Comments on: Supermarket finds: Diet water http://valdodge.com/2008/10/21/supermarket-finds-diet-water/ Random Wanderings and Wonderings Mon, 21 May 2012 15:36:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Ed McC http://valdodge.com/2008/10/21/supermarket-finds-diet-water/#comment-106366 Ed McC Thu, 25 Nov 2010 08:50:29 +0000 http://valdodge.com/2008/10/21/supermarket-finds-diet-water/#comment-106366 Bump a 2 year old thread? Sure, why not. Of course you are correct that diet water is just pop. But I want to address the issue of people drinking bottled water. I live in a town of 16k people. The municipal water system here has 7 wells and 2 sodium hypochlorite feed systems, a setup that's common and perfectly legal. But sodium hypochlorite is the chemical name for ordinary everyday bleach. When you fill up the sink to wash the dishes, the smell of bleach wafts through the kitchen. Fill a pot to boil some pasta, you smell bleach. When you flush the toilet, you can smell bleach. Well, only if you haven't overcome it with some odors of your own, but you get the point. The water here is full of bleach and it tastes like shite. That's why whenever bottled water goes on sale here, you see people coming out of the store with cartloads of the stuff. The stores here sell huge quantities, truckloads. Toronto's water is treated with chloramine; it's a different process and you don't get the javex stink or taste. I can see no reason to drink bottled water in Toronto because the tap water is excellent, but where I live there is a valid reason for it. Luckily, I don't need to waste my money on bottled water, because unlike the unwashed masses who buy it at the Superstore, I know where there are two publically accessible springs nearby and I can easily bottle my own. It's too bad crappy municipal water forces people to buy bottles to get something that's drinkable, but in small towns bleach disinfection is pretty much standard because it's cheap, and that ain't going to change. http://www.findaspring.com Bump a 2 year old thread? Sure, why not. Of course you are correct that diet water is just pop. But I want to address the issue of people drinking bottled water.

I live in a town of 16k people. The municipal water system here has 7 wells and 2 sodium hypochlorite feed systems, a setup that’s common and perfectly legal. But sodium hypochlorite is the chemical name for ordinary everyday bleach.

When you fill up the sink to wash the dishes, the smell of bleach wafts through the kitchen. Fill a pot to boil some pasta, you smell bleach. When you flush the toilet, you can smell bleach. Well, only if you haven’t overcome it with some odors of your own, but you get the point. The water here is full of bleach and it tastes like shite.

That’s why whenever bottled water goes on sale here, you see people coming out of the store with cartloads of the stuff. The stores here sell huge quantities, truckloads.

Toronto’s water is treated with chloramine; it’s a different process and you don’t get the javex stink or taste. I can see no reason to drink bottled water in Toronto because the tap water is excellent, but where I live there is a valid reason for it.

Luckily, I don’t need to waste my money on bottled water, because unlike the unwashed masses who buy it at the Superstore, I know where there are two publically accessible springs nearby and I can easily bottle my own.

It’s too bad crappy municipal water forces people to buy bottles to get something that’s drinkable, but in small towns bleach disinfection is pretty much standard because it’s cheap, and that ain’t going to change.

http://www.findaspring.com

]]> By: Val Dodge http://valdodge.com/2008/10/21/supermarket-finds-diet-water/#comment-106365 Val Dodge Wed, 05 Nov 2008 03:25:38 +0000 http://valdodge.com/2008/10/21/supermarket-finds-diet-water/#comment-106365 I haven't read Pollan's books yet, but have absorbed enough of his wisdom through my wife to feel like I have. I've all but stopped eating entire classes of food over the last couple of years in large part because the choices have become so far removed from reality. It's fun for me to take shots at diet water and <a href="http://valdodge.com/2007/12/31/supermarket-finds-grapples/" rel="nofollow">Grapples</a>, but the sad thing is that a lot of people eat like that every day. I haven’t read Pollan’s books yet, but have absorbed enough of his wisdom through my wife to feel like I have. I’ve all but stopped eating entire classes of food over the last couple of years in large part because the choices have become so far removed from reality. It’s fun for me to take shots at diet water and Grapples, but the sad thing is that a lot of people eat like that every day.

]]> By: James Goneaux http://valdodge.com/2008/10/21/supermarket-finds-diet-water/#comment-106364 James Goneaux Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:45:42 +0000 http://valdodge.com/2008/10/21/supermarket-finds-diet-water/#comment-106364 Heh. Good find. Its amazing, but the old saying that what goes around, comes around. I know quite a few people who are drinking "old skool" water right out of the tap. What rebels. Heck, a Brita filter or some lemon and you practically have saved a few thousand dollars a year. A good read is "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan. He's the guy who says "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He points out that most of what you find in a supermarket these days isn't food. Its edible, but it isn't food. As he says, most of the food is around the outside of the store (think about it: veggies and fruit to the right, butcher in the back...yep, my store is like that). All the middle aisles are edible non-foods. As well, he says: "Don't eat anything your grandparents wouldn't recognize as food..." Heh. Good find. Its amazing, but the old saying that what goes around, comes around. I know quite a few people who are drinking “old skool” water right out of the tap. What rebels. Heck, a Brita filter or some lemon and you practically have saved a few thousand dollars a year.

A good read is “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan. He’s the guy who says “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

He points out that most of what you find in a supermarket these days isn’t food. Its edible, but it isn’t food. As he says, most of the food is around the outside of the store (think about it: veggies and fruit to the right, butcher in the back…yep, my store is like that). All the middle aisles are edible non-foods.

As well, he says: “Don’t eat anything your grandparents wouldn’t recognize as food…”

]]>