Posted on 10/22/2005 9:07:47 AM PDT by smoothsailing
Water – don't leave home without it
October 22nd, 2005
I see my wife leaving the house to go to the supermarket, which is just about a 2 minute drive. In one hand she has the car keys and in the other she's grasping a plastic bottle of water. "Are you expecting to go shopping in the Sahara Desert?" I asked with a grin.
"Oh, you mean this?" she responded, holding the jug of liquid aloft.
"Yeah, I was wondering if you're going on a safari or if you planned on coming home sometime this week," I said, still smirking.
"Don't be silly," she replied with a frown. "You know how important water intake is."
"Well, yes, food is important too, but I don't see you carrying a couple of sandwiches with you every time you leave the house" I retorted with the slightest hint of sarcasm.
The selling of bottled water ranks as one of the most adroit marketing schemes ever to insinuate itself into the psyches of the American consumer. Undoubtedly, about 30 years ago, some whiz kid came up with the idea of using clever marketing to get premium prices for a product that everyone could get for free in homes, restaurants and office buildings in every city in the country. Europeans had already been buying bottled mineral water from famous spas for some time, after all. In the old days of unhealthy tap water, this might have made sense.
Before we were all lulled into thinking that tap water is dirty, smelly, impure and unhealthy, we couldn't have imagined the day would come when we'd pay for it like soda pop, juice or milk. Moreover, we never imagined that people would become so attached to their water supply that they would never leave home without a full canteen, as their ancestors did when they were slogging through the desiccated prairies in wagon trains.
It all began with the selling of water filters for home use. Network marketing companies became very effective in spreading the message by word of mouth that the "impurities" in tap water were the cause of several maladies. We were introduced to terms like, "reverse osmosis filtration, carbon pressed purification," and "oxygen reinforced sluicing." All designed to sound scientific and just esoteric enough to confuse as well as captivate a gullible public.
It worked even better than could have been expected. The home filtration systems could turn out a liter of water for a few pennies, when based on the cost of the apparatus and the volume of water it "purified" during the life of the system. Soon, however, it became apparent that people on the go would pay even more for a portable supply. Hence, a new idea was born; tell the public that the filtering would be done at the factory and sell the fluid over the counter in bottles. Furthermore, make it appear chic to have a ubiquitous supply of H20 in the hands of a perpetually parched public. Voila! Today, it's a $9 billion business and growing.
On a recent 60 Minutes segment, Andy Rooney lampooned the issue. "One of the most popular brands, Poland Spring water, isn't Polish; it's from Poland Spring, Maine. A pint costs $1.35 in the CBS cafeteria. Now just think about that. There are eight pints in a gallon, so if your car ran on water instead of gas and you had to fill a 15-gallon tank with this, it would cost $162 to fill your tank with water," said the CBS curmudgeon. Mr. Rooney took some of the bottles to a testing laboratory called Yorktown Environmental Services to see what was in them.
"From all the waters I've seen that are bottled waters, and I probably haven't tested all of them, but they are very much dead water…. They have nothing in them. I drink tap water," says lab owner and water expert Al Padovani. In addition, the authority on water said, "The water that you get out of a municipal supply or a well supply has more chemicals that the body needs."
Rooney said he works on the same floor with a staff of about 60 people, and just about everyone has a bottle of water on his/her desk. "It's like a security blanket, it's always there," he said. "And, they carry it wherever they go." He added, "Out by the elevator, there's a water fountain. The water is cooled, very good and the filter is changed regularly. I have never seen anyone drink this free water." Such is the genius of marketing. Keep in mind; we're now being told that our air is not pure. Soon, we may all be wearing surgical masks like Michael Jackson.
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Bob Weir is a former detective sergeant in the New York City Police Department. He is the excutive editor of The News Connection in Highland Village, Texas. BobWeir777@aol.com
When I lived in Colorado I felt the same way.
In Yokohama, there are things in the water and it does smell and taste funny.
Best tap water in the US - Fleischman's, NY, ice-cold in the winter, in a tin cup, and Black Mountain, NC. I must say Poland Spring does taste better than our local water which has to be treated to remove PCEs.
Mrs VS
Apparently the author of this has never been stuck on the highway for several hours. I carry a couple of quarts of water for that reason.
Just can't see this old self walking around with a water bottle.
I don't drink anything but milk and coffee and then only coffee/morning, coffee/at lunch, and milk when I get home.
Don't people know what fish do in water!
Well to tell you the truth I sure wish I had bought some bottled water before returning home last week when I found that I had no tap water for the rest of the day as a road crew was working on a pipe. Though it has been reported that tap water tends to be safer & even healthier than bottled water.
Well to tell you the truth I sure wish I had bought some bottled water before returning home last week when I found that I had no tap water for the rest of the day as a road crew was working on a pipe. Though it has been reported that tap water tends to be safer & even healthier than bottled water.
That's really funny because it's exactly what I say to people when they give me a hard time because I don't drink water. I'm a diet pepsi person and never leave home without it.
I have seen people carry their water bottle up when they speak in class, playing with the bottle as they talk. It is a pacifier, a blanky.
Some are now convinced they must drink a gallon a day in the desert. They even carry gallon jars with them. The jars look cruddy to me.
Note to water slaves: most foods are water based. An apple is just water with delicious flavor, texture, and some nutrition thrown in. It too is portable and looks great.
LOL! Me neither, I got over that when I got out of the Army!
The best water I ever drank came out of my well when I lived in the country. I do purchase poland springs sparkling lemon water or simply enjoy a glass of tap water with a slice of lemon. For some reason the water in my upstairs bathroom tastes better to me than the tap water in my kitchen.
The only good use for water is for brewing strong, hot fresh ground coffee. :)
This article is a bit out of date, the water bottle fetish seems to be dying off, I see less of the idiotic slings people were wearing. A lot of people are also wakingup to the fact that you can, indeed, drink too much water, and flush nutrients from your system doing so. Hydration is important, but in the proper amounts.
It's along the same lines as the "anti-bacterial" soaps and products - while in theory a great idea, it's a bad one in the long run as your body develops less tolerance and immunity to microbes.
The marketing people discovered fear is a great motivator, and can spur sales. Just watch the news, it's all fear mongering. "YOU NEED TO DRINK WATER" = profits.
Me, I'll buy the cheapest water at 7-11, and refill it at home or at the office from the water cooler, if I'm taking a long drive, or something. $165 a gallon? Yeah, right!
I keep a bottle of water by my computer. I fill it from my Melita filter pitcher, which does a fine job of making our rather hard and highly-chlorinated tap water taste great.
LOL! Or maybe I am! ;)
"Just can't see this old self walking around with a water bottle."
I carried water around when I was on the interferon, but that's a special circumstance.
Hee Hee Hee! When you drink coffee you're drinking tap water.
There are some things that seem almost un-American to me. One is joining a shopping club. I do not feel that I should have to pay for the privilege of having someone profit from my purchases. Paying huge bucks to see a movie, and then be beseiged with advertisements. But paying for drinking water is at the top of my list.To restore my faith in human nature, I hope some people who are carrying around designer bottles of water are filling them up at the water fountain. Maybe, I have been lucky and I have never had to live where the drinking water tasted bad. But I grew up in a rural area and I visited many farms where people drank water right from the well. Some wells had better tasting water than others. But in my travels I have never tasted tap water that even remotely tasted as bad as some of the well water that I drank.
I think it's cheapest at Costco.
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