Bottled Water (Sigh)

Thanks Eric for posting an article from the July 27 Los Angeles Times under the Diet Drinks category, for lack of a better place to put it. I hope this posting fixes that problem. PepsiCo, it seems, will now label Aquafina bottled water with its origin–“public water source,” meaning tap water (Coke’s Dasani water, of course, also comes from public water supplies). Bottled water is so amazing to talk about that I devote an entire chapter of What to Eat to that topic. The L.A. Times piece covers the big issues: energy cost, corporate control of water, creation of massive amounts of plastic trash, and the one that I find most troubling–the undermining of confidence in public water supplies and public commitment to maintaining water supplies of high quality. The article quotes an investment analyst saying that Coke and Pepsi do not make a lot of profit on bottled water. I find that hard to believe. In any case, the message is clear. If you live in a place that still has a decent water supply, refill that bottle from the tap! If you want to weigh in on bottled water, do it here from now on.