Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and there's Jerry, and this is stuff
Speaker 1: you should know. Unscrew the caps and glug it down. Addition, Uh,
Speaker 1: that's right. And you know what I think we should
Speaker 1: say the outset here. Uh, now, no, we have to do.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm gonna say, Um that we are
Speaker 1: using a well it's from Julia Layton, actually, one of
Speaker 1: our writers, but it's from an old how Stuff Works article. Uh.
Speaker 1: And when I say old, I mean that it's from
Speaker 1: two thousand five or six or so old unbottled water. Um,
Speaker 1: so it is old, but I mean I think that
Speaker 1: most of the stuff in here is still true from
Speaker 1: skucking in and researching further. But what it did do
Speaker 1: was provide an interesting look at statistics, because you know,
Speaker 1: we had to get updated statistics on how much bottled
Speaker 1: water we use and how big the industry's And it's
Speaker 1: really amazing though, just to have sort of a before
Speaker 1: after picture from two thousand six to now two thousand
Speaker 1: I mean I saw stats from like twenty and twenty one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's been a tad bit of growth since two thousand
Speaker 1: six in that industry. Yeah, I think like one statue
Speaker 1: she cites, and we're gonna go through all this. But
Speaker 1: just as an example, is seven billion gallons of bottled
Speaker 1: water we're consumed by Americans in two thousand five, and
Speaker 1: I got from twenty nineteen that is I'm sorry, that
Speaker 1: is now fifteen billion gallons. That is a tremendous increase
Speaker 1: in bottled water gallons per American, per year, per American,
Speaker 1: includes dumb babies. It's a lot of water. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it's better then if we were if we
Speaker 1: had decided to all start drinking like that much high
Speaker 1: fruit toast corn syrup every year. But there's a lot
Speaker 1: of there's a lot of problems with bottled water, as
Speaker 1: you can imagine, and maybe some you can't quite imagine yet.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna go over all that. We're gonna give
Speaker 1: you the ins and out to bottled water. Okay, so
Speaker 1: please forgive us. This is kind of an old article.
Speaker 1: I I that what perked my ears up, Chuck, is
Speaker 1: that she referred to bottled waters new fangled. At one point,
Speaker 1: I said, people who who drink bottled water just think
Speaker 1: they're so fancy, and I was like, this seems old.
Speaker 1: This seems like an old way of looking at well.
Speaker 1: It's it is interesting because I think that was true
Speaker 1: for a while, and then I think we're to point
Speaker 1: now ino where there's a large portion of America that
Speaker 1: doesn't want to get bottled water at all anymore and
Speaker 1: refuses to use like single plastic, single use plastics like this. Uh.
Speaker 1: But there are also still a lot of people that
Speaker 1: you know, you go and you see him, like loading
Speaker 1: up by the caseful to stock their house. I can
Speaker 1: see an emergency stash of something maybe, but I'm just
Speaker 1: talking like, let me give you an example. I have
Speaker 1: to tread carefully, uh, because this is a person in
Speaker 1: our lives. Not your life, but our lives, mine and
Speaker 1: Emily's lives. But we have a human in our life
Speaker 1: that came to see us and I bought a bunch
Speaker 1: of you know, and when we did like, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: going to the grocery store for the week. Uh, And
Speaker 1: they went with us and they bought they wanted to buy,
Speaker 1: like a case of bottle of water. We're like, oh no, no, no, please,
Speaker 1: don't trying to tread carefully though, you know, we're like,
Speaker 1: we got really good filtration, good water. It's good, good good. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they said that they're on a thing where they
Speaker 1: have to drink so much water. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's great, uh, and we have a good filtration system here. Um.
Speaker 1: But they were like, well, it really helps me keep
Speaker 1: up with how much I'm drink king if I do
Speaker 1: it per bottle. And Emily just looked at me like
Speaker 1: she's just like, just shut up, you know. She gave
Speaker 1: me that look, and I did. But it was really
Speaker 1: frustrating to know that it's not any easier to keep
Speaker 1: up than drinking a glass of water. Yeah, I wonder
Speaker 1: how much. I wonder how much. Also though that person
Speaker 1: like really just felt like bottled water was healthier or
Speaker 1: pure or whatever, and it wasn't. It was more than
Speaker 1: just that. Who knows. I don't know. The reason they
Speaker 1: gave though, was keeping up with it, Like they lined
Speaker 1: the bottles up at the end of every day and
Speaker 1: like shot them with a six shooter that's right right
Speaker 1: into the ocean. They drove him out to that. But anyway,
Speaker 1: it's a personal frustration and I'm trying. I'm going to
Speaker 1: try not to like just live on my soapbox in
Speaker 1: this episode. But suffice it to say, I I really
Speaker 1: don't like bottled water, and I try to. I've seen
Speaker 1: the light, and I will only get bottled water if
Speaker 1: I'm in a real, real pinch and have to. If
Speaker 1: somebody's pinching you and they're like, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: up until you buy bottled water, you do it. No.
Speaker 1: I mean sometimes when you got a kid, you're stuck
Speaker 1: somewhere and you're like, you know, you have to hydrate
Speaker 1: your child. You're like, oh God, I gotta get this
Speaker 1: bottled water, and I hate it. You're out of high
Speaker 1: freak toast corn, sir, right uh, And and then try to,
Speaker 1: you know, at least like, at least let me get
Speaker 1: like spring water or something. But when the only option
Speaker 1: is and we'll get to all this is just like
Speaker 1: purified bottled tap water. I just wanna crawl under the rug. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: come out from under the rug, Chuckley. We got to
Speaker 1: talk about bottled water, so I just wanted to level set.
