Which is the best bottled water

Looking for the best bottled water?

If you consider the many claims by different water bottlers, you may end up more confused. Some define the best bottled water according to brands. And names like Evian or Volvic, or carbonated waters like Perrier or Pellegrino, are often mentioned.

These are the well-established brands that have been marketed long before other companies realised how profitable it can be to sell bottle water. But are they the best?

Yet others will claim that the best bottled water is distilled water, or RO (reverse osmosis water), or alkaline bottled water, etc. There are lots of conflicting claims.

Among the "brand names", Volvic is particularly reputed to be one of the best-tasting bottled waters and I once read even an article that talked about scientists trying to analyse the reason for this and the conclusion was that it bears the highest resemblance to human saliva!

(If I remember correctly, this was an essay in the book, The Man who Ate Everything by former Vogue magazine food critic Jeffrey Steingarten.)

In more recent years, Fiji water has staked its claim as being "the best bottled water" and it certainly has its share of fans and rave reviewers.

Personally, I am no water connoisseur and I don't drink enough bottled water (because I find them too costly) - and don't analyse them enough - to be able to say which is better. But I have tried both Volvic and Fiji water and must agree that they taste good.

Types of bottled water

Rather than recommend brands as being the best bottled water, I feel it is more useful to look at the different types of bottled water, the qualities to look for and then decide which is the best bottled water for your needs.

In the past, bottled water mostly meant spring water or mineral water. Today, there are lots more different types, some of which are merely filtered or purified tap water. Some are even recycled sewage water, like Singapore's NEWater. Sure, it has been purified. But I still would not drink it.

Also, in the past, bottled water meant water that is clean and pure but today, some are highly questionable. Years ago, I read a report by the Consumers' Association of Penang (in Malaysia), which revealed that many brands of bottled waters came from wells dug in oil palm plantations and industrial estates, where the soil is likely to be contaminated with chemical pollutants.

More than ever, we need to be extra careful, whether or not we are looking for the best bottled water. Here are some of the more common descriptions that you will find on bottled water, plus what the descriptions really mean:

• Drinking / Purified water: Most likely tap water that has gone through some purification process to remove bacteria and dissolved impurities.
  
• Reverse osmosis (RO) water: Water that has undergone a purification process called reverse osmosis, in which the water passes through an extremely fine membrane that allows practically only one molecule to pass through at a time. Most RO water is produced from tap water. However, the process produces very clean water and can even be used to make sewage water "drinkable". But this water, like distilled water, is devoid of any minerals.
  
  
• Distilled water: Water that has been boiled and then collected from the condensed steam. Like RO water, this is very pure and some heatlh "experts" say this is the best bottled water. I strongly disagree. Read here about why distilled water if far from being the best bottled water.
  
  
• Bottled alkaline water: This is not naturally alkaline water, but water that has been artificially made alkaline through an electrical process called electrolysis. Read here about why the health benefits of alkaline water are probably over-stated.
  
  
• Spring water: This bottled water must rightly have been derived from underground water that flows naturally to the surface as a spring. To be called "spring water", it must be collected only at the spring or through a borehole that taps the underground water feeding the spring. Generally, spring water does not contain as much minerals as mineral water.
  
  
• Mineral water: Mineral water has to meet even more stringent requirements than spring water. By law, it must contains not less than 250 parts per million total dissolved solids - that is, dissolved minerals and trace elements. The amount of minerals, as well as the relative proportions of different minerals, must be constant and same as the point where the water emerges. No minerals may be added to the water.
  
  
• Mineralized water: Water, possibly spring water or even tap water, with minerals added.
  
  
• Sparkling water: Some spring and mineral waters are naturally sparkling, or carbonated. But it gets complicated as well. Perrier, for instance, is naturally carbonated but the water and gas are collected separtely and then re-mixed. Pellegrino has both natural and added gas,

So you see, the wordings that described bottled water can be both confusing and misleading. It may not be easy to decide which is the best bottled water, especially if you have a budget to watch and cannot afford to drink Volvic or Fiji water all the time.

Generally, spring and mineral water are recommended. The rest may not be much difrerent from filtered or purified tap water. As mentioned, some, like distilled water, are possibly harmful to drink over long periods. They are far from being the best bottled water.

Even among spring and bottled waters, the source is important. The best bottled water should come from a souce that is clean and pure, not, for example, from a hole bored in the middles of an industrial estate or in a plantation where pesticides are sprayed.

Macrobiotic recommendations

Macrobiotic recommendations for the best bottled water get even more complicated. In macrobiotics, the quality of food and water is evaluated not only by the nutritional content or purity, but also by the quality of its "energy".

In the case of drinking water, macrobiotics recommends, firstly, spring water over mineral water. This is because spring water, with a lower content of minerals, is considered less yang or having less "contracting energy" compared with mineral water. At the same time, it is more yang compared with, say, distilled or RO purified water that has zero minerals. So spring water is considered more moderate abd balanced. It comes closer to being the best bottled water.

The macrobiotic ideal, however, would be to drink spring or well water from as close as possible to one's home - within the garden or at least within the same vilage. The reason has to do with the energy charge of the water and it is not considered a good idea to drink water from a distant place, no matter how clean and pure that water is.

So from the macrobiotic perspective, bottled waters like Evian, Volvic or Fiji are the best bottled water only for people living near the source of that water, not for those living halfway across the world.

Unfortunately, due to urbanisation, pollution and other factors, it is mostly not practical to obtain clean, drinking water from near one's home. But if you are lucky to have clean water near where you live, collect it in bottles and that would be the best water for you.

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