Bottled water is one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated in America.

Over the last 20 years, an $8 billion industry has been created by convincing people that tap water is unhealthy and tastes bad.

People constantly discuss and complain about the price of gasoline, but I've never heard anyone complain about the price of bottled water. The fact is that at a typical price of $0.99 for a 1L bottle of water ($4.00 per gallon), bottled water costs more than premium gasoline. How absurd! Especially when you consider that tap water costs about $0.001 per gallon (that's 4000 times less!). Unlike gasoline, which is very expensive to produce, bottled water costs virtually nothing to produce. Bottling and transportation cost a few cents per bottle, but the real reason it's so expensive it that suckers are willing to pay for it. All that money goes back into the company's marketing budget, or comes out as profit.

Drink bottled water because you think it's healthier? Think again. Many reports have shown that bottled water often contains as much gunk as tap water, plus chemicals from the plastic bottle. www.organicconsumers.org/foods...3.cfm. In most cities, the very small amounts of chemicals in tap water have no ill effects. If you're concerned about health, you'd be better off saving the money you spend on bottled water and spending it on better food, a gym membership, or a relaxing vacation.

Drink bottled water because you think it tastes better? Think again. In blind tastings, most people can't tell the difference, or rate tap water's taste as good or better than most bottled waters. The fact is, people taste what they expect to taste. If you buy a fancy bottle of expensive water and expect it to taste great, it will! If you think tap water is yucky, it will taste yucky to you. Try this yourself - buy several brands of bottled water, fill identical, numbered cups with each brand, plus one with tap water, and have a friend set up a blind tasting for you. Be sure to leave the cups of water out for a while so they are all at the same temperature, and be sure that your friend does not know which one you're tasting if he watches you, to avoid subtle hints or influence you might pick up from him. I've tried this on a few people and they are always very surprised by the results. Of course, if you have bad plumbing or live in a city with really bad tap water, your mileage may vary. But if you don't like the taste of your tap water, get a filter!

A lot of people who drink bottled water consider themselves to be environmentally conscious. But how environmentally conscious is it to schlep water (which is very heavy) half way around the world, when we have perfectly good water right here? And how enviornmentally consicious is it to use up billions of plastic bottles every year? Even if you recycle them, a tremendous amount of energy is consumed in manufacturing, transporting, and recycling them.

For the biggest suckers, there are "ultra premium" bottled waters that are super purified and/or processed with some sort of voodoo that's supposed to improve it. One example is Penta water: www.pentawater.com/. This crap claims to be processed in a way that creates pentagonal molecular clusters of water molecules, which increase hydration. This is pure fiction with no real scientific basis, intended to con suckers who lack the scientific background to realize that these people are lying.

America has some of the safest and best tasting tap water in the world. Don't fall for the marketing hype and health hysteria perpetrated by the bottled water companies. Get a filter if you have bad tap water, but don't waste your money on bottled water.