A few simple facts about bottled water

With their pictures of snow-capped mountains and crystalline streams, bottled water labels promote the idea that the H2O inside is all-natural. Here are some facts about bottled water:

This clever marketing appears to work: surveys indicate that many consumers believe bottled water is safer and healthier than their water at home.

• The truth is bottled water is no cleaner or safer than the H2O from your faucet.
• The main difference:  the price. In many cases, bottled water is tap water.
• A study by the US-based non-profit organization Natural Resources Defense Council estimated that about one-quarter of the bottled water sold in the United States comes not from lakes or springs but from public reservoirs.
• Some bottlers put the water through additional processes to purify it, but your city or town does the same thing to the water that pours from the spigots in your kitchen and bathroom.
• Chemists have compared samples of bottled water and the variety that comes from a tap in blind tests and have been unable to tell one from the other.

Bottled water is unhealthy for your bank account and the environment.

• Gallon for gallon, bottled water can cost more than gasoline.
• If you care about the well-being of the planet, it's hard to justify buying water in bottles.
• According to the Earth Policy Institute, it takes about 1.5 million barrels of oil to produce the plastic used to make all of the bottles of water sold each year in the United States alone.

Keeping your whistle wet with water is smart, but don't bother counting cups; most people consume all the H2O they need.

• Doctors and dietitians alike once spouted this advice: drink eight glasses of water a day to avoid dehydration. Yet this dietary directive is all wet.
• First, the facts: water makes up one-half to two-thirds of your body weight. A 68 kilogram (150-pound) man has about 38 litres (10 gallons) of water in his body. Yet you lose water every day — up to several litres (or gallons) in urine and another 500 millilitres (one pint) or so through perspiration and your breath.
• Obviously, you must replace that water to keep your cells healthy. According to the Institute of Medicine, the average man needs about 3.7 litres (15 to 16 cups) of water daily, while a woman requires about 2.6 litres (11 cups).
• However, it's easy to obtain that much from a normal diet, since all beverages contain water. That includes coffee and other caffeinated drinks; although they are diuretics (meaning they increase the need to urinate), the diuretic effect is brief, so these beverages still battle dehydration.
• Even alcoholic beverages count. And don't forget, solid foods contain a great deal of water; some vegetables are up to 90 percent water.
• So where did the "eight glasses of water a day" rule come from? No one is sure, but it may be a misinterpretation of standard recommendations for the amount of water hospital patients require relative to their calorie intake.
• In fact, people who are ill may require extra water to stay hydrated. The same holds true for people who exercise vigorously, especially in hot climates. But a scientific review found no evidence to indicate that a healthy person with a typical activity level needs to drink eight glasses of water every day.
• How much water should you drink? Some authorities have suggested that pale urine is an indication that you're getting enough. However, some foods and vitamins turn the urine a light colour, and dark urine isn't necessarily a sign of dehydration.
• A better rule of thumb: drink enough fluids to ensure that you have a full bladder every four hours or so.

So there you have it -- tap water is just as healthy as bottled water, but much better for the environment and much cheaper. Keep this in mind throughout your daily life:  it's better to buy a solid water bottle and refill it from taps than to continuously buy plastic water bottles by the case.