Water Facts: Bottled or Tap?
Bottled water has become the fastest growing commercial beverage sold in the United States. In2005, Americans spent nearly $10 billion on bottled water. And now we are seeing ads for bottledwater containing several added (and unneeded) vitamins.This got me thinking about the origin of the oft-cited notion that we need to drink at least eightglasses of water — presumably in eight-ounce glasses — a day. I can understand taking a bottleof water along on a long hike or 20-mile bicycle ride. But it's hard for me to keep a straight facewhen I see grown adults sucking on bottles of water in the course of ordinary activities.Do all these water-bottle-toting folks know something we don't about the benefits of guzzling largeamounts of H2O? Or is this another trendy accessory to help us feel better about ourselves, notfounded on medical fact?Several years ago, a report from the Institute of Medicine set the record straight about how muchwater we should be drinking. It didn't state the number of glasses of water we should drink; rather,it recommended a total daily intake of about 91 ounces of water for women and a total of 125ounces of water for men.About 80 percent of this total water can come from beverages like milk, fruit juices, coffee, tea,and beer, not just from drinking water. The remaining 20 percent can come from soups and thewater contained in fruits and vegetables.Should we be counting water consumption like calories? No. According to the IOM report, thirst isan adequate guide for almost all healthy people for meeting their daily needs. The report set noupper limit on fluid intake, but noted that excessive amounts can be dangerous.Aggressive advertising by the bottled water industry, urging us to drink more water to ensuregood health, may help to maintain the "eight glasses of water a day" myth. Surely these adspartly explain why so many otherwise-sensible people find it necessary to carry a bottle of water while attending business meetings or walking down the street.OK, perhaps they're thinking that bottled water is better than tap water. But is it really? TheInternational Bottled Water Association (IBWA) created the policies regulating the industry andclaims that bottled water is subject to more aggressive quality standards than tap water. TheIBWA, however, isn't quite an unbiased source of safety information for the industry.To date, no independent investigation has shown that bottled water passes more safety andhealth checks than tap water. In fact, the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) tested103 brands of bottled water and concluded there was no assurance that water out of a bottle iscleaner or safer than water from the tap. Another of their conclusions didn't surprise me either:They estimated that 25 percent or more of bottled water is nothing more than tap water.
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