Speaker 1: So um, Okay, I think you did that pretty well.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little a little history about bottled water. Um.
Speaker 1: And this comes to us from our friends over at
Speaker 1: Serious Eats this part's interesting. I thought so too. So um,
Speaker 1: bottled water has been around I saw somewhere since the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century in America. Certainly in the mid nineteenth century
Speaker 1: there were people bottling water and selling them and usually
Speaker 1: it was like as a remedy. It was a healthy thing,
Speaker 1: and you would buy them at like spas or something.
Speaker 1: But that's definitely the origin of bottle water. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: perry A. You know, I'm I'm sure you remember when
Speaker 1: we were kids that before like bottle water was as
Speaker 1: we know, it was such a big thing. Perry A
Speaker 1: was something you started seeing ads for on TV and
Speaker 1: in magazines. That was just I think they were smart
Speaker 1: enough to brand it early on, or not early on
Speaker 1: in there. I mean they've been around since the mid
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, but early on in the seventies and eighties
Speaker 1: in America of like, you know, a fancy schmancy thing
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, the Patrick Bateman types really slurped it
Speaker 1: down right. Yeah, But that was that was because of
Speaker 1: a rebranding that they did a hundred and twenty years
Speaker 1: after they started selling this stuff here in America. They
Speaker 1: hired Orson Wells, They got People magazine to write about it.
Speaker 1: Just became like a thing, and it really dovetailed with
Speaker 1: that kind of health consciousness that was starting to kind
Speaker 1: of blossom among baby boomers, who were again all Patrick
Speaker 1: Bateman type still are, and so Harry became like the
Speaker 1: first bottled water that America kind of became obsessed with.
Speaker 1: But it was like aspirational, it was expensive, um, and
Speaker 1: it was a status symbol, plain and simple. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until Coke and Pepsi really got into the game that
Speaker 1: it became like the thing that it is now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think Pepsi got in first in ninety four
Speaker 1: with their aquafine a brand, and I think Coke for
Speaker 1: a while, and I think Coke for a while it's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're in the soda game and we don't want this
Speaker 1: water thing cutting into our soda business because I think
Speaker 1: they were scared by Perry because they were also marketing
Speaker 1: it as an alternative soda, like a healthy alternative. And
Speaker 1: then Pepsi started crushing it, and then Coke was like, well,
Speaker 1: we can't have that. No, so they launched a sani,
Speaker 1: which apparently means it means nothing. It's just supposed to
Speaker 1: evoke like um, a kind of like a refreshing, pure
Speaker 1: since they ation I guess, I guess um or sorry,
Speaker 1: a clean, fresh taste that a Coke spokesperson back in
Speaker 1: the late nineties early two thousand's um. And then that
Speaker 1: also set off a huge consolidation rush where there I mean,
Speaker 1: some of the brands that you know today a bottled
Speaker 1: water like Arrowhead and Poland Springs and Deer Park, they've
Speaker 1: been around since the mid nineteenth century. They got snatched
Speaker 1: up by all these larger brands are consolidated. Um. When
Speaker 1: people started to say, yeah, we'll drink bottle of water,
Speaker 1: and I remember very clearly in the late nineties early
Speaker 1: two thousands, there was a big cultural um discussion, I guess,
Speaker 1: but also kind of chiding of people who drank bottle
Speaker 1: of water because people like to point out, like a
Speaker 1: lot of that stuff is coming out of the tap somewhere.
Speaker 1: It's just purified. And after all that, after the whole
Speaker 1: discussion was done, America said, you know what we want,
Speaker 1: bottle water. That's what we're going to drink. And in
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen it became the most consumed beverage in
Speaker 1: the entire United State. Eats bottled water. Yeah, Wow, how
Speaker 1: about more than more than coffee. And I've been doing
Speaker 1: my part to keep coffee up there statistically speaking, and
Speaker 1: it still beats coffee, still beats coke, beats everything else.
Speaker 1: Bottled water beer beats beer. Yeah, yeah, bottled beer or
Speaker 1: canned beer. Crazy. Uh yeah, it's hard to believe, um,
Speaker 1: but that's kind of what's happened here. Um. Julia points
Speaker 1: out that there are a few reasons, and you mentioned
Speaker 1: them a little bit with my mystery guests that some
Speaker 1: of the other reasons people might drink bottle water is
Speaker 1: they think it might be healthier or more pure, or
Speaker 1: they might just think it tastes better than tap water,
Speaker 1: which actually could be the case. There's uh, certainly some
Speaker 1: funky tasting tapwater in America, depending on where you live,
Speaker 1: you know, definitely, and there's a lot of people who, um,
Speaker 1: who like kind of take the opposite tack there, Like
Speaker 1: America has some of the best, cleanest, safest drinking water
Speaker 1: in the world, and in some parts of America it's
Speaker 1: just straight up amazing. Like remember our episode on the
Speaker 1: New York City's water delivery system and just how amazingly
Speaker 1: good New York City tap water is. Like in some
Speaker 1: places there are like the local tap water is what
Speaker 1: they sell as spring water basically. Um, so some people
Speaker 1: have it better than others, but in general, people who
Speaker 1: drink tap water kind of they just take a certain
Speaker 1: tact towards bottle water, like you're dummy for drinking that,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make any sense, whereas people with bottle waters, say,
Speaker 1: you're drinking poison right out of your kitchen sink. I
Speaker 1: can't believe you would do that to yourself in your family.
