZOMG its teh tap wtr!11

Why do people care if it is tap water? The water goes through a multi-step purification process so the taste is much better. Brita filters suck, plain and simple. We had those years ago and it did next to nothing to improve the taste.

We use 5 gallon jugs and fill them from either the machines outside a grocery store or at a water store. The taste is better than prepackaged bottled water.

The real problem with bottled water like Aquafina, Arrowhead, etc. is all the waste created by the bottles. It is irresponsible for people to be buying cases of 24 oz bottles when they could just use reusable 5 gallon or 2.5 gallon bottles.

My parents live, and I grew up in, rural Pennsylvania. Our water supply is a well that taps into an underground mountain spring (found in 1961 by an old guy with a divining rod, I shit you not). Growing up, I took for granted getting "ice water" straight from the faucet. It took me awhile, after leaving home, to realize that kitchen and bathroom faucets aren't supposed to frost over when you leave the water run.

A few years ago, Dad had a filter salesman call on him and offered to test the water to determine his filtering needs. He tested it. Threw it out and tested it again. He did this four times, then packed up his kit and informed Dad that there was nothing that he could do for him as his water was 99.9% pure. His equipment couldn't test higher than that.

I've told Dad to buy a trailer load of empty plastic bottles, and fill them at the kitchen sink. He's retired...what else does he have to do? He'd make a fortune off of his tap water.

See, I live in the sticks. We have a well. The water is perfect.

Have him send a few my way :)

I rejoice in living at the top of the watershed. I also rejoice in the fact that I can hike 20 miles and pee on both sides of the mountain and know that it will either go to the Gulf of Mexico, or the Gulf of California. :thumbsup:

The two most refreshing creeks I have drank from are East Cross Creek and Snowmass Creek. Mmmmm.

I thought everyone knew this already.. I guess people just don't read labels and are too assuming.

I do however drink Evian.. that stuff is tasty.

Yeah, if it doesn't say "100% pure mountain spring water" than it is just filtered water. This is not a news story.

Way to go, sensationalistic US media! You have manufactured yet another public outcry that never needed to happen. In other news... water causes rust!

Yep... right there with ya.


The only reason we have a filter on our sink is because the pipes in my house are really old and make the water taste a little funny.

I agree with the water filter. I use a Pur and it works great. I've used one for the vast majority of the last several years.

As for city water, I grew up using Detroit water which is, oddly enough, one of the best rated city waters for quality and taste. Who'd'a thunk?

My plumbed-in water from Phila Suburban Water Co. is very good so I have little motivation to buy water; but at home we have a filter on the line that feeds the frig water and ice maker and most of the family drinks that. Now in work in a different Philly suburb, the water tastes like crap with high mineral and iron tastes, so it's bottled or highly filtered water only in work.

What about some of these water bottling companies who are drawing off the ground water from aquafirs at such high rates that it is compromising the availability to the general public. That seems like abuse of public resources to me.

Anybody here from NYC? Everytime I drink NYC water I'm surprised how good it is.

Get a reverse osmosis system at home and bottle your own. It's cheaper and it's really clean.

Actually, I thought this article was quite useful and informative. I always suspected bottled water was complete bull shit but was never really sure and now I have the confirmation. It's good to know this. No need to buy bottled water ever now.

Yupp, that stuff comes straight from the Mohawk river.

If you have good tap water or a Brita pitcher at home, Nalgenes are great for carrying around water, instead of a bottle. I have a BRIGHT PINK Nalgene I take everywhere--I specifically checked to see it would fit in the pocket of the backpack I bought not long ago. I love it.

I gotta ask. What the fuck did you think was in bottled water? Something other than water? I mean, water is a pretty standard thing. If it isn't clean (or relatively thus) you filter it. Making it filtered water. Is anyone really surprised that anything other than water and plastic go into making bottled water?

NYC tap is awesome!

I buy the cases so I can have water at work available to me(the tap water there isn't very good), but, if I don't have a full bottle, I will refill it with the tap water, so it's half and half. Keeping it in the fridge tends to lessen the aftertaste.
I'll buy that on the road over the regular bottled waters...I think it's tasty because of the added minerals.
I used to be a Perrier drinker until I figured a club soda with a slice of lime was just as good.

Sorry, I was more referring to people (like my mother in law) who buy cases and drink them at home.

read my post again.

1. you missed the quip about big business, followed by the words "seriously
though, people..."

2. this article didn't have a damn thing to do with the CONTENTS of bottled water, but rather, the SOURCE of bottled water.

3. i said absolutely NOTHING about the contents of bottled water, but rather about the QUALITY of water in general. around here, a lot of people buy bottled water because they believe the quality is supposedly at a higher standard than public water. if you live in a big metropolitan area, like i do, and nowhere near a well, spring, underground source, etc., just buy a filter.


4. i don't buy bottled water. as stated the first time, i filter.

the whole point of my comment was: that there is very minimal difference between the quality of bottled water and filtered tap water.

..

I had no idea that PepsiCo owned the Aquafina division, nor the fact that Dasani is part of Coca-Cola's market. A filter is a good option as well.

