I am a cheap man. Okay, maybe that is too strong but I definitely am frugal. I never got the whole bottled water craze. Sure, I drank it when it was handed to me or found its way into my fridge but that was not very often. More commonly I just use the handy bottle to fill it up with tap water when empty. It fools my guests since NO ONE can ever tell the difference. Evidently, I am not the only one who does this. Walmart and Giant Food bottled water brands were tested and found to have very high concentration of chlorine byproducts. "The chlorine byproducts, which studies have also linked to birth defects, presumably come from chlorine used as a disinfectant, which ends up in public water systems. Tap water is often repackaged and sold as bottled water, and the researchers say that was true of these two brands."
The two-year study was done by the Washington-based Environmental Working Group which bought bottled water in California, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. Lab tests detected 38 chemicals in 10 brands, with an average of eight contaminants found in each kind of bottled water. Tests showed coliform bacteria, caffeine, the pain reliever acetaminophen, fertilizer, solvents, plastic-making chemicals and the radioactive element strontium. Hey, at least there wasn't any melamine!
Before anyone freaks out they should know that most of these contaminants are in our tap water as well. In fact, more and more meds are finding their way into the system as people keep flushing the stuff down the toilets. What happened to the good old days where we could just poison ourselves on lead paint chips?
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