Speaker 1: So there's kind of like a disconnect there between those
Speaker 1: two groups. Yeah, and to be sure, we are not
Speaker 1: talking about I mean there are some My my friend,
Speaker 1: uh Dave Barnhardt is a documentary filmmaker who um has
Speaker 1: made a documentary on the water in Flint, Michigan. And
Speaker 1: we're not talking about places where the tapwaters like legit
Speaker 1: dangerous and it's aimful that that kind of thing goes
Speaker 1: on in this country these days. So we're not talking
Speaker 1: about that. We're talking about garden variety tap water that's
Speaker 1: generally pretty safe. Um, Florida's got some funky water to
Speaker 1: my friend, egg water. Yeah, well I went to uh
Speaker 1: my Disney World trip, I got some pretty funky egg
Speaker 1: water there. Yes, it can be funky. And it's not
Speaker 1: just funky to drink, it's funky to bathe in. It's
Speaker 1: funny to be like in the same city as it's
Speaker 1: just it's funky stuff. For those of you have never
Speaker 1: experienced egg water, it's called that because it smells a
Speaker 1: lot like rotten eggs. It's got a lot of sulfur
Speaker 1: content in it. Totally safe, nothing's wrong with it. Uh,
Speaker 1: it may even bestow some health benefits compared to water
Speaker 1: that has a lower sulfur content. Interesting. The upshot of
Speaker 1: it is it's funky, and it smells bad, and it
Speaker 1: tastes bad, and you don't really want that. But unfortunately
Speaker 1: there are some parts of Florida that do have that
Speaker 1: as their tap water. Now, can you get a filtration
Speaker 1: system that actually gets rid of that taste? If you
Speaker 1: do have that coming here for sure? If you want
Speaker 1: to get rid of everything, you just get a reverse
Speaker 1: osmosis system, so simple as that. The problem is it
Speaker 1: takes out everything, So there's beneficial stuff and water you
Speaker 1: don't really want to take out magnesium, potassium, um, calcium,
Speaker 1: and probably a bunch of other little micro nutrients and
Speaker 1: minerals too. That we don't even know about yet. Reverse
Speaker 1: osmosis takes everything out, which we talked about. We did
Speaker 1: some sort of water purification episode not too long ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that was our water treatment. That was a
Speaker 1: good one. Okay, so in reverse I think we also
Speaker 1: do one specifically on reverse osmosis too, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it takes everything out. So if you want to
Speaker 1: get everything out, just get a reverse osmosis system and
Speaker 1: you're fine. You should be the spokesperson. That's pretty tight. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't personally believe in reverse osmosis systems. I think
Speaker 1: it takes too much out and you just have pure water,
Speaker 1: and I think the water that we drink is supposed
Speaker 1: to have a little more in there. This would make
Speaker 1: a terrible ad for reverse osmosis. The second part way
Speaker 1: for sure, Uh, Julia, And is again from two thousand five,
Speaker 1: so this is when this was around. But it is
Speaker 1: pretty interesting to look back at. You know, Bottle labeling
Speaker 1: is a big thing and you can put a I
Speaker 1: mean you can't lie on a water bottle out right,
Speaker 1: but you can get really generous with how far you
Speaker 1: stretch things. Uh. And there was a company. It's not
Speaker 1: around anymore called Alaska Water at one point that said
Speaker 1: Alaska Premium Glacier drinking water, pure glacier water from the
Speaker 1: last unpolluted frontier, and it came literally from Juneo, Alaska
Speaker 1: tap water. Yeah, the municipal supply. Yeah, which I guess
Speaker 1: is uh, you know, if you trace it back, it
Speaker 1: might come originally from the last unpolluted frontier. Sure. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: there's certainly a certain there's a bit of legitimacy to that,
Speaker 1: but it's it's dishonest still. Yeah, there's there was also
Speaker 1: one called Glacier clear Water UM that until two thousand
Speaker 1: two was owned by the Dairy Farmers of America in
Speaker 1: Kansas City, Missouri. That was sourced in Greenville, Tennessee. So
Speaker 1: it had nothing to do with glaciers. Like there may
Speaker 1: have been glacial activity at the last Ice Age around
Speaker 1: that part of Tennessee maybe, but the water in Tennessee
Speaker 1: was not coming from any glacial activity um. And so
Speaker 1: stuff like that that really made the rounds in the
Speaker 1: early two thousands and made people who were into bottle
Speaker 1: water look like idiots. Um. But again, even through that
Speaker 1: kind of gauntlet that bottled water drinkers that Americans in
Speaker 1: general had to go through on the other side, Like,
Speaker 1: the propensity for for bottled water was not beaten out
Speaker 1: of us, it was, it just got even more homed.
Speaker 1: I guess it's it's strange that that happened, that there
Speaker 1: was a pushback on the whole thing, and then that
Speaker 1: pushback just got totally overwhelmed. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Um.
Speaker 1: I think before we break, maybe we should at least
Speaker 1: go over the kinds of bottled water that the f
Speaker 1: d A like the terms the FDA regulates. Yes, at
Speaker 1: least Okay, Uh, we should start with artesian It's a
Speaker 1: great sounding word. It sounds very fancy, and that means
Speaker 1: it comes from an artesian well, which means it comes
Speaker 1: from a confined aquifer, which is a porous rocket's underground
Speaker 1: and it comes from porous rock or sand formations. That. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's under a lot of pressure from these layers of
Speaker 1: rock or clay and it forces that water up. I
Speaker 1: think we might have talked about artesian water, but maybe not.
Speaker 1: There's no way in the last fourteen years we've never
Speaker 1: mentioned artesian water, you know. I think so there's also
Speaker 1: mineral water, mineral water, Yeah, I do too. A lot.
