Flashback – Hydration and Littering

Almost three years ago I wrote the following about how the incessant advice about hydration was mostly bogus, promoted by the bottled water industry and misinformed social media users. This week I ran across this Guardian article, “The truth about hydration” that reinforces everything I wrote back then. In the middle of a hot summer with TV meteorologists parroting the same reminders, it’s a good time to review.

[“The federal government announced Wednesday it will eliminate a policy that allowed national parks like the Grand Canyon to ban the sale of bottled water in an effort to curb litter.”  Fox News explains that the rules were set up in 2011 because empty bottles scattered throughout some of the parks had become a major problem.  One problem was the emphasis on bottled water.  They did not ban the sale of other beverages, such as sugary soft drinks that are typically made of sturdier plastic.  The policy was obviously not completely thought through in the first place, setting them up as an easy target for objections.

Those objections did come and the National Park Service officials changed their minds.  But instead of just admitting they were wrong or banning the rest of the soft drinks, they said they wanted to "expand hydration options for recreationalists, hikers, and other visitors to national parks."  Falling back on the idea of hydration they tried to make it sound like a health-related decision.  There are a couple of questionable aspects to this.

Later in the article is one sentence that probably gets more toward the truth:  “ The bottled water and beverage industry have previously lobbied aggressively to keep bottled water at U.S. national parks.”  As in most cases, follow the money.

But what is all this about hydration?  This is one of those urban myths that people just won’t drop.  I even heard someone talking about pre-hydration the other day, comparing drinking lots of water (or sports drink) to applying sunscreen before you go out.

More and more experts are coming forward with contrary, more balanced advice.  Here is an example.  “Drink when you're thirsty. Stop drinking when your thirst is quenched. Obey that one rule and there is no risk of dehydration,” says Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a University of Pennsylvania kidney specialist.

Later on in that hydration article is a statement that shouldn’t surprise anyone: “Much research on human hydration [is] funded in part by bottled water industry.”

  

Another study found “no connection between hydration and the performance of athletes.”  It reiterates the sound, moderate advice to drink when thirsty.  There is no need to go overboard or walk through life tethered to a water bottle.

The final point is about bottled water itself.  I have elaborated on this subject in the past.  With a few rare exceptions or in emergency situations, bottled water is typically no purer than tap water and sells at a hundred times the price.  From time to time the bottled water companies are taken to task by some government agency for questionable practices or claims.  Some merely use tap water from another location.  Most recently a lawsuit cites Poland Spring Water for deceiving customers by “bottling common groundwater that doesn’t meet the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's definition of spring water.” 

Lately I’ve noticed in some airports an absence of the usual drinking fountains outside restrooms.  The only option is to buy the bottles from the vendors.  Again, follow the money.

Yes, it is important to have water with you when hiking in a national park (or anywhere).  It is smart (critical thinking) to buy a water bottle or canteen for the occasion and fill it at the tap or refill it at a drinking fountain. It is responsible not to throw bottles or any kind of litter around the trails or campgrounds. It shows perspective to understand that it’s unnecessary to pre-hydrate or take other extraordinary actions.  Drink when you are thirsty; it’s as simple as that.  So many of these problems can be easily solved by right behavior rather than by government regulations.]

Flashback - Bottle Your Own Water

[It was about five years ago that I first posted this about bottled water. By now everyone has at least one water bottle at home and, with a few very rare exceptions, clean running water. Of course, it's those few rare exceptions that make the news and get people all excited. But then, as now, I am interested in promoting behavior.]

It distresses me every time I see someone pushing a cart full of bottled water around the grocery store.  I always wonder what they are thinking. Don’t they understand that it’s much cheaper and just as healthy and convenient to buy a bottle once and fill it with tap water every day? While there is so much publicity about Americans who are food insecure, others still choose to spend grocery money this way.

I recently ran across this excellent posting with a good explanation for those who are not current with the science and will not choose to reject it out of hand because it doesn’t agree with their preconceived position. (One of the wisest statements I know is Paul Simon’s old song lyric: “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”)

The article begins with the different kinds of bottled water, how you can tell the source of the water, and what regulations apply. In general, the EPA regulates tap water, whereas the FDA regulates bottled water, but only if it is shipped across state lines. Some states regulate bottled water and the industry itself has voluntary standards.

It then goes on to address the beliefs that bottled water is purer, healthier, tastes better and is the more ecologically responsible choice.

