Ever try it with grain spirits? It’s the only way to protect one’s precious bodily fluids.
Distilled water tastes fine to me, and better than a lot of bottled and tap water. It just doesn’t quench my thirst as much as slightly mineralized water. It also absorbs all the flavor of its container, so it can taste like rubber if its in a plastic container.
I was hoping you’d provide a cite for your claim. I know what Osmosis is. I wanted a cite that tells me whether Dasani has less particulate matter of the particular minerals than my own fluids.
I drink New York City tap water, it’s just fine for me. I only buy bottled water if I am out and about and thirsty.
If it didn’t, then drinking it would be rather unhealthy.
(Due to osmosis.)
I wonder why you say “yuck” about magnesium sulfate, but not about “minerals”. Magnesium sulfate is a mineral. Mineral water is just water with various inorganic salts dissolved in it.
From what I’ve heard, NYC’s tap water is considered the finest in the nation, to the extent that some restaurant owners will ship the tap water to out-of-city franchises for use in their cooking so that the flavor is consistent across different locations. You got some great stuff there, so I don’t blame you for snubbing bottles.
Down in my neck of the woods, however, our water has so many minerals that if you leave a sink full of it long enough, it’ll form geodes. Here, we need to filter, or drink the bottled stuff.
It comes from upstate NY, in the Adirondacks, and is quite tasty.
So you are saying that my body has more high fructose corn syrup in it than a can of Coca Cola?
As I read this the bromate was considered a contaminant, not an ingredient. It certainly is not in the ingredients now.
I don’t think it comes from that far north, but instead from the Catskills. Edited to add that apparently some comes from the Delaware River headwaters.
There are reservoirs all over Westchester and Dutchess county. The rivers and streams that feed them come from a variety of places.
As **Yojimbo **has already pointed out, it’s bromate that was the problem.
But that’s almost irrelevant. The real issue was Coca-Cola selling tap water in bottles. On this side of the Atlantic, bottled water is assumed to be from a natural source and free of additives. When journalists discovered that Dasani was modified tap water, the reaction here was sufficient to destroy its credibility for the foreseeabale future.
Fiddle-faddle. Drinking water certainly is not supposed to be tasteless. I have noticed significant differences in the taste of tap water from one place to another.
I agree. When it comes to cola drinks, I prefer Coca-Cola, but when it comes to bottled water, for some reason I find Aquafina really tasty.
But the point remains that Adirondack water is some seriously tasty stuff. If they bottled it they would outsell the rivals who only claim theirs tastes like a mountain stream: the tapwater in the Saratoga Springs region really does. Somewhat crisply mineral and with just a hint of dirt to suggest streamy freshness.
Is this a whoosh? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saline_%28medicine%29
If I remember correctly the nutritional label on Dasani says 0mg sodium. Whatever particulates they add are insignificant and for taste only. For instance, this bottle of Japanese “ion supply beverage” claims 21 mEq/l Na+, 5 mEq/l K+, 16.5 mEq/l Cl-, 1 mEq/l Ca2+, and 0.5 mEq/l of Mg2+ (and other stuff). Even on sodium alone that’s still almost 6-7 times less than human fluids and this stuff tastes salty.
Now, chemistry I suck at aside, are you a vegetarian? Because I’m fairly sure a medium-rare steak prepared with no salt or pepper is all proof I need that mammalian fluids have significantly more sodium, potassium and magnesium than bottled water by taste alone.
No it’s not a whoosh. Just because a steak tastes saltier than bottled water does’t tell me whether or not all of Dasani’s ingredients are contained in my blood in higher concentration.
I guess I should be more specific and ask:
How much magnesium sulfate and potassium chloride does the blood contain? How much does Dasani water contain?
Normal serum levels (from here)
sodium ~ 135 - 145 mmol/l
potassium ~ 3.5 - 5 mmol/l
chloride ~ 98 - 108 mmol/l
magnesium 98 - 108 mmol/l
And here you can see a table of magnesium sulfate dose for seizure control. Notice how a 1L single dose IV bag has 40 GRAMS of magnesium sulfate, and that clearly won’t instantly kill you.
According to Coca Cola, the amount of minerals in Dasani is a trace amounts added for taste only. If I remember my chemistry and did my math correctly (dopers, please check), the above serum concentrations (take max normal) in mg per liter (which is next to useless in terms of both chemistry and pharmacology but is easier to visualize for most people) are:
sodium ~ 3300mg per liter
potassium ~ 195mg per liter
chlorine ~ 3800mg per liter
magnesium ~ 3800mg per liter
I couldn’t find specific information on Dasani, but I promise you it’s not nearly that much. I did find this study (warning: PDF) that gives you more than you ever wanted to know about certain brands of bottled water (Dasani not one of them, as far as I can tell). If you notice, barely any of the waters exceeded 250mg/l of dissolved solids total and the average was 209.1 mg/l. Average amount of chlorides was 17.89mg/l. This article also states that there’s an FDA 500mg/l maximum limit on dissolved solids in bottled water. With a 500mg/l total limit the only thing that could exceed your body concentration of in Dasani, is potassium. Now, I can’t prove dasani does not have nearly 500mg/l of potassium chloride right now, but I would bet $50 that normally it does not.
Whenever I’m in France the first thing I do is buy a case or so of Vittel water. It’s the only bottled water I’ve ever tasted that seemed to be worth the price. At least, it’s worth the price there, but in the States it’s brutally expensive, so I revert back to tap. The mineral concentrations, in mg/l are:
Calcium - 91
Magnesium - 19.9
Sodium - 7.3
Potassium - 4.9
Bicarbonate (Hyrd.Carb) - 258
Sulphate - 105
Nitrate - 0.6
I grew up in the Saratoga area, drinkng well water, and I know good water. I also used to enjoy taking people out to the springs for the first taste of mineral water. It is definitely an acquired taste. The mineral springs are around ten times more concentrated than well water, and some of them contain several isotopes of radium. I don’t remember when the posted warnings went up, but it was pretty funny to see people’s reaction to them.
Distilled water tastes… Well flat and rather boring, not to mention it often ends up tasting like whatever container (often plastic) it was being held in. Water with added minerals tastes noticeably purer to me and it has a better flavor to boot.
Granted, I just got myself a Brita pitcher long ago because I can’t stand the tap water here but when I’m out in public, thirsty, and don’t want empty calories and sugar, I proudly buy bottled water. So what?