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Jewish World Review May 18, 2005 / 9 Iyar, 5765 Think bottled water is healthier? Friend, you are being soaked! By John Stossel
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Take a few ounces of water. Garnish with an elegant bottle and a
large price tag. Convince Americans it's cool. Somehow, in the 1990s, a
French company called Perrier did that, and now, America is getting soaked.
Today, Evian has surpassed Perrier in sales; it's now the chic
French water of choice. It costs more than gasoline — about $5 a gallon —
and if you'd rather wear it than drink it, you can pay $10 for a five-ounce
aerosol can (ingredients: "aqua" and nitrogen).
Then there are Aquafina, Dasani, and the dozens of new brands of
bottled water that have jumped into this billion-dollar business, including
bizarre ones like Venus, the Water for Women, and Trump Ice, with the Donald
scowling on the label. I'd have to be very thirsty to buy that.
Water comes out of public fountains for free. It comes out of
your tap for pennies. Why buy it in bottles?
"Because it tastes better," people told us. So ABC News ran a
taste test. We put two imported waters, Evian and Iceland Spring, up against
Aquafina (America's best seller), American Fare (Kmart's discount brand),
and some water from a public drinking fountain in the middle of New York
City.
We asked people to rate the waters bad, average, or great. Many
said one of the waters was bad. Which one? Why, Monsieur, that would be
Evian, the most expensive, which came in last in our unscientific test.
Evian had no comment. The water our testers like most came from Kmart:
American Fare ranked first in our unscientific test, and it costs a third of
what Evian costs. (Maybe that's why "Evian," spelled backward, is "naive.")
Aquafina ranked second. Poland Spring came in fifth.
Tied for third were the water from Iceland and the New York tap
water — water that may have come as much as 100 miles through the antique
pipes of New York before emerging from that water fountain. Even people who
said they didn't like tap water liked it when they weren't told it was tap
water. Of course, your local tap water may not be as tasty, but you owe
yourself a taste test before you squander more money on the bottled stuff.
For a show on the Showtime cable channel, satirists Penn and
Teller got a trendy California restaurant to let them fool customers with a
"water steward." Like a wine steward, he had lots of fancy bottles, and most
diners said they loved their elegant waters. "Oh, yeah, definitely better
than tap water!" said one. But tap water is just what it was — the "water
steward" filled the fancy bottles using the hose on the restaurant's patio.
If taste doesn't justify the price of bottled water, maybe
"purity" does. Some people have the notion that bottled water is healthier
than tap. We sent some bottled and tap water samples to microbiologist Aaron
Margolin, of the University of New Hampshire, to test for the bacteria that
can make you sick, like E. coli. "There was actually no difference between
the New York City tap water and the bottled waters that we evaluated," he
said.
Many scientists have run tests that find tap water is as good
for you as bottled waters that cost 500 times more. I even asked the man the
bottled-water association recommended we interview, Dr. Stephen Edberg, of
Yale University's School of Medicine, "Is bottled water healthier than tap?"
He gave me this sparkling gem: "I wouldn't say, uh, it's healthier than tap
water. I mean, uh, it's both, they both provide, uh, water."
That's right: All those companies that charge you an arm and a
leg are selling you, uh, water. I can't argue with that. They certainly are
selling you water.
If you buy bottled water because you think it's healthier than
tap, test after test shows no evidence of that. And if you buy fancy brands
because you think they taste better, you're probably just buying hype.
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© 2005, by JFS Productions, Inc. Distributed by Creators Syndicate, Inc. |
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