Speaker 1: Mineral water is just water that has a higher um
Speaker 1: higher content of total dissolved solids, which sounds gross, and
Speaker 1: it can be gross, for sure, but it's more talking
Speaker 1: about things like I mentioned earlier, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium,
Speaker 1: stuff that gives water taste, distinctive taste, and in particular,
Speaker 1: mineral water taste. UM. So, I think the standard because
Speaker 1: you said the FDA regulate system. We'll talk more about
Speaker 1: that in a little bit, but the FDA standards that
Speaker 1: to be mineral water has to be spring water that
Speaker 1: has at least two parts per million of total dissolved solids.
Speaker 1: Regular old spring water, non mineral water has fifty. It's
Speaker 1: a big difference that your tongue can pick up on. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then you got your naturally sparkling, sparkling water. Uh. And
Speaker 1: this is yes, folks, there is water that comes from
Speaker 1: a spring or an artesian well that is naturally carbonated.
Speaker 1: And even if they take that carbonation out and then
Speaker 1: put it back in, according to the FDA, you have
Speaker 1: to recarbonate it to the levels that it once was
Speaker 1: naturally to qualify for that language. Yeah, And I went
Speaker 1: and looked, and I was sad to see that my
Speaker 1: favorite Sam Pellegrino water. It uh, it is artificially carbonated
Speaker 1: after the fact, and that's sad because I was looking
Speaker 1: into this and apparently um natural carbonation, which like volcano
Speaker 1: is heating the rock that the that holds the aquifer
Speaker 1: and it turns the carbon into a gas, and so
Speaker 1: it's naturally carbonated. Apparently it's much softer, less harsh on
Speaker 1: the throat and the stomach. Um. But it's really really
Speaker 1: hard to keep water carbonated and then get it to market.
Speaker 1: So they take the water out and then recarbonated and
Speaker 1: then sell it. So it's really hard to find naturally
Speaker 1: carbonated water. And I think it's very expensive too. I
Speaker 1: like that Tobo Chico. I don't believe that that is
Speaker 1: naturally carbonated. I I'm sure it's probably not because it
Speaker 1: is good, though I agree it makes me sneeze every
Speaker 1: time I drink it. But that comes to a glass bottle.
Speaker 1: It tickles your nose, it does, and we don't buy
Speaker 1: cases in cases of it. It's a treat, yeah, and
Speaker 1: it does come in a glass bottle. But Chuck, I've
Speaker 1: seen you. You You have a ritual where every time you
Speaker 1: finish off a bottle of smash it on the ground
Speaker 1: and shout say yahoo. Yeah. And sometimes I'll smash it
Speaker 1: against like something hard it and then hold the broken
Speaker 1: bottleneck in my hand and you can't tempt anyone to
Speaker 1: come at me. Yeah, you'll say, any takers. Uh, never
Speaker 1: had any takers either, he knows you never have. It's
Speaker 1: very menacing. What else we got. We got the purified
Speaker 1: water I was talking about. And this is when you're
Speaker 1: talking about the dissanis and the aquafinas. Is when they
Speaker 1: take public tap water uh and they purify it. It
Speaker 1: comes from in other words, of municipal water source. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's pretty much the long and short of that.
Speaker 1: And I mean, if you're talking about pure water, this
Speaker 1: is like the most artificial water. It's the most heavily
Speaker 1: treated water, because yeah, you're taking tap water and then
Speaker 1: you're bottling it and selling it. And the FDA says, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's some things you have to do if you're selling
Speaker 1: purified water. It has to be if you're selling it
Speaker 1: from like a municipal source. Um. You you have to
Speaker 1: either filter it, you have to distill it. You have
Speaker 1: to run it through that old reverse osmosis. You have
Speaker 1: to take some oxygen and subjected to electricity and create
Speaker 1: ozone and then infuse the water with that. So it
Speaker 1: goes and reacts with all the stuff in there and
Speaker 1: and UM purifies it, or you could run it through
Speaker 1: UV light treatment or some combination of that. But that's
Speaker 1: what purified water is. And as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: it didn't realize this chuck. But you can buy and
Speaker 1: I could not find what labels this was, but you
Speaker 1: can buy water that was originally nonpotable water, meaning like
Speaker 1: you should not be drinking this is not for human consumption.
Speaker 1: UM that can be treated through these these ways and
Speaker 1: it becomes it can be bottled and sold as purified
Speaker 1: water because the end result is the same. It's almost
Speaker 1: devoid of anything but water molecules. Yeah, and I think,
Speaker 1: and we'll get into the different f d A versus
Speaker 1: e p A standards, because e p A s who
Speaker 1: regulates your tap water. But I believe that e p
Speaker 1: A standard or the FDA standard for bottled water allows
Speaker 1: more poop in your water than the e p A
Speaker 1: does in your tap water. Right, Yeah, The e p
Speaker 1: A says you can have zero poop in your water,
Speaker 1: and the FDA says, hey, hey, this relax a little bit.
Speaker 1: Let's let's take our hang ups off of the American public.
Speaker 1: Oh man, what's wrong with a little poop in your water? Right? Uh,
Speaker 1: you've got spring water, which I love. Uh. There's nothing
Speaker 1: better than if you can drink directly from a spring
Speaker 1: when you're hiking in the woods, cupped in your hand,
Speaker 1: like Daniel Boone did. Just the best thing in the world.
Speaker 1: It comes from a protected underwater spring and it flows
Speaker 1: to the surface on its own. It just bubbles right
Speaker 1: up there. It's a really a wonderful sight to behold
Speaker 1: if you've never seen a natural spring. I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it. And then it's collected there at the
Speaker 1: surface in the case of bottling, or maybe they may
Speaker 1: drill down if they can't get, you know, to the surface,
Speaker 1: but it's like a sanitary, protected area that it's drilled
Speaker 1: down to where what's feeding the spring. Like they might
Speaker 1: just go to an area that's more accessible, I guess, uh.
