It was mostly just a shower thought I had. It’s just every time I watch american youtubers there is always this Tap vs Bottled water battle.
As a dane I dont understand it as I have know problem drinking tapwater because we do much to protect it.
So I wanted to ask why the battle is there, is there actually like bad stuff in the tap. Or is it just a superstition/ habit that makes people like bottled water more.
36 comments
Most US cities tap water is perfectly fine (except for Flint, MI and a few well documented areas.) Bottled water is not necessary, it’s just a marketing thing.
Tap water can be completely safe to drink while also having a weird taste/smell.
And bottled water is much more convenient. I don’t know a single person in real life who puts any amount of thought into it.
Taste is a factor. The tap water tastes good where I live, but some other parts of the country have a weird taste to it, even though it’s still perfectly safe to drink.
Some places it doesn’t taste great but it actually being in any way unsafe to drink is EXTREMELY rare, hence something like Flint’s ongoing problems or temporary interruption to clean water from flood damage to a water system being newsworthy. The filter pitchers, bottled water, etc…. mostly boil down to convenience or taste preference rather than any significant concern.
There are assorted things in it depending on where it’s from and how it’s treated, but that’s hardly unique to America. There will be variances in taste and contents over any large geographical area and/or number of treatment authorities.
It has a bad reputation but for the most part tap water in the US is perfectly safe to drink. I certainly drink it all the time, we only have bottled water on hand for emergencies or for guests.
Tap at my house or a hotel, bottled water when I’m out and about – either in a water bottle I bring and fill up, or purchasing.
Cause when walking around I don’t necessarily have access to water fountains if they’re not in the area.
Usually we’re seen as the weirdos for drinking tap even at restaurants.
Many local water utilities add some type of chemicals to clean up the source or to make it taste better. Much of Indiana’s tap water in the central and southern part of the state can taste quite hard due to the limestone
Generally speaking, all tap water in the US is safe to drink but not all tap water in the US is the same.
The city I’m originally from is infamous for having hard water. The city (county) I live in now is famous for having really good quality of water.
Companies that sell bottled water have done very effective marketing. There are some areas of the country that have issues with water taste, but for the vast majority of us, our water is perfectly drinkable and safe.
My house has well water, and my office has municipal treated water. The municipal treated water has residual chlorine in it, and tastes like how my well water tastes for a few days after I chlorine shock my well. Other municipalities may have better tasting water than mine, but bottled water tastes much better.
Most don’t mind tap at all, some tap water can have a taste due to minerals contained within that some people don’t like.
There’s no battle, most people don’t care or notice, YouTube is not real life.
> It’s just every time I watch american youtubers there is always this Tap vs Bottled water battle.
Every time huh?
Funny, as in my 38 years on Earth with real-world interactions, the internet, YouTube, etc… I can’t think of *a single* instance where someone was like “Oooh no, I can’t be drinking [ordinary] tap water – bottled only!!”
Footnote for [ordinary] being an extreme case like in Flint, Michigan where they’ve had water supply issues. But for everyday Americans? This isn’t a topic.
Bit of residual chlorine, bit of fluoride, some cities have more of a taste, but its all safe.
Nah, tap water here is more than fine. A lot of blind taste tests have been done & show no difference; the price of bottled water it is its own advertisement
“I’m tired of them putting chemicals in the water that turn the freakin’ frogs gay!”
In all seriousness, American drinking water is fine. Not crystal clear amazing but it’s not gonna hurt you in any measurable way either.
The hesitancy to drink tap water has been around since fluoride was added to water in the 1940’s and there’s always been that small section of weirdos who swear there’s some sinister purpose behind additives in our drinking water. From Dr. Strangelove poking fun at these people to whatever Alex Jones is peddling in his shows, the debate has been around for going on 80 years.
Though come to think of it, there’s probably some effective marketing campaigns made by bottled water companies like Nestle or Evian to blame as they try to convince consumers to buy their water by pitching theirs as somehow safer and it’s stuck.
We’re a huge country. The USA is as big as the entire EU.
We have [148,000 separate water utilities in the US](https://www.epa.gov/dwreginfo/information-about-public-water-systems).
Some areas have wonderful, safe water supplies. Some areas have protected underground springs. Some areas depend on surface waterways like rivers, lakes or reservoirs.
Some areas have individual wells each supplying a single home.
In areas where rivers are the source, they’re going to need more filtration and filtering – especially during summers when it is dry and the water will be more concentrated with any sediments or pollutants. That’s also when people hundreds of miles upstream might be using the river for commerce or recreation.
We have decent systems to manage the supply, filter out pollutants and treat the water. Even then, there are a lot of old systems to carry the water. Many of our larger and older cities – Newark NJ, Detroit, MI and others had lead pipes in service since the 1800s.
In Flint MI, changing the water supply to a more acidic source resulted in more lead leeching into the tap at the point of consumption. Every home had a lead main that tied into the city supply. That caused other towns (Like Newark NJ) to spend the money to replace every home’s main.
There are areas where fluoride is naturally in the water. Some of that is more than what would be recommended. People with well water may need to remove some from their water or they’ll get white spots on their teeth.
Some areas have sulfur compounds in the water. Municipal supplies do some filtration, but only for safety and not necessarily for flavor or smell. People may not “like” their water, even if it is safe.
And yes – with that many different sources, sometimes there are unsafe systems. It is usually temporary.
