Why is Bottled Water Less Regulated Than Tap …
and Why are Americans Still Paying Extra for It?
by www.SixWise.com
When you reach for a sip of water, do you reach for bottled or tap? It’s a choice you likely make numerous times a day, but it may be one worth looking into … especially if you typically choose bottled over tap.
While tap water is regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), bottled water, which is considered a food, is regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). However, two new reports, one from the Government Accountability Office and the other from the Environmental Working Group (EWG), have shown just how little is actually known about what’s in bottled water.
According to GAO, FDA safety and consumer protections for bottled water are often less stringent than those used by the EPA for tap water. For example, if you want to know what’s coming out of your tap, contact your local water utility. By law they’re required to let you know the source of the water along with any chemical pollutants it may contain.
This is not to say that tap water is always pure. On the contrary, tap water often contains toxins ranging from pharmaceuticals to cancer-causing radon. But if you want to find out for sure, the point is it’s easy to get a breakdown of what’s in your local water supply.
If, on the other hand, you pick up a bottle of water from your grocery store, you probably will have a slim chance of knowing what’s actually in that bottle.
In fact, after an 18-month investigation of nearly 200 bottled water labels, EWG found that:
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Only 2 revealed water sources and treatment methods on their labels and offer a recent water quality test report on their Web sites
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Only 18 percent of bottled waters reveal quality reports with contaminant testing results
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None of the top 10 U.S. domestic bottled water brands label water sources and treatment methods for all their products
What this means is you can often get more information about the water coming out of your tap than you can for the water you purchase in a bottle -- and sometimes pay up to 1,900 times more for!
“Neither the public nor federal regulators know nearly enough about where bottled water comes from and what safeguards are in place to ensure its safety,” Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the oversight committee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement reported by The New York Times. “The majority of consumers purchase bottled water because of perceived health and safety benefits, but they actually know very little about the quality of the water they are buying.”
Is Bottled Water Even Safe?
If you’re paying a premium price for your water (as is always the case when you go bottled), you’d expect it to be the best, most pure water around. However, you may be surprised to learn that bottled water is often no better, and perhaps even worse, than tap water.
For instance, FDA rules exempt waters that are packaged and sold within a single state -- which describes between 60 percent and 70 percent of all U.S. bottled water. About one out of five states don't regulate these waters, either, and carbonated water and seltzer are also exempt.
Even bottled water that is regulated may still be contaminated. A two-year study by EWG analyzed 10 popular brands of water. They found 38 chemical pollutants, with an average of eight contaminants in each brand. Further, more than one-third of the chemicals found are not regulated in bottled water. What types of pollutants did they find?
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Purify Your Water Without Breaking the Bank …
The Ultimate Kitchen Filtration and Enhancement System
The Wellness Kitchen combines the best filtration and enhancement technologies to deliver the purest and most natural tasting water available. It effectively reduces harmful contaminants, while at the same time enhancing the water with delicate ions and minerals.
Find out for yourself why hundreds of thousands of users including physicians, athletes and health-conscious individuals make the Wellness Water Filtration and Enhancement Systems their choice for a lifetime.
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A broad range of other, tentatively identified industrial chemicals used as solvents, plasticizers, viscosity decreasing agents, and propellants
Further, bisphenol-A (BPA), a chemical widely used to manufacture plastic water bottles, is capable of leaching from the plastic into the water you drink -- and has been strongly linked to diseases such as breast cancer, prostate cancer, and diabetes, and to reproductive and neurological development damage.
Is There a Way to Get Truly Pure, and Inexpensive, Water?
What is the best way to get pure, inexpensive water for you and your family? The Environmental Working Group recommends that people drink tap water filtered with a carbon filter instead of bottled water.
Filtering your own tap water costs about 31 cents a gallon (12 times lower than the typical cost of bottled water, EWG reports), and will remove any contaminants found in your tap water.
You can actually take things one step further and choose the Wellness H2.0, a personal, reusable water bottle that features a carbon filter and more. The Wellness H2.0 is BPA-free and uses advanced enhancement media and microfiltration that not only purifies ordinary tap water, but also enhances the water for better absorption and hydration.
This is the only bottle on the market to produce nourishing, better-than-bottled-quality, "enhanced" water without the cost or waste associated with bottled water -- yet with the convenience of bottled water that so many love. With the Wellness H2.0, you can have superior quality water no matter where you are, just fill up and go!
