Making The Switch To Bottle Water
Six years ago, in 2003, I made the conscious decision to remove all soda and soft drinks from my diet. I had already drastically reduced my dependence on caffeinated soft drinks many months earlier but they were still a significant part of my diet. When making the switch from soda I needed to find a substitute that would satisfy my desire for a carbonated beverage.
Going to the refrigerator for a canned soft drink had become a habit and gave me a much needed break from my work. To have the discipline to cut out that habit I had to replace the soft drink experience with a more powerful habit. I had to construct a habit that would be dominant enough at the beginning to override the desire for a can of Coke or Pepsi.
I’ve never smoked cigarettes or ingested any form of tobacco product to my knowledge but I have spoken to a lot of ex-smokers and smokers who have made a concerted effort to give up. Other than the nicotine cravings the heavy smokers were of the opinion that it was the habit of smoking that was as powerful an addiction as anything in the tobacco.
I’ve known smokers, my father among them, who would light up when they needed to mull over a problem. The physical actions of going through the motion of preparing a roll-up cigarette, the slow thoughtful puffing, it was all part of the ritual, the habit of smoking. Just about all smokers involved in a semi-social setting such as college or work will gather at a pre-designated time and place to light up and satisfy their nicotine addiction. That arrangement of meeting and talking with other people who also smoke is a huge part of the habit. Give up smoking and you cannot recall where or when you would socially interact with your colleagues when you aren’t gathered around the ash tray.
Quick pop quiz! What did you do to waste your time before you checked email every 20 minutes? What did you do with those long evenings before you started dating that girl and seeing her four times a week? What did you do instead of playing on the XBOX or PS3?
These sorts of questions can be difficult to answer. A strong habit pushes out other aspects of your life and you’re left wondering what you did before you formed the new routines to occupy your time.
Giving up soft drinks is just like that. It’s habit forming. You get up and go to the kitchen or the soda machine down the hall to get a drink because the pattern is ingrained enough that you cannot think what else to drink.
Breaking The Habit
So what can I substitute for the habit of drinking soda?
The habit had to be powerful and I had to ritualise the act of the alternate drink at the beginning to ensure the new routine was more powerful than the old. The new routine only has to stay more powerful for a couple of months then I can taper it off.
I wanted a carbonated drink so I started looking at sparkling mineral water. I did a little research on the different types available and found that they are not all created equal. Some use an “artificial” carbonation which is added at the bottling plant. Natural or artificial carbonation doesn’t really bother me that much though but a lot of bottlers add in extra minerals that I’d rather do without especially as many bottlers don’t list exactly which minerals they are adding or in what quantities. I’ll take naturally mineralised water with “trace amounts” over bottled water that has been artificially salted, sweetened and adulterated pretty much any day of the week.
After a bit of experimentation trying different mineral waters over several days I settled on plain Perrier. Perrier at the time was only available unflavoured.
During the switch over from soda to water I purchased lemons, limes and oranges which I cut in to delicately thin slices for flavouring the water. Again, the delicate slices are all part of the ritual. I purchased several iced tea glasses and nominated them my special drinking glasses. These glasses were only ever to be used when consuming the sparkling mineral water. Again, the glass formed another part of the habit.
For readers who have never tried to break a deeply ingrained habit you are probably chuckling to yourself right now at this elaborate charade I was constructing. Whilst it may seem ridiculous to many I switched away from soft drinks overnight and have not desired, craved or otherwise gone out of my way to obtain them since. There is still the occasion when I’ll drink a soda at a party because I don’t want alcohol, but this occurs about once every few months. Breaking the habit of drinking soda and switching to a different, more powerful habit made the transition trivial.
Why Not Tap Water?
For a while I had considered just switching over to plain old regular tap water, but during my investigations I decided against it for a number of reasons.
Municipal water sources in the United States are quality controlled by the EPA with federal mandates for how clean they need to be. Unless the local governing body and water authority is severely underfunded and not following procedure the water that travels from the processing plant through to the mainline nearest you is very pure and very drinkable.
The issues with tap water occurs when the water leaves the government controlled pipes and enters into the local area pipes, pipes either owned by a local community, a housing association, or a private owner such as an apartment complex landlord. The laws that govern water quality coming out of your faucet are a lot more lax. An old friend of mine who works for the Los Angeles County water department put it very succinctly to me “the water quality in the Los Angeles water system sits at around number two in the entire country and purer than most bottled water, where it all goes downhill is when the water leaves our hands and enters the water pipes of a neglected part of the city or even a particular building.”