Purity is a difficult thing to measure and prove, therefore, “the FDA prohibits bottled-water manufacturers from implying that their water is ‘safer’ or ‘purer’ than any other kind of water.”  It goes on to say: “Bottled water sources are typically tested for harmful contaminants once a week at most. Municipal water supplies are tested hundreds of times every month. Tap water may not be perfectly clear, or it may have a slight chlorine aftertaste, but according to the Minnesota Department of Health, those are merely aesthetic qualities that do not indicate the water is unsafe.”

Purity is not as big a deal as the health benefit, but here too, bottled water falls short. “In May 2005, the ABC news program ‘20/20’ sent five different national brands of bottled water and one sample of tap water taken from a New York City drinking fountain to a microbiologist for testing. The lab tested for contaminants that can cause illness, like E.coli. The results showed no difference whatsoever, in terms of unhealthy contaminants, between the bottled waters and the tap water.” Other tests have shown the same thing. The Mayo Clinic advises: “Tap water and bottled water are generally comparable in terms of safety.” From the National Geographic website:  “Not only does bottled water contribute to excessive waste, but it costs us a thousand times more than water from our faucet at home, and it's likely no safer or cleaner.” Finally, this CNN article from 2013 concludes:  “if you're buying it because you believe it's safer than tap, you may want to start heading to the sink to fill up your glass.”

Taste is also an issue.  Some people are willing to pay a price 500 times higher for better tasting water. “But a couple of very non-scientific, blind taste tests have found that most people – or most people in New York City, to be more accurate – can't actually tell the difference between tap water and bottled water once they're all placed in identical containers.”

The biggest drawback to bottled water is that many organizations and researchers consider it an “environmental nightmare.” From the production operations, to transportation, to disposal of the bottles, to the minimal recycling of bottles, the overuse of resources, the littering/landfill issues, and the associated pollution make bottled water an environmental loser. This was the National Geographic’s primary objection.

So if you are one of the people who contribute to the over $11 billion in annual bottled water sales, please note that the industry itself does not even claim that it is healthier and safer. They state it this way: “Although bottled water has often been likened to tap water, bottled water actually achieved its market stature by enticing consumers away from other packaged beverages perceived as less wholesome than bottled water.” Perhaps the best advice comes from the Readers Digest article in 2008 to “Rethink What You Drink.”

Natural Food and Holy Water

True story: Some years ago an older woman visiting her Catholic church noticed the baptismal font was empty. She saw the maintenance worker nearby and told him about it. She was shocked when she saw him run a garden hose through the window to refill it. He explained that the priest would come by to bless it later. 

In a sense natural food is a lot like holy water. It is often as much about faith as anything else. And now people are fighting like a bunch of theologians about what is and is not natural.

The question arises from a lawsuit against LaCroix sparkling water. The company advertises that the beverage contains no calories or artificial flavors and that it is enhanced with natural essences. But what those essences are is a trade secret. Customers don’t have a clue as to the meaning of “naturally essenced” written on the cans. They assume that natural means good. 

But the class-action lawsuit filed last month claims that “LaCroix's all-natural claims are false and that these natural ingredients are actually synthetic.” Although some of the ingredients can be derived naturally, they are listed by the FDA as synthetic and can be found in such products as insecticides. “Popular Science breaks down why the argument doesn't seem to hold up, noting that none of the ingredients mentioned in the case are considered dangerous.”

This is reminiscent of the “devastating news” a few years ago about wood fiber in grated cheese. Actually it was cellulose, but wood fiber sounds scarier. It’s used to reduce clumping, but some companies were adding more than the allowable 4%. No one was hurt and the fuss was far out of proportion to any actual impact. It was more about the principle of purity and the fact that wood fiber in cheese makes a good headline.

Another example comes from the makers of Prevagen, a highly advertised memory supplement derived from jellyfish protein. A minor problem is that they don’t actually get the protein from jellyfish. They synthesize it in the lab. A much bigger problem is that it has not been shown to be effective – it doesn’t do what it claims.

But the natural labelling issue is troubling for some. The main objection is the lack of a clear definition for the term as shown in the following statement. “Although the FDA has not engaged in rulemaking to establish a formal definition for the term ‘natural,’ we do have a longstanding policy concerning the use of ‘natural’ in human food labeling. The FDA has considered the term ‘natural’ to mean that nothing artificial or synthetic...has been added….” 