It goes to show that water is water is H2O.
Obtain it drinkably by whatever means and it equates to a whole of a necessary liquid that is essential to your well-being.

Why give it a name and a label that seek to falsify the incontestable essence of its being?

x2. I have zero troubles with taste on our 3 share well.....

I've tried lots of bottled water. I hate Dasani and aquafina. I've tried that "Fiji" water, and all kinds of name- and non-name-brand waters of differerent kinds.

I hate to say it, but I can still pick out my favorite, the one that tastes the best to me, from a blind line-up... Evian. I don't care where it comes from. I don't care if everything they say about it is total shit. I don't care if "filtered through the alps mountains" actually means "there's a hose dropped in a river somewhere" or "right from the taps of _____ town".

I like Evian's taste the best, and that's all that matters. :)

I was less referring to you specifically, and more referring to all the people out there who might have been surprised that that's all that was in tap water. Pepsi shouldn't have to disclose anything, it should be obvious that the ingredients to bottled water are... water. I'd be rather concerned if they added something else.

What do you people know about your own municipal water supply?

NYC Metropolitan Water Quality 2006

I read our water quality report when it comes in the mail, always. I participated in a project during my senior year of high school surveying parts of the Tualatin River valley (I oversaw our survey team)--the Student Watershed Research Project. It opened my eyes to the bigger picture of whole watersheds, and taught me a lot about how the western suburbs of Portland get their water, and I continue to use the knowledge I gained then to make sure I know where my water comes from now--Corvallis acquires its water from both the Rock Creek and Willamette watersheds. They have a reservoir in the Coast Range that collects water from Rock Creek (40% of the city's water), and they pump 60% of the city's water directly from the Willamette.

http://www.ci.corvallis.or.us/downloads/pw/wqreport.pdf

The only thing I really like about bottled water is the fact that it's portable. I don't really care about where it comes from, unless it's someplace unsanitary. In fact, I probably wouldn't even drink bottled water if it wasn't for the fact that most of the water fountains at my college seem dirty. As an aside, is it some sort of prerequisite that if a water fountain is in a public place it must have some nasty green shit growing on it or something? I don't know if maybe I'm just harping on it or whatnot, but it seems rare to find a clean public water fountain.

I wish there were good and affordable sparkling water here in the US.
In France, I really liked Salvetat, Badoit, and Quezac.
It's nothing like club soda.

When we were building a plant outside of Tucson, Arizona we hired a water cooler company to provide water coolers and keep them replenished. The local tap water was light brown in color. Some of the workers there actually preferred the tap water because it was what they were used to.

They never said it wasn't a public source.

I thought it was common knowledge that these 'filtered waters' were just some tap water run through some processing.

I drink Fiji anyway its the best yummmy

Penn & Teller Bullshit Season 1

Same here. Bottled water (I always thought) sells for the convenience, not because it's bottled fairy piss. If I had a choice between bottled tap water and bottled fairy piss, I wouldn't pay 1 penny more for either one. I get the cheapest water they have. If it's possible, I bring my own water.

Isn't actual spring water supposed to have a greater chance of containing unhealthy impurities like lead and bacteria? Would that apply to Evian?

You're probably right, as that spring is flowing through bedrock before it comes up through the spring. Personally, depending on the minerals, I think most of it tastes better. Distilled water sucks. Boiled water sucks. The water from my well, tastes great. Although after watching Penn and Teller, maybe it's my imagination.

The only time I buy bottled water is on car trips, because I like having water to drink, and it's convenient.

The water can be totally clean but the taste can still suck. I read our annual report and everything is as it should be, too bad taste isn't a measureable quantity.

I don't think it's your imagination.
I'd suspect well water would taste very good, as does my Grandparents' well water in Oregon and, before that, their well water in Sacramento.

Of course, their water is hard, leaves deposits all over anything it touches, and is filled with impurities...the same reason it tastes so good. And makes me skeptical that any filter salesperson would claim any unfiltered water source is "99% pure."

When I filter my water for my reef tanks, I actually *need* it to be 99% pure. It tastes like shit, and in some cases isn't even healthy. I have to run pure water back through a carbon filter to try and add some taste back to it. Pure water destroys things rapidly, too.

Anyway, there is an indirect relationship between "taste good" and water "purity." The dirtier it is, the more it will taste. And often that taste is something good. Old/dangerous piping *will* affect both the taste and quality of your tap water, so home filters may make sense for some. If chloramines bother you, buy something to dechlorinate it and then leave a jug sit for 24 hours to evap the chlorine that breaks out from the chloramines.

Anyway, we have to buy bottled water in a lot of places because they [businesses] either won't give it out or won't let people carry around their own. But other than that, I don't and I rarely filter my drinking water at home even with my RO/DI unit.

Smooth, can you post pics of your reef tank (in the Pets forum). Would love to talk about it.

Sorry for the threadjack.

What I object to in tap water is CHLORINE, which can be removed with reverse osmosis, activated charcoal filtration, or distillation.

