After my article Old fashion Coca Cola was posted, I received many emails. As they said in Texas, thank ya'll for the nice feedback, and thanks to Lew for his willingness to post articles from a new writer, especially one having English as a second language.
Most readers agreed that HFCS is the culprit of the bad taste in soft drinks sold in the US. A few attributed the cause to the quality of American potable water.
Americans are concerned about quality of their drinking water. They showed it in the number of bottled water and water filters they bought. According to a 2001 survey by World Wildlife Fund, citizens of the U.S. alone consumed about 13 billions liters of bottled water a year. In 2004, sales of Brita, the world leader in household water filters were 220 plus million dollars.
When I was nine years old, living in a highland town in Central Vietnam, we had rainwater for drinking and river water for baths and other usage. We used water sparingly because it was difficult to get. Rainwater was caught on the roof, piped in a cistern and boiled before use. River water was carried by hand from a few kilometers away. Water was a precious commodity in the old country!
In the US, it is easy to turn on faucets and get as much water as a person wants. The cost of water is relatively cheap so Americans are wasteful when it comes to using water. Most people never think twice taking a shower at full blast for half an hour or watering lawn twice a day. But clean water is getting harder to provide for numerous areas in the US. Several states such as New York, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada had water conservation program to reduce water consumption and to lighten the load of their water and sewage departments.
Quality of our drinking water is also in question. There were reports of contaminants in our drinking water. E. Coli bacteria were found last year in drinking water from Hickley Minnesota, and from Ellington, Connecticut. According to the Environmental Working Group from Washington, DC, a main ingredient of rocket and missile fuel, Perchlorate was found in drinking water supplies, groundwater or soil in hundreds of locations in at least 43 states.
Besides buying bottled water and using filters, not much any of us can do. Be advised that bottled or filtered water may not be completely free of chemicals. Chlorine and Fluoride may still be present. Most filters can reduce or eliminate contaminates including Chlorine, but they could not filter out Fluoride.
There are debates about the adding of fluoride in drinking water. This is a very toxic chemical, byproduct of fertilizer production. Fluoride, in high dosage, could cause a myriad of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, thyroid, hormone or bone problem. European countries do not add fluoride in their drinking water. Even though EPA said fluoride dosage is safe at 4 mg/liter of drinking water for adult and 2mg/liter for children, how much is our actual intake of fluoride in a day? We were told to drink 8 glasses of water a day to stay healthy. We also ingested water in beverages, and used it in cooking.
Reverse Osmosis or Distillation Filtration can take fluoride out of water. These filtering systems are available on the market at premium prices.
Again, I trusted my taste buds. I hardly drank tap water in Houston, but I have been drinking a lot of water since moving to the island. The local potable water, very expensive compared to US price, is distilled from ocean water then filtered by reversed osmosis. It tastes very good. It is another reason I left the country!
Until next time.
July 11, 2005