But does a formal definition make that much difference? There is no question that green tea is natural. BBC Good Food told us about it last July. “With origins going back as far as 5,000 years, green tea is commonly drunk and widely grown in the Far East where the health properties are well regarded.” Later in the same article they say that evidence of its health benefits are "largely inconclusive" and that although “many ‘health’ products now include traces of green tea…there is limited evidence to suggest these products are effective.”

Last week came a sterner warning from BBC Health on the same subject. “When Jim McCants started taking green tea pills he had hoped he was giving his health a shot in the arm. Instead, it appears the pills caused such serious damage to his liver that it required an urgent transplant.” Though this is highly unusual, it can happen.

So natural doesn’t necessarily mean healthy; it doesn’t even always mean safe. Many other substances are natural and not safe, nicotine, for example. The shock when people hear this is like finding out holy water can come from a garden hose. It drives many into denial.

The difference is that holy water is a matter of faith and healthy food is a matter of science. What’s important is whether it is safe and beneficial, not whether it’s natural (whatever that means).

More Problems With Bottled Water

I have never been a big fan of bottled water.  On several occasions I have pointed out that, compared to the tap water in the vast majority of municipalities, bottled water is no safer and far more expensive.  In fact, bottled water, those brands that are not just tap water repackaged, is inspected less often and less thoroughly than water delivered to our house in pipes.  Blind taste tests yield mixed results.

The only advantage is the portability, which anyone can duplicate by filling his or her own container with tap water.

So when this story about bottled water containing little bits of plastic came on the news, it should have cheered me up.  Instead I was skeptical.

The headline in Fortune reads: “Bottled Water You're Drinking May Contain Tiny Particles of Plastic.”  It goes on to tell of tests done by a group called Orb Media at the State University of New York on more than 250 bottles from 11 different brands, sold in nine countries.  They found particles in more than 90 percent of some of the most popular bottled water brands.

CBS News added that the average number of particles found was 10.4 per liter meaning that people could easily ingest thousands of these particles each year. The World Health Organization is looking into the problem.  This makes it sound very scary, but at no point in the report did CBS answer the obvious question about the danger of ingesting tiny particles of plastic.  Do they just go through the system or do they hang around and cause major problems later in life?

Fortune asked the same question:  Is this a problem? No one’s really sure, because there isn’t enough data on the health effects of ingesting plastic.”  At this time health experts think most of the micro-plastics pass through our systems.  It is possible that some very small particles may be absorbed into our organs, such as the liver and kidneys, or that even the particles that pass though may give off toxins along the way.  But not enough research has been done to confirm either of these suspicions.

It turns out the same organization has tested for and found micro-plastic, invisible to the naked eye but detectable with a standard infrared microscope, in tap water from different countries as well as in beer, honey, table salt and seafood.  Sounds like they have an ax to grind.

There is no rational explanation for the fascination Americans have developed for bottled water over the recent past.  It’s not taste, safety or purity.  Fluoridated tap water is better for children’s development.  It’s not concern for the environment since, given that the majority are not recycled, the bottles themselves are a source of pollution.  It may be a slight convenience, but how does this justify the billions spent each year for a resource that falls from the sky.

Critical thinking cannot make sense of it.  But I’d rather people go on making bad decisions than to be frightened into making the wise choice by some half-baked new report spurred by an organization that clearly has an agenda to push.

Deceptive Truth

Forget about fake news and alternative facts.  The truth can be used to deceive just as easily.  As Emily Dickenson wrote:

Tell the Truth but tell it slant –

Success in Circuit lies

This came to mind when I received the following graphic from a loyal reader forwarded from the local newspaper.

This is probably a true estimate of how many Americans (56%) believe their drinking water is unsafe.  It’s also true that they are mistaken in that belief.

According to the government Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):  “The United States has one of the safest water supplies in the world.  The EPA requires every municipality to test for the presence and levels of over 90 different contaminants in public drinking water and to provide an annual report to all customers.

Wikipedia adds that in 2016, “over 90 percent of the nation's community water systems were in compliance” with those EPA standards.

A Harvard site warns about polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), saying they “exceed federally recommended safety levels in public drinking-water supplies for 6 million people in the United States, according to a new study…”  But as a fraction of over 320 million people in the US, that’s less than 2%.

Instead of reassuring, the media emphasizes disasters and calamities about safe drinking water like this example from National Geographic.  But at the end of that article, after presenting the scary stuff,  they admit, "in spite of all the good reasons to be concerned about drinking water safety, resorting to bottles is not a sensible reflex."  Quoting their expert, an environmental scientist at Duke University, "People think bottled water is safer, but there is zero evidence that is true. The quality of water in city tap water is regulated far more closely than bottled water."

