TheAgitator.com
Bottled Water vs. Pop
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008David Zetland has a great post in defense of bottled water. Many people consider bottled water to be silly when compared with drinking water from the tap, but Zetland points out that a more apt comparison might be to drinking pop:
It is beyond question that we have a very serious obesity problem in the U.S., and we have accompanying health problems. I would love to see every one of those 12 oz soft drinks replaced by bottled water. And remember that many of those soft drinks are also packaged in plastic bottles.
My take is that every can of pop replaced by a bottle of water is a very, very good thing. You can’t get fat drinking water and you can’t get diabetes from drinking water, so we won’t have to pay for the health care costs from those problems. When those very real benefits are weighed against the costs listed at the beginning of this rant, I think bottle water wins by a wide margin.
This is consistent with my own experience. When I’m on a trip and I go into a convenience store looking for something to drink, I’m usually tempted to buy pop, but I’ll often opt for water instead because it’s healthier. If there were no bottled water in the store, I’d buy the pop. I’m sure lots of other people are the same way.
I guess the anti-bottled-water zealots would tell me I ought to carry a water bottle around and refill it in gas station restrooms. But the water wouldn’t be as cold that way, and gas station restrooms are disgusting. In the real world, bottled water is far more likely to substitute for less healthy bottled drinks, not tap water.
Hat tip: Joe
And of course w/o bottled water you wouldn’t be getting your daily doses of chemicals that mimic females hormones so long as you didn’t drink from plastic.
And for some time there have been no quality regulations on bottled water although finally the FDA is beginning to require testing similar to the testing on public systems.
NO PLASTIC! NO SUNSCREENS! NO MAKEUP! NO SOY! All these contain chemical compounds that mimic female hormones (i.e. estrogen) and some scientific studies have shown that these compounds produce adverse effects in animals and humans.
Oh, how I miss hearing ‘pop’ instead of ‘soda’. It sounds almost foreign, now.
When I travel, I take along bottled water – distilled water purchased in gallon jugs for about $1. Paying around five times more for a comparatively tiny bottle of chilled tap water is not something I’m usually willing to do, and as such, given a choice between my favorite soft drink and a similarly sized bottled water, I’ll take the soda.
Is no one aware of the existence of diet soda? All I ever hear about when discussing soda is “120 calories/can” or whatever. I can get my refreshment (with or without caffeine, depending on the time of the day) with no calories without drinking water. AND I can get it in a recyclable aluminum can (not that I care about such things, but it appears to be of some import in the beginning of the Zetland piece.)
Don’t be silly, anti-bottled-water zealots would explain that you shouldn’t even be in a gas station to begin with. Aren’t you thinking about your carbon footprint?!?!
Pop? Hmmm, somebody is from the Midwest.
I told Radley to becareful of going down the woo-woo road.
Sigh
Legate Damar,
Keep it down man. Do you want the anti-aspartame folks here too? We already have a phthalates woo-woo here…we don’t need the anti-aspartame crowd either. Next thing we’ll see is an anti-vaxxer showing up.
“Pop” is not only a midwest thing. I grew up using that, and I’m from the Pacific Northwest.
What do people have against drinking bottled water? What… it’s OK to buy soda in plastic bottles, but not water? When I started drinking water, I preferred diet soda (I’ve never liked soda with sugar… just a personal thing, I guess).
Now, years later, I like water much better. It comes in plastic bottles, it’s clean and very refreshing. It’s convenient, portable, and cheap. It’s true that the bottles aren’t recyclable like aluminum cans… but that’s not my fault. If it came in cans I would buy those instead.
As far as I’m concerned, anyone who stands there and moans about bottled water being ‘too expensive’ and you should drink tap water instead needs better money management skills… or perhaps give up the cigarettes so you can afford water.
Tap water is great! I use it for cooking, showering, watering my lawn. I go through it by the… well, I go through a lot of it! But it tastes awful! Even a die hard water lover like me won’t drink it. But for drinking? I buy spring water in plastic bottles. I even put bottled water in my cat’s water bowl.
Ok, I finally found the original ariticle, a blog entry in “Aquanomics” by David Zetland: http://aguanomics.com/2008/08/bottled-waters-better-than-soda.html
Link your sources, you hack! Don’t make me search for them! (Just kidding!)
