I've been drinking water out of the tap for years, and it still confounds me when people watch me drink from it. I'm sorry, but y'all do realize that every drinking fountain we all drank from was the same! So I am curious, how many of y'all are still ok with drinking iced tap water, rather than some crap that comes from other places where there is no FDA approval. http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Health/story?id=728070 It started with Perrier. Somehow, a French company convinced people it's cool to buy bottled water. Today, Evian has surpassed Perrier in sales and now it's the chic French water of choice. Why? It costs about 5 bucks a gallon! Why do people pay so much for something they can get virtually free? Message Board John's Message Board: Share Your Thoughts If they're not buying Evian, they buy Aquafina and Dasani and the dozens of new brands that are jumping 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. Many people say they buy bottled waters because they taste better. We spoke with people in New York City, asking them why they liked bottled better than tap water. "I drink Dasani. It tastes good, it tastes crisp, like -- natural," one girl said. "I think tap water kind of tastes like sewer," said another. People also say they drink bottled water because they believe it's safer than tap water. One man told me he's the only one "who's brave enough" to drink tap water at home. His family's afraid to drink tap water because of germs, he said. At recent Earth Day celebrations, a lot of people told us they believe tap water is unhealthy. "As a parent I feel more comfortable giving her bottled water," one father told us. Bottled water, we were told, is cleaner, safer, healthier. Watching bottled water ads, you'd think that tap water might not be healthy. But it's not true. "20/20" took five bottles of national brands of bottled water and a sample of tap water from a drinking fountain in the middle of New York City and sent them to microbiologist Aaron Margolin of the University of New Hampshire to test for 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 like that and have consistently found that tap water is as good for you as bottled waters that cost 500 times more. Even Yale University School of Medicine's Dr. Stephen Edberg, the person whom the International Bottled Water Association told "20/20" to talk to, agreed that bottled water is no better for you. "No, I wouldn't argue it's safer or not safer." "Healthy is a funny definition," he said. "I wouldn't say it's healthier than tap water. I mean, they both provide water," Edberg added. Maybe a taste difference justifies spending more money? "I can definitely taste the difference between like a Fiji water and an Evian and a Poland Spring," one woman said. Many brands -- Aquafina, Deer Park and Dasani -- had loyal fans. The labels of the bottled waters do suggest they're special. Some show mountains or polar bears or glaciers. You have to look at the fine print to find out Everest Water is not from Mount Everest. It's from Corpus Christi, Texas. Glacier Clear Water is not from a glacier in Alaska. Its source is tap water from Greeneville, Tenn. Big-selling Dasani and Aquafina are also just reprocessed tap water from cities around the country. One of Aquafina's sources is the Detroit River! At least the popular French water, Evian, does come from France. But does that make it taste better? That's what people say, but is it true? We ran a taste test, offering people New York City tap water and five other bottled waters, Evian, the top-selling bottled water Aquafina, Poland Spring, Iceland Spring (which comes all the way from Iceland), and American Fare, a discount brand from Kmart, which sells for less than half the price of Evian. Would people be able to tell the difference when they didn't know what they were drinking? Would they still prefer their favorites? Many who took our taste test were bottled water drinkers. They pay for it, they say, because tap water just doesn't taste as good. It tastes flat and flavorless, they said. Would the taste test show that? We asked people to rate the waters as bad, average or great. Lots of people said one of the waters was particularly bad. Was that the tap water? No. Tap water did pretty well. Even people who said they don't like it, liked it on the blind test. The "20/20" taste test was just one unscientific test, but lots of tests keep finding that people like tap water. I suspect many people who buy the fancy waters are getting suckered by the ads or the labels. In our test of bottled waters, Kmart's American Fare -- the cheapest brand -- won. Big-seller Aquafina came in second. Iceland Spring tied the ordinary tap water for third place. Fifth place went to Poland Spring, and in last place, by far, with almost half the testers saying it tasted bad, was the most expensive water -- the fancy French stuff, Evian. "It tasted like toilet water," one man said. Evian had no comment about that review. Bottom line, 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 the hype.
I'll drink it, but I'm leery of any water from an older water system. I worry about lead in the water from old pipes.
I don't drink tap water, but I drink spring water from those refillable machines. I drink over a gallon of water per day so I can taste a difference in spring water vs. the tap water. The spring water has this natural bounce in it that is somewhat hard to describe.
If you're really thirsty and there is no liquid in the house and you wouldn't drink tap water then you're IMO a moran. This isn't a third world country. Yes I understand tap water may be disgusting but you won't die. PS Obviously if it's discolored and/or smells don't drink it.
Have you ever filled up a bath tub and found the water to be a brownish color? If you've lived in Houston for any part of your life, of course you have. You can do all the studies in the world that you want to...but I've seen what comes out of the tap and I'm not drinking it without some sort of filtering system.
FattyFat, first off, cavities are on the rise because bottled water doesn't have the fluoride in it that tap water has. That said, Houston tap water is AMAZING. Seriously. Don't believe me? GO TO DENTON. You can actually SMELL the metallic content in the water. To top it off, studies have shown that, because Denton's waste and drinking water flow to/from the same area (out to the treatment plant which discharges into Pecan Creek and then in to Lake Lewisville where water is pumped back out), there is an elevated amount of estrodiol (from birth control pills -- denTON has a ton of college girls) and antidepressants. Don't believe me? That story's complex and only about the antidepressants, but they're both there.
My tap water is different (I'm in Florida). We have such hard water that when I pour a glass, you will see tiny white bits settle at the bottom of the cup (calcium? limestone?). It's an old building, so it's very possible it's because of the pipes. I didn't realize it for a few months, but now I use one of those filtered water pitchers because of it. I think I read somewhere that more then 50% of all bottled water sold is tap water anyways.
Tap water is what I drink at home. Best tap water - Lake Tahoe, NYC, Alaska. Houston is not bad either. The only bottled water I like is Fiji.
I don't drink any straight water, ever. Coffee, Diet Coke, Tea, 1% Milk, Gatorade in the heat of summer. I make my coffee and tea with reverse osmosis water. I would use tap water but the salts build up in the coffee pot . I know, it's wonder I'm still alive.
It's funny, I grew up drinking tap water in Houston (and Cypress) but for some reason, I don't drink tap water in Austin unless it's the only thing available. I don't know why.
