# Why does Dasani add minerals to their water? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 19, 2007, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dasani-add-minerals-to-their-water/408541 "2007-06-19T01:33:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2007, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dasani-add-minerals-to-their-water/408541/41 "2007-06-20T03:29:55Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] So you are saying that my body has more high fructose corn syrup in it than a can of Coca Cola? [/QUOTE] High fructose corn syrup is a sugar. It’s broken down by your digestive system before it ever reaches your blood supply. Most salts, including potassium chloride, magnesium sulfate and of course sodium chloride, are not. ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2007, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dasani-add-minerals-to-their-water/408541/42 "2007-06-21T12:57:58Z")
[QUOTE=Alive At Both Ends] 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. [/QUOTE] Quite possibly because Del Boy got there first with [Peckham Spring](http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/onlyfools/christmas/1992.shtml), teaching a third of the British population that bottled tap water is well dodgy. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2007, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dasani-add-minerals-to-their-water/408541/43 "2007-06-21T14:51:51Z")
[QUOTE=Alive At Both Ends] 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. [/QUOTE] I’m sure it was real difficult to discover that. Real muck-raking journalism there. They don’t exactly advertise that it is purified tap water but it isn’t a secret either. [QUOTE=Little Nemo] But I suppose if some company was able to duplicate the mineral content of my hometown water, I’d think “that’s perfect - this is the way water is supposed to taste.” [/QUOTE] Since most of the Auqafina around here is bottled in my old hometown, that is probably why I like it. ---
**Author:** ![nitrox3058](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea666f/32.png) [@nitrox3058](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nitrox3058)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dasani-add-minerals-to-their-water/408541/44 "2014-08-16T06:21:50Z")
I have been a water treatment operator many years, but now work for Coca Cola as a technician. But I will tell you of a case here in Florida of a women who drank water. A women in Orange County Florida checked into a hospital a few years back. She was deathly ill and the doctors were perplexed. They asked all the normal questions like what had she been eating and what she had been drinking. Just regular meals and was proud that she only drank water. No booze, no soda. Her bones had become mushy, her organs were shutting down and the questions kept coming, without any answers as to what has happening to her. She failed to add one small detail about her drinking habits. The doctors all assumed that since she lived in the city, she was drinking city water. Finally, an astute and wise doctor thought to throw the question out there. Any odd colors or tastes to your water? Oh heavens no! she replied. " I only drink pure and distilled water to avoid Fluoride and Chlorine! The problem was that the body NEEDS minerals! When you cut off a sufficient supply, it begins to leach them from wherever it can get them. In this case it was her bones, kidneys and liver. She was saved. A few weeks on an IV and her health returned. SO besides the fact that pure or distilled water tastes like crap, minerals are needed to keep the body going. In order to avoid any lawsuit by some numb skull drinking only Dasani water without minerals and the lawsuits that would surely follow, they remove that possibility by adding minerals BACK into the water during bottle filling. For those concerned, as I am, about fluoride, Dasani has Zero fluoride. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dasani-add-minerals-to-their-water/408541/45 "2014-08-16T06:44:40Z")
Welcome to the SDMB, **nitrox3058**. To be blunt, that story sounds like complete bullshit. The amount of minerals you get from drinking water is miniscule; anything missing would be more than made up for by the food she ate. And fluoride is good for your teeth. Drink up. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dasani-add-minerals-to-their-water/408541/46 "2014-08-16T12:47:10Z")
nitrox3058, what that the same woman whose daughter playfully tapped her lightly with the back of a butter knife and her arm just split wide open? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dasani-add-minerals-to-their-water/408541/47 "2014-08-16T13:18:20Z")
Zombie thread, I realize, but it’s worth pointing out that Dasani was created by a Coke executive who got concerned about selling sugary drinks… but had no qualms about selling “Coke ultra-zero” (aka local tap water) for the same price. ---
**Author:** ![rsat3acr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@rsat3acr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsat3acr)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dasani-add-minerals-to-their-water/408541/48 "2014-08-16T13:45:43Z")
So all the food she ate had the minerals removed also? Sounds like a crock. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dasani-add-minerals-to-their-water/408541/49 "2014-08-16T14:02:28Z")
> [@rsat3acr](#): > > So all the food she ate had the minerals removed also? Sounds like a crock. It occurs to me you could open a really, really specialized restaurant that catered to every food fad, fallacy and fantasy there is. You’d have to call it “Woo’s” though, and everyone would assume it was Chinese. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dasani-add-minerals-to-their-water/408541/50 "2014-08-16T16:47:12Z")
I’ve heard that some levels of hydrogen hydroxide, which is commonly found in bottled water, can be fatal. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dasani-add-minerals-to-their-water/408541/51 "2014-08-16T18:33:50Z")
> [@Bag\_of\_Mostly\_Water](#): > > Pure water – either distilled or deionized – tastes terrible. Feel free to buy some and drink it. (If it’s really pure, it can’t hurt you.) The trace minerals do add noticable flavor. > > People generally feel that water should taste like spring water. The most common anions in spring water are calcium, magnesium, patassium, and sodium. The most common cations are sulfate and chloride. There are frequenty small amounts of iron, copper, aluminum, fluorides and nitrates, but these are not considered desirable and add an off taste. It seem like Dasani has the common salts covered except for calcium. Some taste panel probably decided that the water tastes better without calcium. I am somewhat fond of sulfurish waters - the spring at our summer house had a fair iron and sulfur content so in Europe I tend to order [Gerolsteiner](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerolsteiner_Brunnen). [URL=“[http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/](http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/)”] ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dasani-add-minerals-to-their-water/408541/52 "2014-08-16T21:43:22Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > Welcome to the SDMB, **nitrox3058**. To be blunt, that story sounds like complete bullshit. The amount of minerals you get from drinking water is miniscule; anything missing would be more than made up for by the food she ate. > > And fluoride is good for your teeth. Drink up. Of course it sounds like complete bullshit, because it is. The person who believes this firstly doesn’t know anything about chemistry, because thinking there’s significant minerals in drinking water is arrant nonsense, and secondly, doesn’t know anything about people, because if you’re the kind of crank who drinks nothing but distilled water to avoid chemicals, that’s the first thing you tell everyone from your doctor to your dog groomer. There’s no way it would take an old and wise doctor to ask the question, everyone in earshot whould have known it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dasani-add-minerals-to-their-water/408541.md?page=2)