So municipalities spend billions of dollars annually so we can wash our clothes and dishes and take showers in water that’s safe to drink while the majority of Americans believe it’s toxic and spend billions more on bottled water.  This newspaper could have easily looked this up, but it’s not their job to educate.  It’s their job to sell newspapers, and scary “facts” sell better.

The next day I set a ketchup bottle on the table and saw (proudly displayed) on the label:  No High Fructose Corn Syrup, No GMO Ingredients.  Although these two statements are technically true, they are mainly intended to lure uninformed shoppers.

First, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) for some reason has gotten a bad reputation among food purists; but fructose, glucose and sucrose are all sugars.  This FDA website explains the tiny chemical difference between HFCS and sugar.  They conclude:  “We are not aware of any evidence…that there is a difference in safety between foods containing HFCS 42 or HFCS 55 and foods containing similar amounts of other nutritive sweeteners with approximately equal glucose and fructose content, such as sucrose, honey, or other traditional sweeteners.”

These facts of no chemical or health differences are backed up by other sources.  And even those that give reasons to avoid HFCS say it is no worse for us than sugar.

So it’s true, but slightly deceptive – the ketchup contains no HFCS; it contains sugar instead!

Second, the main ingredient in ketchup is tomato concentrate from tomatoes.  As I’ve written before, there are no GMO tomatoes!  Likewise, the label on the Non-GMO orange juice doesn’t mention that there are also no GMO oranges.  Non-GMO statements in both these cases are totally true – but meaningless – except to those incurious people who don’t care about real truth.

That brings us to a recent CBS story about a Facebook executive concerned that “the social media platform may be hurting American democracy” and that they were “too slow to recognize Russian interference in the 2016 election” intended to further divide society as the Russians weaponized information to sow discord.

How can anyone “weaponize” information?  It starts with Americans jumping to conclusions on the basis of popular opinion, weak evidence, information that reinforces their own biases and truths that “tell it slant.”  The distress here should not be over the negative aspects of Facebook or any other media but over a severe weakness in critical thinking, a skill in great demand as we cope with the every-increasing speed and breadth of dissemination coupled with a serious decrease in quality of information.  The problem is not with the Russian posters or the platform; it's with readers who don't question and research.

What We Put in Our Mouth

A few days ago, my wife read a news story about the “raw water” movement in California.  It sounded outrageous, especially with the NBC headline:  “‘Raw water’ sound good to you? Then maybe diarrhea does, too.”  Untreated water may contain various harmful bacteria, farm runoff and other chemicals “that can cause long-term health effects, such as kidney and liver damage, nervous system disorders and birth defects.”  As people around the world crave clean drinking water, some Americans think it’s trendy to go back to nature.

I put it aside until I saw this CBS story about teens daring each other to eat laundry detergent.  That makes an interesting comparison to adults following every food trend that comes along.

First a brief summary of the detergent story – the latest social media fad is teens daring each other to put poisonous detergent pods in their mouths.  It’s called the "Tide Pod Challenge."  Those are the same pods government agencies have been recommending parents be very careful about buying, because toddlers and seniors with dementia mistake the colorful pods for candy.  Ten deaths have been reported.  Teens have no excuse and most know better, but at that age peer pressure is a powerful force.

The raw water story inspired me to look for other food trends.  What a surprise!  The search results for “2018 food trends” listed pages of sites.  I chose just a few to see what they held and soon I came to understand that what adults put in their mouths is often influenced by peer pressure as well – even if they too should know better. 

The first one I scanned asked:  “Always looking to be ahead of the curve when it comes to food trends?”  (Talk about pretentious!)  “The National Restaurant Association compiled the data by surveying 700 American Culinary Federation members earlier this year and asking them to rate over 100 items as 2018’s predicted ‘hot trend,’ ‘yesterday’s news,’ or ‘perennial favorite,’ respectively.”  Well, who would want their friends to find out that their food choices were so last year?  This is ridiculous on its face – hot trends, an American Culinary Federation?

But there was more.  Another site informed me:  “In recent years, quinoa, sorghum, teff and buckwheat have been the ‘superfoods’ of choice, but times are changing and other foods are taking the spotlight thanks to their spot-on nutritional content.”  The superfoods of last year are being replaced by the latest food trends that “may include nut oils, maqui berries, chaga mushrooms and tiger nuts.”  Later in the story appears a picture of two cartons of hemp milk, one labeled as a superfood, the other contains Omega 3 – 6, vitamin B12, vitamin D, and is gluten free, soy free, and carrageenan free, carrageenan, derived from seaweed is used for its gelling, thickening, and stabilizing properties.  Apparently we should avoid it like the plague!  You won’t find any of that stuff in a superfood, no matter how natural the seaweed is!