There's no need to order expensive bottled water for your home use either. The Wellness Kitchen Water Filter reduces chlorine, chloramines, cysts, VOCs, pesticides, and herbicides -- including DEET -- below detectable levels for the life of the filter. It even has a digital LED display that tells you when it needs to be changed (to assure it is working and effective).
The Wellness Kitchen combines the best filtration and enhancement technologies to deliver the purest and most natural tasting water available. It effectively reduces harmful contaminants, while at the same time enhancing the water with adding important yet delicate wellness "ions and minerals" that your body needs.
So instead of buying bottled water, you can get superior water in your own kitchen. And when you're on the go, the Wellness H2.O ensures that you'll have clean, healthy and inexpensive water no matter where you are.
An ADDITIONAL Major Health Concern Lurking in Your Shower
In last week’s SixWise Newsletter there were important facts in article titled: “What Dr. Oz Didn't Tell You on Oprah … But You Need to Know”
This article uncovered important facts that Dr. Oz had left out of his Oprah show with regard to serious shower water “health concerns” in addition to beauty tips.
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Just Wait Till You Find Out What's Lurking Behind Your Shower Curtain!
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The Danger Is Not Just Behind Your Shower Curtain -- It's “Pouring” On You Every Day
When the movie Psycho was released in 1960, many people had a real phobia about taking a shower. We all remember the famous shower scene and blood-curdling scream is for most people to this day the most famous moment in all of motion picture history. As many people step into the shower that horrific scene continues to haunt people to this day.
However, scientists have uncovered a true reason for us all to be afraid of taking a shower.
If you’re interested in securing pure water for your family, you should know that when chlorine comes into contact with other naturally occurring elements in water, it forms dangerous byproducts such as trihalomethanes (THMs) and chloroform. Studies have linked these chlorine byproducts to many serious health risks such as:
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Bladder cancer
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Heart disease
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Asthma
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Eczema
Chlorinated water itself has also been linked to increased risks of cancer, birth defects, stillbirth, and miscarriages.
Now, you may already know that chlorine is not a healthy chemical to drink, but here’s something you may not know: The danger comes not only from drinking chlorinated water, but also, and even more so, from showering or bathing in the water.
THMs can be absorbed by your skin, and when you shower or take a bath, the warm water opens up your skin's pores, making it like a sponge for chlorine. Meanwhile, the steam in your shower, which you readily inhale, is full of chlorine and its byproducts as well. Since your skin is the largest organ of your body, some estimates say that steam can transport into your body up to 100 times the toxic chemicals as you would get from drinking tap water.
As Dr. Oz recently pointed out on Oprah, the best thing you can do for you hair is to filter the water in your shower.
“Get a charcoal filter and put it in your showerhead," he says.
We’d take that one step further and suggest you settle not just for filtered water … but enhanced water using the Wellness Filter.
The Wellness Filter concept was developed in the 1980s by Harusuke Naito, a renowned Japanese sports physiologist and Olympic swimming coach who wanted to produce "perfect water" for his professional athletic clients.
Haru believed that even subtle differences in water purity, surface tension and mineral content could affect body hydration, cellular function, and athletic performance. After extensive field research and study he began experimenting with various natural filtering media in an effort to produce the world's best water.
At Wellness, they believe not only in filtering water, but enhancing it to increase its performance on or in your body.
So, next time you plan to take an innocent relaxing long shower -- believing you are “just” washing away germs – know that toxic chemicals are being absorbed by the largest organ of your Body… your Skin!
COMPARE and BEWARE
Click above to see a comparison chart of various water filters that Dr. Oz didn’t explain on the Oprah show.
If you have ever had an interest in buying what we have found to be the #1 Top Shower Filter to Remove Chlorine -- please click here to see how the Wellness Filter compares to other shower filters -- now is the time!
Recommended Reading
Bottled Water: Which City's Tap Water System is Making a Flood of Cash off of You?
Is it Time to Give Up Bottled Water? The Facts, Marketed Illusions, and Health Risks You May Not Know About
Sources
GAO Report on Bottled Water June 2009
Environmental Working Group: Is Your Bottled Water Worth It?
CNN.com July 13, 2009
NYTimes.com July 8, 2009
Environmental Working Group October 2008