Exploring a Perennial Question --- Again

The Washington Post’s Sally Squires takes up a perennial question we’ve addressed a time or two in Extension Daily: Is bottled water really good for you?

The short answer is no. Bottled water is no better than ordinary municipal water and, in some cases, may even reflect lower standards.

Some bottled water is treated more than tap water, but that shouldn’t detract from the fact that other products are treated less or not at all, according to Dr. Jim Hairston, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System’s water quality coordinator and Auburn University professor of agronomy and soils.

In some cases, bottled water is nothing more than packaged municipal drinking water drawn from a tap into a sleek, colorful plastic bottle and marketed as a clean, safe product. Consumers often can’t even be sure the contents of a bottled water product conform to what is listed on the label, Hairston says.

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration now requires bottled water quality standards to be equal to those of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s criteria for tap water,” he says. “But the quality of the finished product is not monitored.”

Bottlers are required to test source water and the finished product only once a year. Big city municipal suppliers, by contrast, may test their source waters as much as 100 times a month for the presence of E coli and other fecal coliform bacteria.

Hairston also cites recent tests, which have shown that microbes may grow in some bottled water products while they are stocked on grocery store shelves.

A dental health risk is also associated with some bottled water products.

“Some bottled water sold in the United States is fluoridated, but most was not as of 2005,” Hairston says, adding that current FDA regulations do not require these products to be fluoridated.

Consumers should not be fooled by the nutritional pluses often associated with bottled water, according to one nutrition expert. In fact, compared with tap water, there really is nothing special about bottled water, he says.

“While they may contain a few minerals such as calcium and magnesium, that’s generally about it,” says Dr. Robert Keith, an Extension nutrition specialist and Auburn University professor of nutrition and food science. “But in many cases, you can’t even be sure of that because the product label often doesn’t specify.”

Indeed, if you are not concerned about calories, fruit juice, compared with tap or bottled water, is a better nutritional bet.

“Juices have all those antioxidants in them --- vitamin C, for example --- that water lacks,” Keith says. “Juice really is the better nutritional choice when you look at it from the standpoint of nutrition rather than strictly calorie counting.”

Another smart choice is milk, which, because of its high calcium content, safeguards against osteoporosis, a crippling bone disease prevalent among women.

Tea, rich in antioxidants and phytochemicals, is also a good choice. Despite its nutritional value, tea also contains caffeine, which causes people to urinate more often --- a special concern for people who consume lots of liquid through the day to stay hydrated.

Posted by Jim Langcuster at July 5, 2006 05:19 PM | TrackBack