When I gave up soda I was living in a reasonably good rent controlled apartment complex but the plumbing in the building left much to be desired. One of the things I had to do each morning before showering or brushing my teeth was to turn on the taps and let the water run for a full two minutes before it became usable. The water would flow from the pipes in a rusty orange stream and taste foul even after the colour had cleared away.
Pretty gross.
We would have to use an additional carbon filter on the tap water for our cooking just to remove the taste of the building’s water pipes. Everybody in the apartment complex complained about the water quality but the complex is owned by a large company and the president of the company just doesn’t give a hoot about the tenants. The pipes were so bad that the building frequently sprang a water leak, at least twice a week in different locations, in some hallway or storage room somewhere. Ironically 10 months after I moved out, the building management was slapped by the city and ordered to replace every single water pipe in the building.
In the early part of 2004 whilst still living at that apartment complex I switched over entirely too drinking and cooking only with bottled water. After a lot of investigation I found that the amount of fluoride which has been identified as a toxin in a number of health studies is slowly poisoning me. I don’t need that extra fluoride added in. And that’s a story for another time. At the same time I also switched over to a non-fluoride toothpaste but that’s a story for another time too.
After investigating the various types of bottled water out there I settled on using Arrowhead Mountain Spring water. Arrowhead is one of the few bottled water distributors that doesn’t adulterate their water with fluoride or other added minerals.
Arrowhead isn’t particularly expensive in the markets of bottled water; as though any sort of bottled water could be considered cheap. But there are “budget” waters available alongside the premium brands. Dasani and Aquafina are two global brands that are perceived as being in the budget line. There are also the supermarket brands; both Bristol Farms and Whole Foods have their own house brand bottled water.
Don’t drink Dasani water!
It’s just filtered tap water!
This is a popular cry from a lot of “healthy” people. People that won’t be seen dead with a bottle of that “just plain tap water” Dasani brand.
No, no, none of that. Give me a quality brand. I’ll take the Aquafina please, that’s much healthier for me.
I’ve seen this at trendy coffee shops all across town. People won’t take Dasani so instead take Sparkletts or they won’t take Crystal Geyser so instead take Dasani.
The sight of someone dithering over which brand of budget tap water to buy is pretty comical.
The brand and perception matter more than what goes in the bottle. The marketers completely have the consumer in the palm of their hand. When you are preferring one bottled water brand over another and all of the bottles you are contemplating have “distilled water” or “purified water” or “drinking water” on the label you’re showing your ignorance by comparing tap water with tap water.
Aquafina, Dasani, Sparkletts and several other name brands you know of are all drawn from a municipal tap water.
Well here’s the deal.
Dasani may be “just filtered tap water” but if there are two companies in this world who know anything about filtered water it is the producers of Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola. Coke and Pepsi have been filtering “tap water” for decades in different bottled plants all over the world and millions of people have been happily drinking it. It’s not the water in Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola that are doing you the harm.
Remember the recall of Dasani water in Britain?[1] No, neither does anybody else I spoke to.
Frankly I don’t find anything wrong with either Dasani or Aquafina waters for consumption. I just prefer drinking sparkling mineral water and I’ve gotten in to the habit of purchasing Arrowhead Mountain Spring water that it is no longer a decision point for me.
A lot of bottled water comes directly from the same water lines that carry water directly to your household. I have spoken to a number of people who believe that the large Sparkletts water dispensers found outside of supermarkets – such as Ralphs and Albertsons in Southern California – actually contain a large supply of fresh bottled water stored inside. These same people believe that the Sparkletts truck delivers fresh, new stock every day. I hate to disappoint these people and burst their bubble of illusion but those machines are plumbed in to the same water lines that the store uses to flush their toilets and water the vegetables in the produce department. One person who shall remain nameless vehemently disagreed with about this subject, he had seen the Sparkletts truck unloading large cases of bottled water right in front of the dispensing machine, how could he possibly be wrong?
So if you’re currently wondering what the label on your bottled water actually means, I’ve compiled a brief list of the ones I know about from my research. Depending on which country you live in may mean some of these terms are used in different ways. In the United States some bottled waters are regulated by the FDA, some are not.
Artesian Water
This is water that is extracted from a natural aquifier[2]. An aquifier is a naturally occurring geological feature found throughout the world. Most popular brands contain at least aquifier sourced bottled water in the brand line-up.
Artesian Well Water
No different to artesian water above, just a fancier name in an attempt to distinguish itself.
Carbonated Water
Carbonated water may be naturally carbonated or have the carbon artificially injected at the bottling plant once the water has been extracted from the source .e.g. Perrier. The carbonation source may be natural in the case of Perrier or artificial, e.g. Crystal Geyser.