Ok, I’m sorry… you DID link your source. But the link looks just like normal text, I had to meticulously mouse over every word to find it. I guess it’s Radley Balco’s fault for setting his site up like this. Links are underlined for a reason, you know.
Growing up, I always heard sodas referred to as “coke.” It really didn’t matter what the brand was, either. Someone would ask if I wanted a “coke” and if I said yes, ask me what kind. Strangely enough, I’d ask for Dr. Pepper…
Right — the *real* enemy here is convenience, which comes at a cost. Water is just an easy target because there is already a pretty sufficient package-free distribution system so, gee, it seems like we ought to be able to do without bottled water. Yet there is a cost to dragging a reusable mug with you everywhere. There is a cost to searching out drinking fountains. There is a cost associated with not *consistently* getting cold, clean-tasting water from the tap. For many people, these inconveniences are well worth avoiding for the less than $2 it costs to buy bottled water.
Now, I suppose the argument is that there are environmental costs that are not internalized into the price of purchasing that bottled water. But that’s not unique to bottled water.
For one, you can’t get coke out of a tap. Secondly, you can’t get water in aluminum cans.
Also, what #12 said.
The thing about drinking water from a tap after you have been drinking purified water from either your on-faucet filter, dispenser or (gasp!) single bottles for any extended period of time is that you can taste everything. Metals, soil, chemicals like chlorine and whatever else is creeping through your local pipes. And while I am not too quick to say that these things are bad for you health-wise in small doses, they certainly taste like shit. Anyone who has finished their bottle and needed to hydrate further having to use the water fountain at the gym after a workout or game of hoops knows exactly what I am talking about. One of the nastiest experiences you’ll ever have imbibing something. Sometimes it makes me wish I’d never made the leap from the straight tap. I would never have known how nasty it actually tasted. We get spoiled.
“Growing up, I always heard sodas referred to as “coke.” It really didn’t matter what the brand was, either. Someone would ask if I wanted a “coke” and if I said yes, ask me what kind. Strangely enough, I’d ask for Dr. Pepper…”
I did the same thing! I’ve really heard all of them, but now I’m most accustomed to what seems to be most grammatically correct and understood: soda. I don’t care what other people call it. In fact, I like those little cultural differences.
Oh, and if you’ve seen George Lopez’s stand-up about “Yack-in-the-Box”, you would know that asking for a “soft drink” will only get the mexicans taking your order confused and mad.
Hearing the word pop makes me want to kill people in horrible ways.
SODA is the only acceptable term for sweetened carbonated beverages.
Pop is something inbred hicks say.
Up here in Boston, the tap water tastes pretty good. In the past month I’ve made trips to Las Vegas and Georgia and found the tap water there to be disusting with chlorine and sulfur flavoring, respectively. But as someone who’s spent his whole life in the Northeast (mainly NY, RI and CT) I’ve always found tap water to be fine even though I drink bottled water somewhat regularly.
Sure Poland Spring or Fiji is better, but at home I just fill a jug from the tap and put it in the fridge. Yum!
Grew up in Indiana drinking “pop”. Moved to Florida where people drank “soda”. Moved to Tennessee where they drink “coke”. Gave up on the cola vernacular wars – only drink water and recycle the damn bottles.
Oh – and I typcially drink tap water. Don’t bother with bottles unless I am on a road trip.
I drink mostly unsweetened tea, and filtered water, however I don’t worry too much about having a soda when I want one. There’s nothing wrong with drinking water, but is there any real evidence it makes you healthier? If we were told sodas have miraculous curative effects, would that change how we regard them, and how they affect us?
I have to say, this is quite a statement:
“It is beyond question that we have a very serious obesity problem in the U.S., and we have accompanying health problems.”
Just to stir the pot, here are some links to rebuttals to it. (Very few things are beyond question in today’s public policy machine / research grant driven science environment. Consider that overweight people often get lesser quality care, and may have non weight-related problems blamed on weight and ignored. Consider also how many people and companies exist whose livelihoods are tied to the “Fat is bad” viewpoint. )
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2007/02/when-scares-become-deadly-weighing.html
and
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/08/caring-for-peoples-health.html
Also, if you think you *need* to drink a lot of water, perhaps you should read this:
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/07/who-says-advising-lots-of-water-is.html
Growing up in New Hampshire, we called soda “Tonic”. But after moving to VA at age 8 or so, asking for a tonic resulted in blank stares as folks wondered if I wanted a gin and tonic, or some type of elixir.