Finally, I ran into a discussion of something called hydrogen water, great for athletes as it promises to boost energy, supply antioxidants, and remove lactic acid.  (Lactic acid is another subject to look up before believing the negative press.  See this in Runner’s World.)  You can order hydrogen water on Amazon.  For $17.99 (with $12.00 shipping) you get 7 pouches holding slightly more than one quart each.   That’s 1.75 gallons of water for only $30!  Better hurry; when I checked, there were only 18 left in stock.  Compare that with tap water, which costs about a quarter of a penny per gallon.

The article goes on:  “Admittedly, the science in this area [of hydrogen water] is weak at best, but we love the clean crisp flavor (and it might have helped to make our hangover a little less intense). If you're thirsty and feeling like the tap water isn't cutting it, give this a go.”  If tap water isn’t cutting it you can also buy a beer at a baseball game for less!  But food trends are not to be approached with logic.

In the end we have teens following trends and adults following trends.  The difference is that the consequences to the teens and the “raw water” crowd may be near-term and very uncomfortable, if not fatal.  For the rest, the consequences are delayed and disconnected.  They wonder why they have to work well into retirement, forgetting that tap water was not good enough or that they have no savings left after throwing away good money on the latest superfood.

Hydration and Littering

 “The federal government announced Wednesday it will eliminate a policy that allowed national parks like the Grand Canyon to ban the sale of bottled water in an effort to curb litter.”  Fox News explains that the rules were set up in 2011 because empty bottles scattered throughout some of the parks had become a major problem.  One problem was the emphasis on bottled water.  They did not ban the sale of other beverages, such as sugary soft drinks that are typically made of sturdier plastic.  The policy was obviously not completely thought through in the first place, setting them up as an easy target for objections.

Those objections did come and the National Park Service officials changed their minds.  But instead of just admitting they were wrong or banning the rest of the soft drinks, they said they wanted to "expand hydration options for recreationalists, hikers, and other visitors to national parks."  Falling back on the idea of hydration they tried to make it sound like a health-related decision.  There are a couple of questionable aspects to this.

Later in the article is one sentence that probably gets more toward the truth:  “ The bottled water and beverage industry have previously lobbied aggressively to keep bottled water at U.S. national parks.”  As in most cases, follow the money.

But what is all this about hydration?  This is one of those urban myths that people just won’t drop.  I even heard someone talking about pre-hydration the other day, comparing drinking lots of water (or sports drink) to applying sunscreen before you go out.

More and more experts are coming forward with contrary, more balanced advice.  Here is an example.  “Drink when you're thirsty. Stop drinking when your thirst is quenched. Obey that one rule and there is no risk of dehydration,” says Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a University of Pennsylvania kidney specialist.

Later on in that hydration article is a statement that shouldn’t surprise anyone: “Much research on human hydration [is] funded in part by bottled water industry.”

  

Another study found “no connection between hydration and the performance of athletes.”  It reiterates the sound, moderate advice to drink when thirsty.  There is no need to go overboard or walk through life tethered to a water bottle.

The final point is about bottled water itself.  I have elaborated on this subject in the past.  With a few rare exceptions or in emergency situations, bottled water is typically no purer than tap water and sells at a hundred times the price.  From time to time the bottled water companies are taken to task by some government agency for questionable practices or claims.  Some merely use tap water from another location.  Most recently a lawsuit cites Poland Spring Water for deceiving customers by “bottling common groundwater that doesn’t meet the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's definition of spring water.” 

Lately I’ve noticed in some airports an absence of the usual drinking fountains outside restrooms.  The only option is to buy the bottles from the vendors.  Again, follow the money.

Yes, it is important to have water with you when hiking in a national park (or anywhere).  It is smart (critical thinking) to buy a water bottle or canteen for the occasion and fill it at the tap or refill it at a drinking fountain.  It is responsible not to throw bottles or any kind of litter around the trails or campgrounds.  It shows perspective to understand that it’s unnecessary to pre-hydrate or take other extraordinary actions.  Drink when you are thirsty; it’s as simple as that.  So many of these problems can be easily solved by right behavior rather than by government regulations.