Speaker 1: And then but if they do that, though, they have
Speaker 1: to have it has to be the same composition as
Speaker 1: as it does from the source. Yes, Hey, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put three words together, and you try to convince me
Speaker 1: that they don't evoke an image of a future medical kink, sanitary,
Speaker 1: protected whole and that awful and then an awful collection
Speaker 1: of words. Uh yeah, it's uh yeah, that could be
Speaker 1: the album new album title for Diarrhea Planet. I guess so,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of the opposite of a diarrhea planet
Speaker 1: if you think about it. Yeah, I think that's the twist. Yeah, hey,
Speaker 1: diarrhea Planet. I hope you guys are still doing it.
Speaker 1: Uh so, then you got well water is the last
Speaker 1: one before we go to our break, and that comes
Speaker 1: from a well it does. Simple simple. It's a new one.
Speaker 1: I'm testing out because I've been using easy peasy too much.
Speaker 1: Did you just say simple fimple? Yeah, but really you could.
Speaker 1: You could make anything. You could use any consonant or
Speaker 1: combination for simple, pimp. That's kind of gross. You could
Speaker 1: say simple simple, I guess, but that's unnecessarily complex. I
Speaker 1: like easy beasy, lemon squeezy. Yeah, I do too, But again,
Speaker 1: it's it's starting to kind of take off a little bit,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna go elsewhere. All right, simple simple, We'll
Speaker 1: be right back. Stuck stucks in. That sucks. I don't
Speaker 1: know that you know it. Stuck and Stuck. It's a
Speaker 1: great name. That's the name of it. It's a great name. Alright,
Speaker 1: Stucks net within with an X. I want to learn
Speaker 1: about a rosortic college act, how to take the perfect
Speaker 1: but with all about fractals, getting kiscon that's the hun
Speaker 1: the Lizzie Border murders that they kind of all runs
Speaker 1: on the plane everything we should know. Word up, Jerry. Alright, Chuck. So,
Speaker 1: like we said, the FDA regulates bottled water, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of a quirk of bureaucracy that it does. It
Speaker 1: would make way more sense that the e p A does,
Speaker 1: But the e p A says, no, we're too busy
Speaker 1: concentrating on drinking water and our standards. F DA, you
Speaker 1: go handle this, And the FDA says, that makes sense
Speaker 1: because we're going to consider bottled water a packaged food,
Speaker 1: which is I can't remember what episode we talked about
Speaker 1: it in, but that's why water has an expiration date
Speaker 1: because it's considered a package food, and all packaged foods
Speaker 1: have to have an expiration date, even though water is
Speaker 1: never really going to expire, right, So the FDA is
Speaker 1: in charge of regulating bottled water and they do a
Speaker 1: so so job of it. Yeah. I think the deal
Speaker 1: is is the f d A considers bottled water low
Speaker 1: the categorized as as low risk. Yeah, so just a presumption. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I guess that I don't know. I guess that
Speaker 1: lets them internally off the hook for I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: sure surely it shouldn't be as robust as like pharmaceuticals
Speaker 1: or something. I'm not saying that, but uh, yeah, they
Speaker 1: categorize it as low risk. Uh they It says that
Speaker 1: it must come from a roof source. But that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it's not like the f d A goes out
Speaker 1: to the spring in Tennessee or whatever to check it
Speaker 1: out or anything like that. Right, No, they definitely do not. They. Um,
Speaker 1: they say it has to come from you know, one
Speaker 1: of these like an archiesian well, it has to come
Speaker 1: from well water, it has to come from municipal water,
Speaker 1: like all those those sources that we mentioned. And by
Speaker 1: the way, right um, and by the way, you have
Speaker 1: to actually put on your label what kind of water
Speaker 1: this is? Like those aren't just like like you know,
Speaker 1: categories like those are terms that you will see on
Speaker 1: a bottled water label because by law, they have to
Speaker 1: say what kind of water, it is right. And and
Speaker 1: then further than that, like they have kind of sub
Speaker 1: regulations for the different kinds of water, Like if it's
Speaker 1: from a spring or something like that, Um, I think
Speaker 1: they they they has to be tested like once a
Speaker 1: week or something to make sure it's sanitary. Um. That's
Speaker 1: another one. If it comes from a from municipal water,
Speaker 1: it has to go through that filtrition process like we said. Um.
Speaker 1: And then also if you add anything to the water,
Speaker 1: because remember I was saying reverse osmosis chuck is like
Speaker 1: it takes everything out pure the water purification does well.
Speaker 1: They usually add some stuff in to give that water flavor. Again,
Speaker 1: if it's like that, say like they put they fortify
Speaker 1: it with protein molecules or chunks of fat or something
Speaker 1: like that. It's got to say in the label it
Speaker 1: contains chunks of fat or with ad fat is probably
Speaker 1: how the marketing team would want them to say it.
Speaker 1: And like a starburst you know on the label. Uh. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: fluoride is uh. When we did an episode on Florida
Speaker 1: that was jeez, I feel like one of our earlier
Speaker 1: year one or two episodes definitely the fluoridation of our
Speaker 1: drinking water in the United States, um bottled water is
Speaker 1: not fluoridated, so uh. Some dentists have talked about the
Speaker 1: fact that if you only drink bottled water in your house,
Speaker 1: then you're avoiding that fluoridation that they think you need
Speaker 1: to make your teeth strong. Yeah, so if they if
Speaker 1: it's bottled water with added fluoride, like I think a
Speaker 1: lot of baby water, that's the thing. Is there baby water? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think there's like Gerber bottled water for babies and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. I think those things usually have added fluoride.