Oh, and Pierre, lighten up and have a pop, y’all (-;
Perhaps the best compromise is also my favorite drink: flavored sparkling water. You can often find that in cans, it’s sweet and very refreshing but it’s mostly good for you too. Polar Rasberry Lime Soda Water is the bomb!
#11 shitmonkey, i could have written what you did pretty much word-for-word. are you from west texas, by chance? it’s the only place i’ve ever heard the “wanna coke? ok, what kind?” thing, and i have done me some traveling.
also, when you die and go to heaven, they say. “welcome to heaven. the harps and halos are over there, the horny nekkid gals are waiting in the next room, and here’s your dr. pepper.”
Enviga Green Tea.
5 calories.
I like seltzer water. Zero calories, zero caffeine, comes in cans and you get bubbles! BTW, I grew up saying “pop” (in Chicago) but now to cover my bases I ask for “soda pop” wherever I go. Though, actually, I’m more likely to ask for seltzer or club soda.
One of the biggest issues is that often one can buy a 2L soda for less than a buck while 16-20 oz bottled water costs a buck twenty five or more.
Aluminum may contribute to Alzheimer’s and aluminum cans have a plastic liner because the aluminum can wouldn’t make it 2-3 days before the acids in the soda ate through the can. Want to have some fun. Hang a piece of lunch meat or a nail in a bottle of soda and watch it for a couple of days.
Bottled water has not been regulated while tap water is. I’ve spent 30 yrs in water research (fate of chemicals in the environment, chemical transport, etc). and can tell you this sulfur smells and tastes are due to the piping causing reducing conditions (could be bad electric grounding) which convert sulfates to sulfides. Chlorine is a necessary evil, possibly carcinogenic, at least in California where EVERYTHING is carcinogenic. But Cl can be removed with filtration.
Drinking distilled water or highly purified RO water will reduce your body electrolytes and should not be done for long time periods except for medical reasons. If you drink highly purified water, suppliment with nutrients to maintain balance.
Plastics were at one time trash until corporate America figures out uses for it. The plasticizers, including phthalates, adipates, bisphenol A, and many others, have effects on humans. Pregnant women have been warned not to drink from plastic containers. The increase in boob size among American females (at least at my U) has been attributed to plasticizers as has been the lowered age of puberty in girls (some as young a 9-10).
In my area all tapwater is deep well sourced. No surface water. In surface waters chlorination can produce a wide range of THMs and HAA materials that may be carcinogenic.
At the time I was a prof at Fresno State, bottled water appeared on the shelves of local stores. The water was growing algae in it and turned out to be untreated lake water. Benzene has shown up in Perrier.
Aspartame is a major problem. The two amino acids do not ever occur as a cimple combination in nature. Phenylalanine causes mental retardation and brain damage in 1 of every 10,000 when the phenylalanine comes from red meats and lentiles. The rates are likely higher wrt aspartame. In addition, aspartame breaks down into methanol when the soda containing aspartame is allowed to warm to temperatures above 85-90 F. For persons like my wife, one can of “Diet” soda exacerbates her dyslexia. Then we have saccharin, that stuff that comes from the same place as asphalt. Ummm, good.
Beer (Guinness is good) in glass bottles. That’s the best drink. And a really nice Arturo Fuente or a Romeo Y Julieta! And some quiet time on the porch with your dog(s) while you clean your guns.
Everything in glass bottles. When we had them there was no Alzheimer’s (at least none recognized). Kids could make some extra money collecting the bottles for refunds of deposits. Maybe teach a new generation about responsibility. Nah! it’ll never work.
If you’ve ever walked done a sidewalk in the projects you’d realize that glass bottles teach the opposite of responsibility.
I drink beer and bottled water, and only drink soda when there’s booze mixed in.
Imagine that. A so-called libertarian site where folks are obsessing about what other people choose to drink. Or worse – obsessing about what other people choose to *name* a drink. (Pop, soda, coke – who really gives a shit.)
