Bottled water has 'up to 100 times' more bits of plastic than previously feared

She was right, there is a big difference.

Try Evian versus the waters sold by Coca-Cola (that are tap-water equivalent) and you can really feel it.

I had a roommate like this. So I set up a blind taste test. I set up 10 tests with two glasses each, most of which had one of each type, but I think 3 had either both bottled or both tap. Regardless, it came out int he end, that he couldn't even tell them apart, let alone have a favorite. For some reason, even after the test, he continued to drink bottled water.

The marketing teams behind bottled water successfully brainwashed people. Most people don’t even realize it

Aren't Brita filters gonna have the same problem as the nanoplastics discussed in this article? The article specifically says that the plastic isn't from the bottles themselves.

Ironically a lot of bottled water is just tap. It's one of the biggest scams out there. You're also generally paying 1600x markup.

https://stonepierpress.org/goodfoodnews/bottled-water-or-tap....

There's an obvious taste difference between bottled water Vs straight tap water Vs filtered water, ime. That said, you will get used to the different taste after a couple of days and you won't even notice it, so that's not a good reason to buy bottled water.

I find that water flavour has a strong context-sensitive component. For example, I find water tastes really good when I'm really thirsty or after a workout. Any flavour differences between water sources are completely overpowered by this effect for me.

I’ve been in places with bad tasting tap water. Today I live in East Bay, CA and our tap water is amazing.

If I were faced with the sludge coming out of the pipe in some places, I’d stock up on Brita pitchers. Here, I never go out of my way to filter it.

I think there is a taste difference. Did you ask her to try a blind taste test?

There’s a huge difference

All that plastic must have some taste, right?

Difference from what? Even different municipalities have vastly different tastes from each other.

(That said, it's never bothered me to drink tap water wherever I go, and acclimate quickly. I think the bottled water trend is insane.)

> I knew a girl in college that would only drink bottled water. She had convinced herself there was a taste difference. She wouldn't even drink tap water filtered from a brita filter

There almost certainly is a taste difference. The mineral content is likely different, and the plastic from the bottle can have an influence, too.

I can definitely taste a difference between our (Pur-filtered) tap water and the cheap bottled water we get.

When I was a kid, I wouldn't drink Aquafina (or Dasani) because they tasted plasticky. I attributed it to them using the same plastic for Cola bottles, without the overpowering flavors to mask subtle tastes from the plastic. I'm not as picky now, but my taste buds have gotten less sensitive and it's also possible they fixed the issue.

As long as you can't definitively prove it's harmless, I'd rather avoid the stuff if at all possible.

For example there was a time when publicity recommending cigarettes to pregnant women was a thing.

The article has bad news for ya then...

> the most commonly detected plastic was polyamide, a material commonly used in water filtration systems and "the most popular membrane material used in reverse osmosis

Don't Aldi's water bottles have chlorine like city water does?

Look for a Chemex or a V60 (the non plstic one). But it will involve a bit of labor.

why use a drip coffee make when you could be making some good coffee for about the same price using something like Bialetti Moka Express Espresso Maker?

you can. i use a metal funnel and unbleached coffee filters

I haven’t been able to find a good distiller. Everything on Amazon looks to be rebrands of the same product which I tried.

It seems once the water is boiling inside it’s vigorous enough to kick particles out with the steam. (And it’s hard to refill without occasionally spilling on the cord which ultimately killed mine)

Cost

"metal" is too unspecific. You usually want stainless steel, preferrably CrNiMo steel (V4A, 1.4401 or similar).

Aluminium bottles are always coated with plastic in the factory, which flakes off and usually isn't really better than plastic-bottle-plastic, sometimes even worse (containing PTFE, BPA, ...). As soon as the coating is gone, aluminium will dissolve in the water, and aluminium salts are known to be "not good", in addition to the influence on taste. Same for copper, in addition to the hassle to keep copper clean. Steel bottles are better because proper kitchen-quality stainless steel (the one with Molybdenum in it, in addition to Chromium and Nickel) doesn't leech out into common drinks (including salty hot broth, which would stain CrNi steel) and doesn't need inner coating.

My little boy drinks bottled water.

First of all, at least where I live, tap water has chlorine. Which seems to carry some risks (see, e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12594192/).

Secondly, my building has copper and PVC pipes, which are also suspected of having some adverse health effects.

Thirdly, where I live, sometimes (about once per month) tap water comes out brown. Authorities typically say that it's fine to drink, and I suppose they analyze it and it conforms to some official standard, but I'm not going to drink or give anyone brown water. And that also makes me think that maybe the days it doesn't look brown to me, it might be also somewhat brown, just maybe not brown enough for me to notice.

Maybe I'm wrong and plastic from bottles is much worse than these things, but I don't think you should be so amazed that people can prefer bottled water. At the end of the day, it's a matter of picking your poison... with incomplete information.

Interested to see if the findings are applicable to bottled juices, bottled sodas, pex piping, etc. Also canned goods (beers, foods) where there's a plastic liner in the can.

If some of the contamination is "pre bottling" then the issue may be way more pervasive than just bottled water.

Are cans or canned food any better? It's all lined with plastic.

This is unfortunate news given that I have a plastic water filter on my house.

I think cans are coated with a chemical unfortunately

> Virtually all metal cans used for food and beverage products are lined on the inside with a coating that uses BPA as a starting material.

A lot of places are high levels of Chlorine that also have bad effects, for instance in Spain it's pretty high and linked to lung issues when showering.

Here still lead pipes are being discovered in old building, which has proven to lead to significant issues in Brain development of children.

Also often other residue is found of farming & medicine and other things seeping into the ground water.

So sadly finding clean & good water is not easy, bottled or tap.

This is a sentence you can say in places with nice water, but often the mineralization content is very different, the taste isn't really good, etc.