So many of us have turned to drinking bottled water these days, it has an air of safety, and convenience, but the things you don’t know about bottled water might surprise you.

Is all bottled water created equal?

Just like Pepsi and Coke use different recipes for their brands of Cola, water distributors use different sources of water, as well as different purification techniques which differ the quality and content of the water you are drinking.

It has been left up to the consumer to educate themselves and ignore the misleading picture of a waterfall on the bottle and read the actual source and ingredients.

Is Source Important?

Finding real, naturally pure drinking water is hard these days. The U.S. and a few other countries have been lucky to not have had many water quality problems that much of the world faces from time to time. Unfortunately, this is quickly changing as the chemicals and pollutants we once thought harmless have increasingly contaminated our precious supplies of ground water. While city tap water goes through strict Environmental Protection Agency rules, bottled water is monitored by the Food and Drug Association, which while still better than no regulations at all, they do not force the same amount of stringent tests.

Unfortunately, unless you do research, you might just be paying for chemically treated ground water.

I Should Drink Water Though, Right?

Water is a great drink because of the absence of calories, artificial colors, and artificial flavors. Another reason is the benefits of water to your body such as it: quenches thirst, aids digestion, cools your body, flushes out wastes, carries nutrients to cells, reduces risk of kidney stones, lubricates joints, promotes good skin tone, relieves headaches, and helps in weight loss, just make sure you are drinking the type of water you want to be drinking, as you might just be drinking a bottled version of your local tap water, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to pay $2 a gallon for tap water.

*Note, this article is not to incite fear, but instead to inform drinkers of bottled water to be more vigilant in making sure they know what they are putting in their bodies.

Tags: bottled water, water source, consumer awareness