In the hierarchy of water, from municipal to well to purchased, bottled water is generally heralded as the purest drinking water you can get.
But is it really?
Often, the bottled water for which you pay a high premium is simply the same water you get from the tap, run through a purification process. In other words, it’s the same thing you could do with your faucet and a Big Berkey. (And if you add some special filters, you’ll be sure to get the fluoride out.)
A report from Business Insider reveals that the most expensive and widely distributed brands are quite a disappointment. Dasani and Nestle are simply pumped from local water sources (often in drought-stricken places like California). Aquafina comes straight from public water sources. SmartWater is pretty smart when it comes to making a buck – it’s simply municipal tap water that has been purified.
Poland Spring is actually from natural springs up in Maine. Deer Park and Crystal Geiser are spring water sourced from springs across the US. Ozarka is spring water from Texas.
This animated map shows exactly where in the United States the water is coming from.
In my book, The Prepper’s Water Survival Guide, I wrote at length about the potentially harmful chemical treatments added to municipal water sources. Even with “purification”, you have to wonder if the fluoride and choramination byproducts are actually removed from the water before it’s bottled, particularly the water that comes straight from the taps.
Personally, I’ll be skipping the bottled tap water (which across the board is actually more expensive) and going with the spring water.
The only reason that the Smart Water people get my money, is because the vet reccommended I buy it for my dogs. When my one cocker was about 8 months old, she played too hard in the heat, and being a black dog, she collapsed from heat exposure. Yes, I ran screaming with her into the vet’s office. After some fluids, Molly was fine. (The blonde cocker experienced no such symptoms. A black dog absorbs heat faster.) The vet suggested keeping Smart Water because of the electrolytes. I wonder if I can find electrolytes for dogs as an additive to their water?
You should check at the feed store to see if you can use the electrolyte packets for poultry for your dog.
It’d be a lot cheaper to just give ol’ Sparky a bottle of “Gatorade”
Your vet did you a disservice. Ask them the electrolyte solution they use and you can DIY at home. It’s ALL the same solution just maybe different concentrations. Google it–a little salt, sugar, potassium and you can mix up a gallon at home for a few cents and keep in fridge.
I recall years ago I bought a bottle of Aquafina. As soon as I took off the cap it smelled like straight up chlorinated pool water. Stayed away from ever since. We still keep bottle waters in the house for a quick grab and go but prefer a Nalgene bottle with filtered water from the fridge.
I have refused to buy Nestle water products ever since I learned about them bottling in CA during the worst of the droughts. It’s good to know that a couple of the brands I will occasionally buy made the ‘good’ list.
Got a research question for you, Daisy! What about ‘store brand’ spring waters? Are they the real thing?
I just filter tap water at home and pour it into a bottle and take with me. Never got into buying bottled water. That always seemed like a frivilous purchase to me.