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We have only ever bought 4 (or so) bottles of water - I know this because we keep the bottles and re-fill them over and over again - the fancy push top straw bits are quite handy for drinking out of one handed, while pushing a buggy. Almost worth the investment... which makes me dispair of all the ones that go to landfill. We have only bought them when tap water was unavailable (which is very rare)

Bottled water really doesnt taste nice to me... I have to flavour it, or eat something to take the flavour away, yeuch!

But I drink tap water all the time, and prefer it to soft drinks. I have managed to train E the same way - she will only drink water, lots of it, beats squash anyday.

Now this is interesting - I was reading an article in a magazine in the physio's waiting room yesterday entitled "Should we drink tap water?". Granted it was dated 2003.

Brittany is one of the most polluted regions of France (along with two others that I can't remember) for groundwater and is the highest in nitrate pollution of all of France. It said it is recommended NOT to drink the tap water in Brittany (and the two other places), and that pregnant women and babies are forbidden to drink it.

It said that water filters such as Brita DO NOT REMOVE nitrates or bacteria.

Now when did I make my last posting. Guess what, my bowels are returning to normal!

So in my case it is the polluted tapwater causing my problem, whereas for my husband it is a heart related problem and as soft water (in some areas) has been proven to cause higher rates of heart related problems, it is most probably the soft water that is the problem for him. His bowels are the complete opposite of mine ( ) and he's constipated no matter what kind of water he drinks!

I think what you have said confirms that it is not soft water that is the problem, but the pollutants in your particular supply. Bottled water is not usually hard water.

possum wrote:I think what you have said confirms that it is not soft water that is the problem, but the pollutants in your particular supply. Bottled water is not usually hard water.

I'm not sure I would entirely agree with the statement that bottled water is not usually hard - many contain high levels of minerals, both bicarbonates (temporary hardness) and sulphates (permanent hardness). The Vichy water I have on the table at mealtimes (which has, thanks to this newspaper article, been redefined as a luxury item) has a dry residue, so it says, of 4774mg/l. Doesn't get much harder than that.

But the quality of tap water in some localities is just awful. And nitrates are notoriously difficult to remove once they are in there. Ours is OK: we get a report every six months from the mayor's office with the test results of the village supply. But with children in the house and with considerable uncertainty as to the potential risks from high levels of nitrate ingestion I would have no compuntion at all in switching to a bottled supply if the concentration rose.

Millymollymandy wrote:Brittany is one of the most polluted regions of France (along with two others that I can't remember) for groundwater and is the highest in nitrate pollution of all of France. It said it is recommended NOT to drink the tap water in Brittany (and the two other places), and that pregnant women and babies are forbidden to drink it.

thats a real shame - are they working to make improvements? I hope so. Sounds like its the pollution that is causing your problems.. and in your shoes.. I would avoid that too!
I assume the high nitrates are due to agriculture? same problem in East Anglia. - although nitrates can be filtered out (we knew someone who had a borehole, and a filter thingy the size of a boiler installed to remove the nitrates)

there are two issues going on here... one is drinking bottled water out of necessity, because your water supply is full of nasties or tastes grot.. and the other is drinking imported water cos its trendy.

Unfortunately the blurb we get from the water co tells us that our water is safe to drink and gives all the nitrite and nitrate etc levels and that they are (so they say) within the safe norms.

I don't think I still have any of their leaflets around (or don't know where they are). Obviously it isn't going to affect everyone because I've always had a gut that was quite sensitive to a change in the water, but when I moved here I thought it would settle down after a few months.

The bottled water that we buy certainly isn't trendy (and I made a mistake earlier in the thread saying it cost 3c a litre - wrong, it is about 9c a litre). It's the cheapest we can find in the supermarket and most definitely not what you would want to put on your dinner table when entertaining, unless decanted into a pretty jug!

When I worked in France, we always had to make our tea with bottled water on Sundays. Why? The water company didn't work on Sunday, so they just put twice the amount of chlorine in on Saturday.

Ah well, there was no weather forecast (the agricultural one on the phone) on holidays, either.

red wrote: I assume the high nitrates are due to agriculture? same problem in East Anglia. - although nitrates can be filtered out (we knew someone who had a borehole, and a filter thingy the size of a boiler installed to remove the nitrates)

It's certainly the source around here, and forecast to rise since virtually all the cereal farmers are taking their 10% out of set aside this year in attempt to meet rising grain demand. More cultivation = more fertilisers = more runoff = higher nitrate levels in water.

Nitrates can be removed, but the technology isn't cheap (ion exchange, which generates brine as a waste stream or UV technology that is expensive to install and potentially uses a lot of power). Far better to keep them out in the first place.

ina wrote:When I worked in France, we always had to make our tea with bottled water on Sundays. Why? The water company didn't work on Sunday, so they just put twice the amount of chlorine in on Saturday.

Ah well, there was no weather forecast (the agricultural one on the phone) on holidays, either.

ah - ferme pour la vacances...

yup when we were on holiday in France when my son was little he was totally amazed that the supermarket shut at lunchtime. the car park would be full of all other nationalities.. rashly imagining they would buy something for lunch..

red wrote: the car park would be full of all other nationalities.. rashly imagining they would buy something for lunch..

That's the best thing when I go back to Germany - no shops open on Sunday!

And when I'm in England I still keep being amazed that shops are open at lunchtime, Sundays and public holidays!

One of the (few) things I like about where I live is that most of the shops (particularly the small ones) in the town centre are closed on Sunday. All the out of town places and the shops in nearby towns are, but we seem to have escaped.

The funny thing is, in Germany they argue - we CAN'T have the shops open on Sunday because then the poor workers (i.e. retail workers) would have to work 7 days a week, and don't get a family life - and in Britain the argument goes, we MUST have the shops open on Sunday because otherwise the poor workers (i.e. everybody else but retail) can't do what families should do at the weekend and go shopping together!

I collect (other peoples) used water bottles, cut them in half and use them as cloches to grow my veggies.

It's sort of recycling, isn't it?

hamster wrote:One of the (few) things I like about where I live is that most of the shops (particularly the small ones) in the town centre are closed on Sunday. All the out of town places and the shops in nearby towns are, but we seem to have escaped.

yeh it comes to a standstill here, and we have a half day closing midweek too... which always throws me. but the co-op is open... very handy.. have to admit... or would be.. but its the only open shop in the area.. so there is never any bread or milk left.. so perhaps not so handy after all.