Speaker 1: But it's gonna say it on the on the label.
Speaker 1: If you don't see on the label with added fluoride
Speaker 1: or something like that, that's not a thing. Why has
Speaker 1: no one, I'm sure this will happen at some point.
Speaker 1: Why has no one tried to collect rainwater and market
Speaker 1: that as like, you know, Icelandic rainwater bottled up. I
Speaker 1: would bet you a hundred dollars someone has you think?
Speaker 1: Sure gotta be because I was thinking, like when I said, like,
Speaker 1: what other water sources are there? Obviously there's the ocean
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, but it's like, well, I guess
Speaker 1: there's rainwater, and why hasn't someone you know touted that
Speaker 1: as like the next big thing. I mean, it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be some of the purest water you can get
Speaker 1: your hands on is rainwater, which is surprising but true.
Speaker 1: They don't know because it's come out of the sky,
Speaker 1: and the sky is poisoned all of us obviously, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would call it though, you call it skywater s
Speaker 1: k y e with like an um loud over everything. Right. Um.
Speaker 1: I hope it didn't give someone an idea. I again,
Speaker 1: I think somebody's probably done that, all right. So the
Speaker 1: FDA also says there's just certain amounts of stuff you
Speaker 1: can have it there. Again, poop, you can have a
Speaker 1: certain amount of poop, bacteria, virus, is, parasites, you can
Speaker 1: have a certain amount of raid on in there. You're
Speaker 1: gonna have a certain amount of lead in there. That's actually,
Speaker 1: that's actually right. That's actually one place where the f
Speaker 1: d A exceeds the e p A standards is with lead.
Speaker 1: The FDA says you have to have a much lower
Speaker 1: amount of lead in your bottled water than the FDA
Speaker 1: allows for because the or the e p A allows
Speaker 1: for in tap water. Because a lot of the pipes
Speaker 1: in the United States have lead in them, and supposedly
Speaker 1: as long as your local water supply is not over
Speaker 1: chlorinated or being overtreated, that the water won't corrode the
Speaker 1: lead and very little lead will be brought to your tap.
Speaker 1: So the e p A says, some leads going to
Speaker 1: be in your water just by virtue of flowing through
Speaker 1: these pipes. And the FDA says, well, this stuff is
Speaker 1: not supposed to be flowing through pipes, or if it
Speaker 1: did flow through pipes, it has to be so so
Speaker 1: well filtered that there there should be almost no lead
Speaker 1: in it whatsoever. But other than that, the e p
Speaker 1: A usually beats the f d A. Right, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then you know this is the federal standards. Then your
Speaker 1: different state and may or may not have h state
Speaker 1: regulations for the industry. Uh. Some states don't have anything
Speaker 1: at all going on. Some states are going to be
Speaker 1: a little more strict obviously, uh, and say like you
Speaker 1: have to have a license, you have to submit to
Speaker 1: inspections of that kind of thing. Um. So if you're
Speaker 1: you know, if you're out there thinking what is one
Speaker 1: to do, then it sounds like the wild West. There
Speaker 1: is a voluntary body, the International Bottled Water Association, UH,
Speaker 1: The good news is is that I believe, and this
Speaker 1: is an old number, but I bet it's still pretty
Speaker 1: accurate that about of the bottled water in the US
Speaker 1: is a member of the i b w A and
Speaker 1: they have their own internal, like self enforced regulations as
Speaker 1: far as you know, it's called I believe the i
Speaker 1: w B A model code. Uh. And you know they
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, all the filtration types and all
Speaker 1: the disinfecting that you have to do and stuff like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like really they really stepped up their game with
Speaker 1: the Let's get the poop out campaign of two thousand
Speaker 1: thirteen really had a big effect on the industry. Right.
Speaker 1: But to be clear, this is not like a body
Speaker 1: that like impostes fines or stuff like that. It's all
Speaker 1: just sort of self regulated and voluntary. Yeah. It's like,
Speaker 1: um ooh, man, what episode we're talking about where it's like,
Speaker 1: I have a feeling this is the industry getting out
Speaker 1: ahead of a problem, like problem legislation that's going to
Speaker 1: make them do stuff. I remember, I don't either, but
Speaker 1: I have a feelings. And I think anytime you see
Speaker 1: an industry coming up with its own voluntary regulations, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of um, uh pr stuff, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I did, but they I mean, they do
Speaker 1: have these standards and they do have um, you know,
Speaker 1: certification you can get through them. Um. But yeah, again,
Speaker 1: it's it's voluntary. And like you said, like if if
Speaker 1: you are not selling water from state to state, technically
Speaker 1: the FDA does not have jurisdiction over you as long
Speaker 1: as you're only selling within your state's boundaries, as long
Speaker 1: as the source of this water comes entirely from within
Speaker 1: that state's boundaries. And then if that state is one
Speaker 1: of those I think seven or eleven states that don't
Speaker 1: regulate bottled water, there's no one looking over your shoulder whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Your water is totally unregulated. It falls in a weird
Speaker 1: little loophole like what that part in Yellowstone Park that
Speaker 1: supposedly has no laws on it or whatever. That's kind
Speaker 1: of like that situation. But then I saw that there's
Speaker 1: a way that the FDA can still get you if
Speaker 1: your packaging was made in another state, any part of it.
