BEST BOTTLED WATER

There are lots of categories by which people judge the quality of water.  One is taste.  But taste has two components--the upfront taste and aftertaste.  Another category is the effect of the water.  Does it energize you or make you feel weak? A third category is hydration.  Does the water hydrate you enough? Does it quench your thirst?  

Spending a lot of time in and around Denver, I found myself constantly dehydrated. I found a great wine store in Denver, Total Beverage, that had different bottled waters.  One brand that I tried was El Dorado.  On taste it was pretty good.  Taste was refreshing.  And little to no metallic after taste.

One popular brand of bottled water is Aquafina, owned by PepsiCo, Inc., which alone should alarm any food or beverage consumer.  Every time that I have tried Aquafina I have found a metallic aftertaste that gives me worrisome images.  Aquafina's claim to fame is their HydRO-7 purification system that involves seven distinct steps to remove "impurities."  

Here are the 7 steps of their purification system: 

1  1.    Pre-filtration process.  But they don’t explain what is involved in that process.

    2.    Polishing filters.  They do not explain what chemicals are used on or in the filters to polish the water.

    3.    High intensity UV light to eliminate organic matter.

    4.    Reverse osmosis using pressure and hyperfilters to remove 98% of dissolved solids or TDS.

    5.    Charcoal filtration is used to remove trace elements that affect taste and smell.

    6.    Polishing filters to give the water a crystal clear appearance.

    7.    Ozonation.  Water is exposed to oxygen-rich air via a generating cell.

Another brand is Dasani.  It sounds Persian.  The company boasts that 30% of the materials used to manufacture the bottle are from plants.  But from what plants?  It doesn't say.  Dasani is owned by CocaCola, another company that any consumer of food or beverage should be concerned about.  Calgary, Alberta Canada is the source of Dasani's water.   

"The first source of Dasani water in Canada was Calgary, Alberta.^[3] A second bottling plant was later opened in Brampton, Ontario. The Calgary and Brampton plants produce Coca-Cola's plain-water (Dasani) and sugar-water (soft drinks) products. The company's administrative and marketing activities continue to be based in Atlanta, Georgia."

Here are the ingredients it uses to clean its water:

"Coca-Cola uses tap water from local municipal water supplies,^[13] filters it using the process of reverse osmosis,^[13] and adds trace amounts of minerals, including magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt), potassium chloride and table salt (sodium chloride)."

I have in the past drank Arrowhead bottled water, whose water comes from the springs in the San Bernardino mountains north of Palm Springs, CA.  Here is a little history on the springs and on the company.  The Arrowhead water I usually drink is Arrowhead's distilled water. 

I like the taste and purity of the water has been reliable, but I do not always like drinking water out of plastic bottles that sit in freight trucks for days or hours in the hot sun where the heat softens the plastic and the chemicals in the bottle's structure leech into the water. And while on the road, I generally drink Arrowhead's Spring Water.  

I have recently enjoyed the Mountain Valley Spring Water from the springs of Arkansas.  They have distribution centers in Downey,CA.  Their spring water tastes clean and their mineral water is the best on the market in my opinion.  And their water comes in glass bottles, which is a wonderful alternative to all the plastic that we consume.  Also, at least according to this list, it contains no fluoride.  That to me is unheard of.

But in Denver I began drinking Fiji bottled water.  Its claim is that it is a Natural Artesian Water.  What is that and what does that mean in terms of purity and taste?  Wikipedia says that "According to marketing materials, the water comes from an artesian aquifer in Viti Levu."  

The other question is where is Fiji?  And if the wisdom of local is better, what then does this say about the quality of Fiji Water?  It seems to me that the water is ladened with a successful marketing campaign, one that is felt when you pay $3 for a 12 or 16oz bottle of Fiji Water.  I am not saying that the water isn't any good.  I like the taste.  But I have felt a mild pain in my kidneys following a drink of the water.  Is that me passing a kidney stone?  No.  Clearly the water is bottled in Fiji, which means that the plastic bottles sit on a freight tanker for as long as it takes for the tanker to reach Long Beach.  From there how long does it sit in harbor or how long does it take to be loaded onto trucks and then delivered to retail outlets?  Or does the water sit for an extra two or three days or longer in the trucks prior to being loaded on the shelves in stores?

One does wonder what standards and regulations of water from a New Zealand neighborhood can do for thirsty drinkers here in the US.  Does the US not have Artesian wells?

ALKALINITY OF WATER
 
MY RANKING OF THE BOTTLED WATERS REVIEWED ABOVE
If I were to rank the waters, it would look like this:
1.  Mountain Valley Spring Water.
2.  Arrowhead Distilled Water.
3.  Arrowhead Spring Water.
4.  Fiji water.
5.  El Dorado.
6.  Dasani.
7.  Aquafina. 
8.  Kirkland, a CostCo product.