What type of bottled water do I get?

[granola_mom]

We've been drinking our tap water since we moved in to our house. I don't mind the taste and I always heard bottled water is just tap water anyway. Not to mention, if you buy bottled water (even the bulk water) you are generating waste. But now I'm thinking that our water might be very bad- which is why I can't just go with a simple britta filter or something similar. There is fluoride in our water, and I just read in our newspaper that in our area children have toxic levels of lead in their blood from the water!! The cheap filters don't get these out. Eventually I want to get something like a big berky filter, that takes EVERYTHING out without having to get bottled water. But in the mean time I want to switch to the big bottles.

My question is- what kind of bottled water should I be looking for? Because they are all not created equal, right? Some of them are just tap water and still have chlorine, fluoride, etc. Which ones are safe?

[kiara7]

I'm in the same boat as you. I haven't been able to find a good source of "bulk" water and no way I'm drinking our tap. I've been buying SmartWater, it's vapor distilled, most of the crap including fluoride should be out with distillation. We also buy VitaminWater which is the same thing with "vitamins" and flavor.

I'd love to be able to just add some oranges, lemons to a pitcher and put it in the fridge, but sometimes you can smell our water from the tap :.

[NettleTea]

It's true that a lot of bottled water is just filtered water from the tap. Some of it is filtered by "reverse osmosis" which means there will not be fluoride or any other junk in it, at least. I believe that bottled spring water is safe enough. Bottles of spring water usually list which spring the water is from. You just have to read the labels. Make sure it is 'spring' water and not just 'drinking' water.

As far as water in bulk, I don't know what to say. The local co-op sells nice water for $.39 a gallon....I can't remember everything about it, but it goes through 4 stages of filtration, blah blah blah. We were buying 1 liter bottles of Mountain Valley Spring water, but it was generating way too much plastic in our house and was not really worth the expense when there are better options available. So now we just take our 1 gallon glass jug and fill it up for $.39 (+plus tax). Much cheaper and efficient. You might check around in your area and see if there is anything like that available.

[Kagrish]

Not to hijack, but why is / would tap water be bad? I haven't really researched it or anything, so just curious. I actually think bottled water tastes gross...

[NettleTea]

Originally Posted by Kagrish

Not to hijack, but why is / would tap water be bad? I haven't really researched it or anything, so just curious. I actually think bottled water tastes gross...

For starters, nearly all towns fluoridate their water supply. Then there is chlorine, pesticides, other chemicals, lead, rust, bacteria, and even pharmaceuticals! I'm sure there is more, but that is all I can remember off the top of my head.

Here are a bunch of articles regarding bottled water, tap water, etc, etc:

http://www.naturalnews.com/tap_water.html