Speaker 1: You're now subject to full FDA oversight for your bottle
Speaker 1: of water, interstate uh whatever, packaging. Yeah, I guess so
Speaker 1: should we. I think we should talk about leaching some
Speaker 1: because I feel like leaching is something that is kind
Speaker 1: of just started to come around in the past like
Speaker 1: six or seven years, which is the idea that wait
Speaker 1: a minute, we have all this bottle water stored in
Speaker 1: the garage, cases and cases of it stored in our
Speaker 1: hot garage in Arizona. Is that bad for you? And
Speaker 1: the answers is yes, it is. Uh. Leeching happens the
Speaker 1: you know, we can, we'll get into all the different
Speaker 1: kinds of plastics, but um, mainly what you're gonna find
Speaker 1: is polycarbonate. You're gonna find PVC, and you're gonna find
Speaker 1: polly styrene. And you know, back in the day, there
Speaker 1: were some people that said, like, oh, it's really fine,
Speaker 1: it's no big deal. Other people would say, well, we're
Speaker 1: really not sure. And other people would say, no, if
Speaker 1: you heat up a bottle that has uh, how's it
Speaker 1: pronounced thay lates, th lights, lights, thals, p h t
Speaker 1: h A l a t e s, everyone knows what
Speaker 1: those are. Um that it's it's gonna be leaching chemicals
Speaker 1: into your water, especially if it stays warm, especially if
Speaker 1: it's stored for a long long time. And I read
Speaker 1: recently and this is something I would do if I, uh,
Speaker 1: if I like had to get a bottle of water
Speaker 1: like in a pinch like I was talking about, I
Speaker 1: would say, all right, at least I'm gonna keep this
Speaker 1: bottle and like refill it for as long as possible. Uh.
Speaker 1: They said that that's not a good thing to do either,
Speaker 1: because multiple reuses will encourage leaching, which I didn't know, right,
Speaker 1: So did you mention the two eighteen study at all? Not?
Speaker 1: So this this article, this is like a little time
Speaker 1: capsule because chuck in it. They quote a guy from
Speaker 1: the PG Research Foundation who basically says, it's all good,
Speaker 1: We're fine. And I went and looked it up. I'm like,
Speaker 1: that sounds really fishy. Where they get their funding? What
Speaker 1: is the PG stand for? Their defunct They came along
Speaker 1: in just long enough to tell everybody that plastic was fine,
Speaker 1: and now they're defunct, so it's even fishier. I couldn't
Speaker 1: find any funding stuff like that. But since then, um,
Speaker 1: that suspicion that now there's some sort of like leaching
Speaker 1: going on and that's probably bad for us has finally
Speaker 1: been quantified. There's a two thou eighteen study in Frontiers
Speaker 1: and Chemistry and in the study, two fifty nine different
Speaker 1: bottle water sold in eleven different countries were tested, and
Speaker 1: then what they found is like, of no surprise whatsoever
Speaker 1: had micro plastics in them. And I suspect the other
Speaker 1: seven percent, like they screwed up the testing, Like I
Speaker 1: can't believe it's not a hundred percent of these bottle
Speaker 1: waters have a microplastics. Yeah, this is uh. If you
Speaker 1: want to read the original article, it's really good. It's
Speaker 1: from Time magazine. Your bottle water probably has plastic in it?
Speaker 1: Should you worry? By markham Hyde. I guess, And it's
Speaker 1: from May of twenty nineteen, and yeah, it's definitely. It's
Speaker 1: definitely good to see like a real source in a
Speaker 1: real study and not just a defunct organization. That's like
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. Yeah, it's fine, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: So in this um they found that there's a substantial
Speaker 1: amount of microplastics. And this's not like little trace amounts.
Speaker 1: Remember like the parts per million or parts per billion
Speaker 1: of some of the stuff that the f D A
Speaker 1: H and E p A allows in bottle water and
Speaker 1: tap water. The average among these two nine bottle waters
Speaker 1: was three D and twenty five particles per leader of microplastics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's seems like a lot. Okay, if that seems like
Speaker 1: a lot, buckling for this one. Nestlee Pure Life bottled
Speaker 1: water had an average of ten thousand particles per leader
Speaker 1: of microplastics. You might say, okay, let's fine and get
Speaker 1: a little plastic in my teeth, like pull it out,
Speaker 1: it's fine. Um, microplastics are becoming uh, it's becoming clear
Speaker 1: that microplastics are probably endocrine disruptors. I think they fall
Speaker 1: into a class called obeseagen's and polypropylene in particular seems
Speaker 1: to be an endoc endocrine disruptor. And you'll never guess
Speaker 1: what our bottled water, what type of plastic our bottled
Speaker 1: water bottles are made out of? That? Yes, polypropylene. So
Speaker 1: this seems to be one of those things where everybody's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't understand it, so it's probably fine. And now
Speaker 1: we're finally getting to the science where it's like, man,
Speaker 1: microplastics are really screwing us up. And even worse than
Speaker 1: just being in our bottled water, they're everywhere. Like we
Speaker 1: have a an episode do where we just talk about microplastics. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll take a break here. In a sec. But I
Speaker 1: think to set us up for the next part, which
Speaker 1: is the environmental nightmare, which is just the bottles themselves,
Speaker 1: like after you drink it in the environment, because we're
Speaker 1: talking about like drinking the water itself. Uh, And we'll
Speaker 1: get into the nightmare of after you've had that water
Speaker 1: in the single use plastic aspect in a sec after
Speaker 1: the break. But microplastics I read basically that plastic water
Speaker 1: bottles don't break down at all. When they say like, oh,
Speaker 1: it takes some five years to break down, they don't
Speaker 1: break down. They basically say that they just break apart
Speaker 1: in the microplastics, and that microplastic ironically will end up
Speaker 1: in the water supply, which could ensure one day that
Speaker 1: we can only drink things like bottled water because there's
Speaker 1: so much microplastic in the water supply on the plastic
Speaker 1: water bottles that people drank that never break down. Isn't
Speaker 1: that amazing full circles, such a beautiful circle of life
Speaker 1: that we've got going on? All Right, we'll take that
Speaker 1: break and we'll we'll talk more about single use plastic
Speaker 1: and why that's such a problem. Right for this stuck
Speaker 1: stuck in home, I don't know that you know it.
