I have a confession to make. I drink tap water… not even filtered tap… I mean straight from the bacteria-laden, germ-swimming, prescription drug-filled municipal water source.
When I tell people this, they make faces as if I had just told them that I eat fresh cow paddies… “you mean, you don’t even use a filter or anything?” they would say as their faces contort to show their obvious disgust.
Nope, I used to use those Brita filters, but I just got tired of waiting for my water and of the guilt for not changing the filter every two months. I hated that little sticker reminding me that I should have changed the filter back in November. I have enough people telling me what to do on a daily basis. I don’t need a guilt trip from a water pitcher.
I used to tell people that I could taste the difference, but really, if someone held a gun to my head and said that he’d shoot if I was wrong in my guess, I’d probably be dead… and a little confounded on why anyone would care about that enough to resort to firearms violence.
I mean, I can taste the difference between two different vintages of my favorite wine, but I honestly can’t taste the difference between a cold Dasani™ and tap ice water. And here’s a thought, if you ever drink anything with ice in it, guess what, they didn’t make that ice out of Pellegrino™. I can guarantee you that.
Today, in the U.S., we probably have the cleanest water in the history of mankind. People used to drink water just downstream from where their sheep went to the bathroom, and humankind did not cease to exist.
I think we’re just all buying the hype from the bottled water companies, plain and simple. Twenty years ago, when it wasn’t as fashionable to drink only bottled water, few did… and no one complained about the taste, and we didn’t have masses of people dying from “tap water poisoning.”
I also can’t justify spending hundreds of dollars a year, driving to the store to get, and wasting energy and resources on plastic bottles (recycling is not “free.” Massive amounts of energy is spent doing it) on something that is otherwise virtually free AND comes directly to my house.
I think (hope) someday in the future, people will look back at this time and laugh at us for being so duped by the bottled water companies. Back in the 70’s people bought “pet rocks,” which was basically a rock in a box, marketed as pets. I mean, how stupid was that… paying good money for something that could just be found around your house for free but was just packaged nicely and marketed shrewdly… oh, wait… nevermind…
EDIT: And in the irony of ironies, yes, I realize that because of keywords in this entry, I have a Fiji water Google ad under this entry… oh, the horror of becoming a shill for the bottled water syndicate. I guess we should all “drink the Kool-aid”… or at least “drink the insanely expensive water that travelled thousands of miles by boat to get to you.”
Bottled water usually is just bottled tap water. Seriouslyand it is full of other people’s drugs, and of our offal, and germs and antibiotics; all kinds of nasty stuff that doesn’t filter out with carbon or get consumed by cleansing bacteria.
Having drunk filtered water for some months now, I can taste the difference when I switch and drink plain old tap water. At first, I could not tell the difference.
This is just common sense.
This makes me giggle. I buy one bottle of water a month (or I just keep one that some tapwater-phobe gave me while hanging out) and fill it with cold, crisp… tap water. Then when the bottle starts tasting like plastic, I throw it away and start the process over.
Well now. I always get a kick out of NYC tapwater winning blind tasting contests against various bottled waters. I do think however that Mayor Bloomberg should take out the fluoride already. And I don’t mind using a filter for the rest. And as to the comment about distilled water, that’s insane, that’s not for human consumption, but for use in irons. It will leach minerals out of your system – nuts.
All water on earth is poisoned, at this point. I’m not paying the extra money and wasting the fuel that goes into producing plastic bottles (which leech more chemicals into the water in the bottles, than regular copper pipes do in bringing the water to your home), bottling the water, shipping the water, and then -maybe- recycling the plastic into -another- waterbottle.Besides, drinking ‘poison’ out of my tap strengthens my immune system by offering me small, continuous doses of ‘poison’ that stimulate it to produce antibodies to fight off the ‘poison’ found in water everywhere. All those suckers drinking their distilled and bottled waters are gonna be screwed when the lights go out one day, and their hand-sanitizer’d, bleached, filtered world ceases to exist; their bodies unable to cope with the stress of GERMS in the environment! Oh god, the germs! Save meeeee~ (lol)
Actually, alot of the “foreign bottled water brands”…are our water. They lie to us all the time, you know. Even our American brands are just tap water from somewhere (and usually from places where the water sucks).
I can taste individual ingredients in my food. I can taste minerals in water. Filters destroy that…but then, city water never really had much that was yummy in it anyway. I go to a well attached to a natural spring for my water, thankee very much.
Oh, p.s. they’re using the hype, sure…they love to lie for money…but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. There are drugs in our water that can wreak havoc, depending on our individual physiology and healths. There’s flouride, which parents used to protest against when cities even CONSIDERED it, back in the days when everyone hadn’t any aversions to protesting. Because they said it makes people stupid, lowers IQs. And then there’s just the fact that not all water is created equal. I personally would prefer water that hasn’t been treated with chemicles, you know?
It’s not a conspiracy. I don’t think it’s an entirely purposeful thing. It’s just the way it is. Your choice is your choice and I won’t critisize you for it…I’m just explaining why alot of us won’t drink it.
hmmm…i don’t think anything of drinking tap water…just that in my country, i think it’s better that either you filter it at least…
Ewww tap waterMajorly bad
i just saw this entry now, but HEAR, HEAR!when considering that the majority of the world doesn’t even have access to clean TAP water, and that millions die from waterborn diseases (do you know how many children die from diarrhea each year???? millions), we sit here and complain that our tap water TASTES funny. drinking some tap water will NOT kill you.
i drink filtered water and i dont even to change the filter myself. someone from the filter company comes every couple of months or a year and changes the filter. im happier with filtered water as opposed to tap. i’ve never drank tap water before, i rather drink bottled water if theres no filtered water just because filtered tastes better.