Right now theres a huge move against bottled water companies against Bottled water itself. Believe it or not, this opposition is not basing itself on the way the water tastes, fairy piss or not :oogle: The reason for this move is solely on the amounts of materials and processing involved to bottle, ship, and sell a service that is already in place all over America in the convenience of a bottle. All that work to bring you "tap water" in a bottle when its at the friggin tap to begin with seems silly when you think about all the polutants involved to do so.

The whole idea of marketing and actually having a huge demand now for bottled water is a huge mind fuck to begin with, imho. The water going thru a very simple filtering process, direct from thier main water source, which was always there, costs equalling just pennies, and then shipping it out across the country side in trucks and containers for a huge huge mark up at the stores.. And now, to ice the friggin cake these big fat cat water companies are preyin on the weak again with thier simple marketing tactic to add "tap water source" on thier label, as if its a new feature! All just to help trick thier consumers into thinking, hey, this is enviromentaly friendly water. ha!

The whole thing has nothing to do with taste, just a cheap gimmick to make it look like they care about the environment, when really its the all mighty dollar that runs the show. Nothing new there.

NYTimes.com editorial

Our student newspaper published an editorial today dealing with this topic:

People who buy bottled water by the case (or really at all) are fools... and you know what they say about fools and their money.

I would also take care using Nalgene bottles. The plastic they use to make those hard, transparent plastics leech some very nasty chemicals, including hormones like Estrogen.

Tap water is one of the most heavily regulated liquids there is. It may taste like dirt (like mine at home,) or like a swimming pool (like mine at work,) but under normal circumstances, it's guaranteed to be safe to drink and good for you.
If you leave a glass of water sitting out for a few hours, the chlorine will evaporate.
This is 100% myth.

I keep a gallon jug filled up with water from the tap in the refrigerator... the time it sits in there removes any remaining chlorine taste by the time I drink it (and I drink a lot of water). Grant you, my water doesn't taste too bad of chlorine to start with, so your mileage may vary on this, but I find the chlorine taste is totally gone just by putting the water in a jug and letting it sit in the fridge for a while.

You have to put the polycarbonate under extreme stress (typically chemical and heat) for it to start leeching compounds in the polycarbonate, and even then, the amount leeched is very insignificant because the amount of the compound (BPA) is very small, and is not present on the surface of the polycarbonate bottle. If you replace your Nalgene every six months as recommended, there is little to no chance of these compounds leeching into the water held in the bottle. Furthermore, Nalgene also sells HDPE plastic bottles that do not contain the questionable compounds in polycarbonate.

That said, I still use my polycarbonate Nalgene constantly, and will replace it in December, as suggested. The very small risk I take in possibly consuming inconsequential amounts of BPA is worth keeping other plastic water bottles out of landfills.

http://www.nalgenelabware.com/techda...phthalates.asp

So you're driving down the road and get thirsty. You fill your glass with tap water from a restroom and place it in your cup holder. You let it sit for several hours to evaporate the chlorine, and finally quench your thirst?

Works for me. Can be a problem while traveling, however. I try to buy purified water by the gallon while on the road. It's far cheaper and more environmentally sound. When one is not used to chlorine in drinking water at home, it can be overpowering when traveling. Chlorine in water can ruin fountain soft drinks as well.

Environmentally sound? It's in a plastic bottle that got trucked in from a distance.... that's not environmentally sound.

It maybe be your preference, but please don't lie to us and yourself with the convincing statement that it's "environmentally sound."

I heard somewhere that the cost per gigalitre of bottled water, from brands like Evian and the like, is astronomically greater than the cost per litre of your own tap water. It's common sense, and not very surprising, but you'd save a hell of a lot of money filtering your tap water, and putting it in a bottle ^_^

Which is more environmentally sound, buying 8 pints of bottles water or a single gallon?

Thanks for posting that, Cynthetiq! I haven't been able to catch Penn & Teller's show since they cut our Showtime.

I've been reusing my beat up Thermos flasks, filled with some nice, cool and cheap tap water. Sure it's clunky as hell, and I feel like a jerk carrying it around the market with me, but I haven't bought bottled water in forever. Recently I've been using a glass Voss bottle, but fear the inevitable shattering/public shrapnel disaster.

Don't forget about the hazards of Di-Hydrogen Monoxide!!!!

Di-Hydrogen Monoxide link

Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) is a colorless and odorless chemical compound, also referred to by some as Dihydrogen Oxide, Hydrogen Hydroxide, Hydronium Hydroxide, or simply Hydric acid. Its basis is the unstable radical Hydroxide, the components of which are found in a number of caustic, explosive and poisonous compounds such as Sulfuric Acid, Nitroglycerine and Ethyl Alcohol.

Snopes DHMO

Snopes has disabled right clicking to copy. :(

I've always hated bottled water. I've never actually purchased any with my own money. I can't taste anything special about them. I just cup my hands under the faucet and chug! Orlando's tap water is delicious.

I live in Iceland and our water is really pure here, every one drinks tap water and there is basically no market for filters. There is bottled water sold at select shops most of which carry it for tourists that come from areas where drinking water from the tap probably is not that smart.

blah... who needs water.. I only drink Gin or Vodka....