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... but normally don't have qualms about combining the two?
Many people won't touch tap-water other than for external use, perhaps irrationally, but then don't make the natural connection that that is the water used in everything that they digest, from Starbucks to the Apple Rack.
Speaking from strictly anecdotal experience, the best food I had ever eaten coincidentally came from a farm that used well-water. All I had ordered were potatoes and some salad, but I will never forget how much better they were than I could ever remember having in my life. It was like eating a foreign substance that I had not known as food. Maybe sit was the fact this farm had been in operation for literally hundreds of year contributing to better soil, but it got me thinking about the water we use to grow our food.
I don't know if it was the well-water, but stumbling on this forum, it seems like you folks would be privy to an interesting opinion on it.
tap water usually refers to city supply. its full of nasty crap that i wouldnt consider ingesting unless i didnt have clean water available. i love well water, but sometimes the water table becomes polluted and is not suitable for consumption. i used to work on RO filtration equipment. before that, i didnt mind city water. after my first day, no city water.
Tap water is fine, and most bottled water is glorified tap water. Read the bottle label to ensure you aren't paying for tap water, unless you just want to pay 10X more for what you can get out of the tap. Some people prefer spring water, and that is different than regular tap water.
Tap water falls under the Safe Drinking Water Act, and that is promulgated to the states to set numerical criteria, which can be more strict than federal criteria, but not less strict.
There are many rules and laws in the SDWA that protect citizens. The water is tested to ensure you get safe water, and if it fails certain criterion then other factors fall in place, i.e., boil orders.
Individual families on well water are not subject to the same laws, nor do they have the protection of citizens on municipal water. Sometimes gw gets contaminated from gas and oil operations. The Sac and Fox Tribe of Oklahoma won a big settlement against an oil company that contaminated almost all of their groundwater from injection wells. That's been over ten years ago. Other gw gets contaminated from nitrates. Nitrite is what someone has to be careful of if they have a baby. Nitrite can cause "blue baby syndrome'. Plus, well heads need to be secure and covered or environmental debris can contaminate the well.
i loved drinking NYC "tap" water which was spring water brought in from upstate NY. other tap water isn't fantastic, but i filter my water at home. bottled water is a waste of money.
were on city water, we have hard water and because of that theres even more treatment so we use a filter for drinking water form the tap, if im going to boil it for tea ect however it doesnt need to be filtered.
i refuse to buy bottled water though...its just another towns tap water, ill buy bottled water only if im out and NEED a drink, then i refill the bottles at home lol
i do think well water is better (assuming your ground water is healthy)
bottled water isnt "simply tap water". true, bottled water comes from a municipal approved source. spring water is pumped into a tanker, with chlorine added, and taken to a facility that processes it the same way they process other bottled waters. it runs something like this; first a pre filter to catch things larger than 5 or 10 microns, then a carbon treatment to absorb impurities like chlorine, then a UV sterilization light, then a reverse osmosis membrane that removes tds (total dissolved solids) down to less than 50 ppm (parts per million), then usually a second uv treatment to ensure safety, and then it gets bottled. i worked on ro filtration equipment for around 4 years. i do not drink city water. i have seen the trash that filter systems pull out of city water, its disgusting. if you want truly pure water, buy distilled, it must tds no more than 10 ppm, next up is ro at less than 50 ppm, spring water will tds higher but thats because they add minerals back into the water to improve taste and softness on your tongue. i have seen some cheap bottles of water that are merely city water put through a pre filter and bottled. that is junk. read what you buy. if you want bottled water for a fair price, use the stations at the grocery store where you refill your own jugs. its the same system as major bottle companies, just on a smaller scale. plus they dont use diesel trucks to deliver bottled water so its better for the environment than buying bottled water.
bottled water isnt "simply tap water". true, bottled water comes from a municipal approved source. spring water is pumped into a tanker, with chlorine added, and taken to a facility that processes it the same way they process other bottled waters. it runs something like this; first a pre filter to catch things larger than 5 or 10 microns, then a carbon treatment to absorb impurities like chlorine, then a UV sterilization light, then a reverse osmosis membrane that removes tds (total dissolved solids) down to less than 50 ppm (parts per million), then usually a second uv treatment to ensure safety, and then it gets bottled. i worked on ro filtration equipment for around 4 years. i do not drink city water. i have seen the trash that filter systems pull out of city water, its disgusting. if you want truly pure water, buy distilled, it must tds no more than 10 ppm, next up is ro at less than 50 ppm, spring water will tds higher but thats because they add minerals back into the water to improve taste and softness on your tongue. i have seen some cheap bottles of water that are merely city water put through a pre filter and bottled. that is junk. read what you buy. if you want bottled water for a fair price, use the stations at the grocery store where you refill your own jugs. its the same system as major bottle companies, just on a smaller scale. plus they dont use diesel trucks to deliver bottled water so its better for the environment than buying bottled water.
some bottled water truly is tap water. some companies do sterilization, some add minerals, some remove things through filtering methods. but some really do just bottle water without doing anything to it. read the labels. good call on the filling your own jugs. it is better, if you choose to do bottled water at all.
Nothing wrong with bottle water if buying it because of the filtering and portability. If buying a high price brand because you think its really something special over home filtering and bottling, thats just throwing money away on vanity.
I have well water, but I don't really drink it. I don't know if it makes my food taste better. My water was tested out the wazoo, and it's safe etc, but I like the taste of the bottled stuff. I've been drinking bottled water since I was a kid (hence the cavities).
One issue in a lot of areas on well-water is groundwater contamination. In my state, the reports are publicly available. Even in a bucolic area, utilities and gas stations may exist...and if they're in the right location they can pollute the groundwater to varying degrees.
I drink bottled water because of the taste and the purity. I can't stand the taste of tap water, and my well water has too much stuff in it, so it tastes "flavorful" even with the reverse osmosis. I like the clean, tasteless taste of my favorite brands of bottled water.
Organic Food?
I wouldn't poison myself on purpose, so why should I pay someone to do that? XD I like Organic food because I think pesticides and herbicides in large quantities are bad for my health. I used to drink non-organic milk and soymilk, but I just can't anymore.
While, I agree that science is great, my biggest problem with GM foods are the "roundup ready" crops. The fact that they're resistant to glycophospate (or whatever it is they put in roundup) causes a lot of farmers to spray chemicals more freely. Tests show that stuff ends up on the fruits/veg.
No thanks. I also know how hard it is to grow food, so cheap food makes me really suspicious. I eat red meat, but I don't want to eat hormones and whatever chemical residues are left over from the "feed" the animals eat.
It's like there are two levels of food now: cheap food with hormones, antibiotics (and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, as a result probably), pesticides and herbicides all over it...and then really really expensive food (yep I bought a house so now my grocery bill looks a lot pricier) that's actually fit for human consumption.
Last edited by kinkytoes; 02-16-2011 at 04:04 PM..
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