Flint MI is pretty famous. Large parts of West Virginia have been affected by oil & gas fracking operations. They inject high pressure water & detergents into rock with the goal of freeing oil & gas for collection. Well, one operation hit a huge underground aquifer that supplied individual wells and several cities around Morgantown – a major WV city.
Bottled water is convenient and is “tuned” with minerals for clarity and taste. It’s a consumer product. Lots of folks like it.
My wife is a big bottled water fan so we get some 5 gallon bottles delivered every other week. I try to make sure we have 4-5 bottles more than we need on hand in the event that there is an emergency.
Our tap water is perfectly fine. I don’t think it tastes much different than the stuff in bottles. The one thing that I always use the bottled water for is in my Keurig coffee machine and that’s due to having “hard” tap water that causes mineral buildup that requires more frequent cleaning of the machine to keep it operating.
Of course tap water is safe, there is nothing in it. Half of bottled water is just tap water anyway.
It’s just convenient for some. Fun fact, America has the lowest rate of drinking water deaths in the world.
[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/22/infographic-which-countries-have-the-safest-drinking-water-interactive](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/22/infographic-which-countries-have-the-safest-drinking-water-interactive)
I am perfectly willing to drink a cup of my tap water if that’s what your wondering. It’s superstition because it attracts views like yours.
I live in an area with some of the cleanest water in the world. I have only drank tap.
We are not connected to any city water grid and have a well. Our water is safe. We cook with it, shower in it, wash our clothing in it, etc… but it has a mineral taste that I don’t care for. We own 5 gallon jugs that we get refilled and use that for drinking water. I carry a reusable water bottle with me when I go out.
Can we get a sidebar/Automod rule that automatically explains that YouTube is a terrible representation of this country and nobody is going to watch videos about average life?
Tap water is fine to drink, but depending on where you are it is going to taste different. This is mostly just geography and not much can be done about it. In some places water just needs to be treated more or differently and this can cause a kinda chlorine flavor. This can be mostly fixed with filtering, it just doesn’t make sense to do this at the municipal level since most tap water is not used for drinking. No sense in filtering for taste when someone is going to shower with it or fill up their pool. In other places the water tastes really good right out of the tap. The only people I have known who actually needed to buy water are people in rural areas with a bad well who need to get a new one dug or if their well goes dry due to using too much water in a short amount of time or being in a drought.
These questions always seem odd to me. The bottled water market in the EU is about a billion USD a year. It’s not like you all aren’t drinking bottled water too…
Municipal tap water is almost always perfectly safe.
A lot of us have wells, though. My well always tests safe, but the Department of Health says I should have it tested once a year. That tells me that it’s possible for something unsafe to creep into the water in between tests, and I won’t know it until the next test. Hence, I don’t drink the water.
There’s twice as much hydrogen as there is oxygen in my local water supply.
I noticed a lot of people in the area I live in don’t drunk tap water and usually prefer bottled. Tbh I don’t think Philly tap water tastes that great. It might be due to old pipes, but it is safe to drink.
If you have well water the taste and quality of the water will vary quite a bit. When I was visiting some people in MI, I recall one camp I stayed at had sulfur in the water. Not something I’d want to drink regardless if it was safe (I’m sure it was because home owners do get it tested.) But where I grew up our well water was fantastic.
Lots of variables. Like in Florida if you are on a well the water would have a sulfur smell and taste.
It’s safe. Just a taste and convenience preference
I’m curious what kind of youtube stuff you watch, because I’ve never seen anything like that.
Granted the youtube videos I watch tend to involve nerds getting way too nerdy about swords, or people shooting watermelons, or old real time strategy games. Can’t say I’ve ever watched a video about bottled water unless some guy was about to chop the bottle with a sword.
Anyway, tap water is available and very safe almost everywhere. As others mentioned, some places (especially Florida in my experience) have unpleasantly strong mineral flavors in their water, but it’s not unsafe.
Tap water is safe in most of the country. The only reason I get bottled water is that I forgot my refillable one and need a convenient container to carry water in, that happens to come prefilled.
We have both well water and municipal water at our farm. The well water is safe but it is a bit “chewy”. Lots of minerals in that water.
I have literally never seen a video like that. Our water is safe and everywhere I have lived has great tap water. Some people might not like the taste of tap water in areas with hard water, since minerals can alter taste, but I’ve never had that issue.
Tap water tastes different depending on where you are in the country, depending on where the water is sourced from and thus how it is treated.
It may have higher or lower mineral content. The mineral composition may be different. It may have more or less of a chlorine taste. Some people don’t like the taste in their part of the country.
Where I come from in Missouri, our water is sourced from aquifers and the taste is known for being especially good. Everyone likes the taste of the water and drinks from the tap.
Here in California, the water comes from the mountains and tastes very good.
When I traveled to Louisiana, I found their tap water taste disgusting. Their water source is the Mississippi River (already known as The Muddy Mississippi) and they live at the end of the river’s course, right before it empties into the ocean. So, the River has run through the entire country for 3500km by the time it gets to them, collecting pollutants the entire way, and then they have to do more intense water treatment as a result. I took a drink from my hotel sink and immediately spat it out.
Funny, at least in the rest of Scandinavia I’d have to assume they absorb water from the air because I saw exactly zero water fountains. Either everyone is buying bottled water, or angling their heads under bathroom water faucets like dogs. I carried around an empty water bottle to fill in bathrooms, and not all faucets gave you enough space to do that effectively.
I actually prefer tap water to bottle water. Also these people saying “drink distilled water” are STUPID! Distilled water lacks minerals like iron that our body needs to function and if you go without them you will suffer bad health effects