Distilled Water
This is water that has been heated until it becomes an evaporative steam and then the water vapour, sans any latent chemicals, is collected in a reservoir. Many of the minerals found in water are actually beneficial to humans so their removal can have an adverse effect on your health. I switched back to regular filtered water for my cats after their coats got very dry consuming distilled water.
Drinking Water
There’s no firm definition of what “drinking water” actually is. A quick informal survey at three supermarkets in my area revealed that all bottles labelled “drinking water” had been taken from a municipal source, i.e. plain tap water. The bottled water may have been filtered or purified by some means but it’s still just bottled tap water. If you’re buying bottled water plainly labelled “tap water” then make sure you are buying it for the right reasons, .e.g. the water quality in your area is terrible, and not for the wrong reasons, e.g. you want to be perceived as someone who can afford to drink bottled water.
Flavoured Water
Flavoured waters may be sweetened with sugar or by artificial means. Few of them are calorie free and many of them will have other added ingredients in addition to the flavourings. There are some brands of flavoured water on the market that are essentially a soft drink without any carbonation added.
Healthy Water
There are a few health waters on the market, Smart Water being one of them, with various chemicals added in to replenish lost salts and restore electrolyte imbalance due to you working up a sweat – and only when you are working up a sweat. Just watch out for misleading labels and marketing. The water might not be that healthy.
Mineral Water
Mineral water is extracted from naturally occurring aquifiers. Depending on your country minerals and chemicals are generally never added to naturally occurring mineral waters though it can happen. Read the label on the bottle to see if the mineral water you are consuming has been adulterated in some manner.
Purified water
Purified water is obtained by a variety of different methods, each designed to remove chemicals and bacteria before the water is fit for human consumption. The purification process may involve such methods as deionization, distillation or reverse osmosis. There’s not much difference between “purified water” and “drinking water.”
Sparkling water
This is the carbonated water that we are all familiar with, brands such as Perrier and San Pellegrino. The carbonation is natural or induced from a natural source such as is the case with Perrier. When I first switched over to drinking sparkling mineral water I didn’t enjoy the texture of Pellegrino at all but now I will drink it if Perrier is not available whereas before I would pass it over and take a bottle of still water instead.
Spring water
Spring water is pumped up from underground wells. It is rare that spring water can be drunk as is, often the pumped water needs treatment such as purifying before it is fit for human consumption.
Tap water
Municipal water supplies in the United States are generally very good. Personally I have a few issues with some of the chemicals added in to the water supply that I’d rather not be drinking long term but that’s another story. The major issues people face with tap water is when the water leaves the municipal supply lines and enters the dwelling. This is where things can get hairy. Literally! The only state I’ve visited where the water is universally foul is Florida. There are probably other states too but that’s the only one I know of in my experience. The taste of the municipal water supply throughout Florida affects anything created with it, food cooked in it, soda from the soda fountain at a fast food restaurant, coffee at Starbucks, tea brewed at home. Disgusting. And the public doesn’t know any different because that’s what they are used to.
Other Bottled Waters
Seltzer water, soda water, and tonic water are not bottled waters per se. They are generally considered in most countries to be soft drinks. Many soda waters have artificial sweeteners added to them.
Side Effects
Other than the increased expense and the necessity to recycle the used water bottles one of the side effects I noticed was that my drip coffee maker needed far more regular cleaning. The cleaning was necessary not due to mineral deposit build up but because the taste of the water could no longer disguise the flavour of the old coffee in the machine. Caffeine is a pretty sticky substance and bonds to surfaces quite nicely once the liquid has a chance to evaporate. When I was previously using filtered tap water to make coffee the minerals and pollution from the water pipes in the building was masking that those tastes.
I also switched my three cats over to bottle water too but this caused their coats to become very dried out and they developed dry, flaky skin. After three months of experimentation with different bottled waters I had to reinstate filtered tap water in to their drinking water fountain.
Water Filters
There are two major types of filter on the market, reverse osmosis and carbon filtration. Some filter systems combine both techniques. Whilst either of these systems will remove a lot of impurities in the water they still leave undesirable chemicals behind that I don’t want to be drinking on a daily basis.
Since moving out of the complex in to a recently rebuilt house with all the water pipes replaced not more than 10 years ago along with a high capacity reverse osmosis under sink water filter I have ceased purchasing bottled water for cooking. I still drink mass quantities of Perrier each day and I make my tea and coffee with bottled water.
Whilst the water quality at the house is satisfactory I have been contemplating purchasing a counter top water distiller to filter tap water for my cats and also for cooking. I’ll write about how that goes in a month or so after I have gotten used to using it.
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3550063.stm
[2] Or it might be an aquifer. It depends on who you ask.