http://www.ebaumsworld.com/videos/tapwater.html

Care to give with a description of what it is? ebaumsworld is blocked for a lot of people at their workplace, you know.

I'm betting it's the Penn and Teller bit where they filled water bottles with water from a garden hose and then served it with that waiter guy saying it was the finest water and such.

Why I only pay for bottled water if I'm desperately thirsty and a long way from home.

edit: Otto, yes it was.

so are you guys saying that there is no point in buying bottled water at all? I don't believe in all that 'natural mountain spring super clean water' crap, but I don't think that bottled water is the same as what comes out of my waterpipe at home, is it?!

Occasionally it is. Furthermore, it is regulated less than tap water. Look up the problems Dasani (Coke) has recently had in England.

And there is a point: convenience.

Usually, yes, it is just tap water or equivalent. Although it's tap water from some other muncipality's tap.

Sometimes (not often) it's actually worse than your local tap water, in terms of cleanliness. Depends on where you live.

Anyway if you are buying bottled water for home use because you think it's better than tap water, then I suggest getting one of those Pur or Brita pitchers instead. Those do actually work.

Personally, I just stick to whiskey.

as Otto42 mentioned before, the quality of tapwater really depends on where you're living, i.e. from where the water is coming. quite a few cities here in Germany get their water from far away, some smaller ones have their own spring, etc.
the place where I was was born actually has a very good water source. we share the spring with a major company that sells (good) bottled water.
whereas the place where I'm staying ATM has tapwater you only want to drink if you're really thirsty.
another point would be the pipes where the tapwater is running through. some very old pipes may reduce quality and be harmful, though they are mostly replaced everywhere.

is there a website that tells me about the water quality in the US? Something like were you put in your zip code or something. I'm so glad that someone brought that topic up...

I don't know how it is in the states but here every department of the environment holds statistical information about things like water quality AFAIK.
there are also some private companies that analyze water quality for are pretty low fee.

The last time I checked my cities water quality was using U.S. Enviromental Protection Agency ("EPA"). More specifically use the U.S. EPA's info in Local Drinking Water Information. For other people in other countries that want to find their EPA website find it via this Google search. I was shocked that my city was almost near an unacceptable level, and whatsmore nearby city's and towns that use the same water from the Mississippi River have boil water advisories every year.

I can remember one year in particular in my city when the regular tap just plain smelled funny, however the water at my house was fine since it get's filtered. I've been using a water filtration system for drinking water, cooking, and even showering for some 15 years now and there's really a quality difference in the water after allot of the impurities are removed.

I've known for years about bottled water sometimes being none other than tap water, however there's some companies that do filter the water. I remember the news had some info a few years back on bottled water and they were talking about it containing more germs that regular tap water, so much so that the bottled water could be a health concern.

Simple tests for homeowners (non scientific):
* When it's nighttime pour some tap water into a glass and shine a flashlight onto the glass to see all the crap floating in the water. Do the same test in another glass using purified water and notice the difference.
* The visual difference can also be seen by making ice cubes; one tray with regular tap water (it'll typically look cloudy) and the other with purified water (it'll look clean and clear).

thanks for the link. It doesn't really say anything about the quality...all I could find was the source of the water, which is in my case surface water
Does the thing with the flashlight really work?

an audio-related note on this thread... bottled water is one of the best examples of the market "competing with something that's free" - and the vast majority of people who drink bottled water have no substantive reason for doing so (e.g., they're not worried about the cleanliness of taps and drinking fountains)...
It's a hopeful note to the music industry worried about losing out to free file-sharing.

It allows you to see particles floating in the water that you normally wouldn't notice.

For me it's very simple. If I'm out and I'm thirsty I can choose to buy a Soda/Juice full of sugar and other crap, or bottled water.

Guess what I choose most of the time.

sugar water?

That video is funny.
I bet they can't blind ABX the bottles.

Anyway, how to taste a difference?
Water is water, doesn't matter if it's "superclean" or not.

In my country there's no need to buy bottled water, we're blessed with the Alps and qualitative groundwater.

I dont see it that way, besides coolness, pureness and mineral content, I have a respect for time honoured springs and rivers, even that some homeopathic effects are possible and perhaps not all invented by charlatans.

The Anomalous Properties of water
Perhaps there are more undiscovered anomalies.

Okay, try it from another angle: What would you be able to do to water to make it "cleaner"?
-"Coolness" is just a matter of temperature. Would you like this chilled bottle of Mexican water I've been saving?
-You mentioned "pureness", and there's several ways to filter water that work quite effectively. But the purest possible water, that being distilled water, kinda tastes like crap. Yet, it's as pure as it can be, nothing but H2O in it.
-"Mineral content" is a bit vague. I mean, lead and arsenic could be considered minerals.

Point being that until you define what it is that makes one water better than another, there's no real way to measure what waters are better. Subjective measurements (aka, tasting them) are highly subject to placebo effect.

Of course, this isn't to say it can't be done, as the extremes are easy to spot. I've lived places where the water came out brown from time to time. Naturally, I didn't drink that.

While water is an amazing substance, as your link demonstrates, that really has nothing to do with the subject, which is bottled drinking water.

That would be a negative utility mineral content, bottled water here in the UK often contains a mineral readout on the label - a good thing you can check the minerals.
If the bottle is available chilled this is a bonus sometimes too.
My favourite water is from a River called the Dee in the Cairngorms of Scotland, it starts off from springs high in the Cairngorms, collecting in mountain pools called the Linns of Dee, where it trickles down a run of beautiful granite waterfalls while being added to from runoff of peat and heather and diverse local flora. The Rivers' quality has been written of for a thousand years, parties have travelled from central Europe to bath in it and drink it. The Knights Templar held it sacred. There are fine Whisky distilleries made by it.
Thats my kind of water - I dont need quantify it If its all placebo I dont mind in this case.

And can be even a bit harmfull, in big (ridiculously big) quanitites, when your body loses mineral salts because of it.


My home city is quite comfortable regarding topic - it has ultradeep water source. It's so good that there exist at least one brand of bottled water which is simply our tap water (minus of course any things that might be present because of old pipes in exact the place where you live)