Hey – it’s your own money. If you like bottled water, by all means buy and drink all the bottled water you want. You like diet Coke over Dr. Pepper, or vice verse? Knock yourself out. It’s nobody’s business but your own.
And if you want to call a carbonated sugary beverage a “pop”, then you go right ahead and call it that and ignore what some goof named Pierre thinks about it.
But all that aside, if you want to know why people drink bottled water over tap water, it’s because except for a very few exceptions, most municipal tap water tastes like ass – with a hint of chlorine. And cities that get their water from well fields are not always better. I once lived in a medium sized city in the Midwest that got all of it’s water from wells even though there was a perfectly good never-ran-dry river right there. The water was the worst I had ever had. It tasted like it had been filtered through 100 miles of rubber hose, and if you spilled some on a counter top and let it dry up, it left a black ring. Blech! It was completely undrinkable.
#29
There’s nothing illibertarian about criticizing someone else’s consumer choices. As far as I can tell, nobody is suggesting coercively preventing other people from choosing to drink tap water or choosing to drink bottled water. But it’s entirely consistent with libertarianism to criticize the choices people make as wasteful, foolish, and self-harming decisions. Just because one has the right to make bad decisions doesn’t mean one also has the right to be free from criticism while making them.
I think it’s also likely that bottled water is made artificially cheap by government intervention – enormous transportation subsidies on the front end, and on the back end through municipal waste and recycling programs that ultimately externalize the costs of disposal. Of course, municipal water is subsidized too, but in some cases, like that of Aquafina (Pepsico), they’re just bottling that subsidized municipal water anyway.
I drink (filtered) tap water… when I’m at home. But when I’m on the train, where would you suggest I source my water from? I’ve tried the ‘carry a large bottle of water’ technique, but that just means I’m carrying a large bottle of water around all day, with the risk of it leaking in my bag all over my stuff – it’s a lot more convenient to buy one at the station before getting on the train.
Of course, what the marketers are missing is that there are a lot of people like myself who couldn’t give two hoots about all the “natural springs and minerals” bullshit, and would rather prefer to have tap water that costs half the price, and is packaged in a recycleable, reusable bottle, or at least one that will decompose quickly. Perhaps my palate is unsophisticated, but almost all the bottled water I’ve tried is either worse than or indistinguishable from the stuff I get out of the tap. Someone please start making no-nonsense water and undercut the market of bullshit artists.
#23 xyz123:
Good Call. I grew up in the Panhandle, in Amarillo for a few years, and in a boys home west of Amarillo. Now that I think about it, any other place i’ve been, people referred to soft drinks as sodas…but up there, it was always coke.
“My take is that every can of pop replaced by a bottle of water is a very, very good thing. You can’t get fat drinking water and you can’t get diabetes from drinking water, so we won’t have to pay for the health care costs from those problems.”
Sounds like support for another one of those trans fat bans coming our way. Or another smoking ban. I think YOU should be able to drink whatever YOU want whether it’s soda, pop, tonic, water or camel piss, and I think I shouldn’t have to pay for the consequences of you getting fat, sick, or dead from it.
I love the idea that libertarians are supposed to be universally uninterested in the outside world and what their neighbors do. Just so you know, Roy, your version of “libertarianism” isn’t more pure, it’s just less interesting and stupider.
I installed a reverse osmosis system in my kitchen about 3 years ago and it’s made a believer out of me. I take my own pure water just about wherever I go. I drink so much water that if I need to pick up something to drink in a convenience store I usually opt for a juice product, real juice if I can find it. I still drink soda pop every now and again but very little these days.
As much as I agree with the man I personally would be against removing the choice. Other folk’s dietary choices are not our business whether we agree or not.
Bottled water is around 10 cents per 16.9 oz bottle at walmart ( of course a lot of the people who hate bottled water want to ban Walmarts also). And tap water is terrible, even in a lot of places with “good” water.
“Pop” which is also disgusting is rarely less than 25 cents a can, even on sale.
A lot of the people who hate bottled water for “health” and cost reasons probably drink a shitload of pop and/or other concoctions that are more expensive and have worse chemicals.