To my concern, its not healthy, yes off course water plays an important role while travelling, but coming to the regular life where you leave. I was drinking the Mineral Water bottle for several years, the way they transport and distribution wait area (in Direct sun or near garbage Chute) i guess they take out all natural minerals and add extra processed minerals and extra sodium, which we think its healthy. Long back i stopped Bottled water and started drinking Municipality water either by normal British Berkefeld HBA water filter with white carbon or by simply making hot and cool it before drinking (either way) i don’t blame artesian water like Evian or Voss but we can’t buy those water for our daily use as it is expensive. I regularly use glass bottles to refill and drink in my home and in office, yes I do stooped those Refined Sugar, Refined Oil, Refined water, let us live a natural life by drinking or using things in the way naturally processed. The more the processed, food or water is really dangerous to body systems.
@ajlenin at least in Italy bottled waters are of high quality and there are no particular healthy issues. Most people here are also used to drink bottled water because in some cities public water is really bad and full of undesired substances. While Milan has a very good public water, not all cities follow the same and even in Milan, anyway, there has been an incident involving public water in a specific area in the past.
This in order to say: must people here prefer bottled water and it is surely high quality here.
Talking about me, I have water purifier installed in my house so I always get water which is better than the most expensive Evian or similar you can find elsewhere. When I am out, obviously, I drink at the restaurants where I eat.
@user_not_found Yes, i do accept, yes water plays an important role and in some places the public water are too dangerous, that is the reason we are corned to drink processed water, because day by day our body gets used it and the immune system get used to and when we are exposed to new water system while travelling, we get cold, flu, bla bla…finally medicine, now a days kids are brought in apartments life (condominium) without touching the mud (natural sand) the more the kids play outside the immunity grows up they can survive in any extent, in Abu Dhabi the bottled water are well maintained, i don’t blame them, but municipality water is also fine, so i choose municipality (public) water with a normal filter at home. I don’t tell people to ignore bottle water and chose public water, in some countries while the public water is more healthier why people chose bottled (processed) water.
Hi @ajlenin . Really it’s a matter of great concern. Of late here also we are using brass bottles and mud pots. But water cans supplied to households here don’t comply to the standards. People are drinking here which are not up to the quality.
I still remember when I was young we use to fetch water in brass or copper containers (Kuja) directly from water taps in railway stations.
I work for a municipal government providing fresh water and processing sewage. There is some misguided notion that bottle water is safer than municipal water. Actually most corporation use municipal water to make bottle water or for soft drink companies use municipal water as well. I would say municipal water is 99.9% safe, when water is contaminated, it’s usually by negligence or failure of inferstructure. But so long as it’s is maintained it will be safe. I generally don’t like bottle water companies because they use municipal water without putting in the taxes that residents do to build the infrastructure to provide fresh water. This is done for profit. Where as government is a service to the people and are not in it for profit. If a company wants to bottle water that’s fine but make them pay their fair share of the infrastructure and maintenance.
Let me add, some people feel that remote or small towns or locations maybe unsafe. I cannot vouch for those locations but generally the most common method of treating water is to put Chlorine or Chlorimide which will disinfect the water and inert the parasite like cryptosporidium. However it does leave a chlorine taste to the water which most people do not like. That maybe why people are off put by water and drink bottled water instead. I usually solve this by using a charcoal filter with ceramic or membrane filter. These filter out the chlorine and any particulate within the water. Remember, though it is that chlorine is what protects you from getting sick.
Hi @ajlenin I drank water from the tap in UAE and Saudi Arabia, as I do in New Zealand and Czech Republic. I have never been sick or affected by anything bad. Bottled water is a scam.
@ajlenin Filter water or bottle water taste bitter to me. I don’t prefer It.
I m drinking tap water since childhood and I have habit of drinking it. It taste sweet for me. And no any Health issue. Even not visited doctor for almost 13 years. Not even tastes a capsule or tablet.
@ajlenin This is a very interesting discussion. I agree: Bottled water is not fresh water!
Fresh water comes from natural sources (e.g. natural springs). The next minute you put the water in a bottle is not fresh anymore.
I agree with @SunnyEren. In most cases, municipal water might be better than bottled water. If you have doubts about tap water in your area, get your own water bottle with a built-in filter from an online shop.
I like this old show below on bottled water from Penn and Teller. Anyway, use your own judgement.
@HoangDang thank you for your reply, but please don’t boil the water, boiling the water to maximum is also not good, (for example, if you boil the water and cool it, just drop a fish in that, the fish will die, because water is water any process will totally changes its content, which is not good for human body, if i am not mistaken.
When discuss with water quality / effect on my body, I will consider this:
Not ALL water are equal
fresh water (some means water without any treatment), which is not available in large cities. I might encounter fresh water while hiking. If I can choose, I will boil it to kill off common bateria before drinking it. If I have no choose (like 3 days without any water in a desert journey), I will drink it and worry later.
rain water, due to air pollution, people also consider rain water not fit for direct consumption. Again, it is must a matter of choices available or not.
Tap water
Tap water normally got treated in a water plant. When then leave the plant, the quality is good. (confirming to legal requirements.)
But Tap water need to run via underground pipe line, then (for high rise buildings in HK), pump up to the Roof via building owned pipes for storage, then via private pipes to my tap. Pollutions can happen in the underground pipe, in the building pipe / storage tank, or even the private pipes. Thus drinking without boiling is always adviced by the government, but actually not required 100% of the time as in Hong Kong.
Bottled Water
For Bottled Water sellng in Supermarkets, their quality are also regulated (normally to the same standard as tap water). Water are normally treated before they are bottled. Then ship to the supermarkets that we can buy from.
For some people, they will argue Plastic Bottle have toxic material that will dissolve into the water, thus not good.
Nowadays, the undeniable fact about bottled water is, those one-off use plastic bottles are one of the major plastic polution sources in the world. Personally, for this reason alone, I will avoid them as much as possible. (Re-use the bottles, bring water from our home instead. Again, when we have choices.)
We human, is getting nutricients from lots of different sources. Thus even very pure water, long term use is OK as long as our diets are balanced.
Last point, for water, if we drink huge amount in short period of time in one go (say, 3 litres non stop drinking within minutes, depends on your body condition), it can be toxic to our body.