Speaker 1: Stuck in this it's a great name. That's the name
Speaker 1: of it. It's a great name, alright, stuck within with
Speaker 1: an X I want to learn about as how to
Speaker 1: take a perfect but with all about fractals and kiscon
Speaker 1: that's the hun the Lizzie Border murders that they kind
Speaker 1: of all runs on the plane everything that we should know.
Speaker 1: No word up, Jerry, Okay, Chuck. So we're talking about
Speaker 1: single use plastic, which means you take a bottled water,
Speaker 1: you drink the water, and then you just toss the
Speaker 1: plastic bottle. Apparently, if we've come a long way in recycling,
Speaker 1: it used to be something like ten percent of bottled
Speaker 1: water bottles were recycled back when this article was first written.
Speaker 1: Now we're up to all my in the US, uh,
Speaker 1: specifically because Norway recycles of their plastic okay, and then
Speaker 1: so part of the problem with that, if you'll remember
Speaker 1: back to our Recycle Update episode, China recently said, you
Speaker 1: know what, you can take all your dirty plastic bottles
Speaker 1: and shove them because we're not going to recycle them
Speaker 1: for you anymore, which is a big problem because recycling
Speaker 1: plastic can be actually fairly expensive. In China was basically
Speaker 1: the world's plastic recycler for a long time. So now
Speaker 1: people are trying to figure out how to how to
Speaker 1: handle this issue, which has now become even more pronounced um.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of where we are right now, while
Speaker 1: America is at the same time in the world, frankly
Speaker 1: stepping up to UM use even more plastic water bottles
Speaker 1: than ever. Yeah, there is one alternative that I've seen
Speaker 1: being used here and there. It's corn based. It's called
Speaker 1: p l A or pole. It's made from polylactic acid uh,
Speaker 1: and it is biodegradable, uh, compostable three months to degrade
Speaker 1: in a compost pile. But here's the fine print. It
Speaker 1: sounds great, and I saw that, you know, a major
Speaker 1: fancy schmancy hotel chain, you know, made the big switch
Speaker 1: and had made a big to do about this. It like,
Speaker 1: now we use corn bass and it's compostable, but it's
Speaker 1: only compostable if you compost it. And even the head
Speaker 1: of the hotel chain was like, yeah, we found that
Speaker 1: very little actually makes it to the compost pile. UM,
Speaker 1: So it's not it's not recyclable, like if you throw
Speaker 1: it in the recycling p l A will mess up
Speaker 1: and it doesn't even take much for it to to
Speaker 1: really mess up the uh, the other kinds of plastic
Speaker 1: that they're recycling. So they just dump it all and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean exactly, and or they try and sending it
Speaker 1: on a boat to China and that's a long long way.
Speaker 1: That's an environmental nightmare. So you know, be aware if
Speaker 1: you see corn based biodegradable plastic. Uh, unless you know,
Speaker 1: you really take it upon yourself to compost it, then
Speaker 1: you're you're doing the right thing, good for you. But
Speaker 1: very it says, very little of this stuff ever makes
Speaker 1: it to the compost. Yes, so there's like fifty of
Speaker 1: our of our previous episode just hanging around here, like
Speaker 1: our episode on soda or episode I'm recycling, or episode
Speaker 1: and composting, our episode on plastics, remember the Great Pacific
Speaker 1: garbage patch we talked about plastic never breaking down. That's all.
Speaker 1: They're all showing up for a friendly hello, our episode
Speaker 1: on diarrhea Planet. That's right, which, by the way, we
Speaker 1: should just explain real quick. Oh, there's probably a lot
Speaker 1: of people they're like, what are you talking about? Because
Speaker 1: it was a random reference years ago. They're a band,
Speaker 1: Diarrhea Planet, and they're great, and I'm a big fan,
Speaker 1: and I just always thought that they should change their name.
Speaker 1: So that's why we're It's a callback from years ago,
Speaker 1: and I think you should fill them in in case
Speaker 1: they don't stumble across the episode where that appeared. And
Speaker 1: what did you say they should change their name to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know what brought the whole thing up. Frozen
Speaker 1: poop knife. Oh, that's right. You remember somebody made a
Speaker 1: knife out of the poop and killed a bear or
Speaker 1: an interloper or like an evil brother in law. I
Speaker 1: don't know, And that's what brought the whole thing up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're great though, they're they're from Nashville, and uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know that we've ever heard from them, but that
Speaker 1: we did, they rejected our publicly, our suggestion publicly on Twitter.
Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, man, I gotta fill you in on
Speaker 1: the last thirteen years. You're you're getting blank. So just
Speaker 1: to kind of button this up about the single use plastic,
Speaker 1: like it is a problem everybody and it's just one
Speaker 1: of those things like our trash also did a landfill
Speaker 1: episode that we just kind of put out of sight.
Speaker 1: And out of mind. But that doesn't mean it just
Speaker 1: disappears and goes away. So fortunately, one of the things
Speaker 1: that a lot of people are thinking of who think
Speaker 1: about this kind of stuff is something that has made
Speaker 1: sense for a long time. But in our Littering episode,
Speaker 1: we talked about how there was a huge corporate push
Speaker 1: to basically say, you're the litter bug. You the person
Speaker 1: using it. We the people who are making this plastic
Speaker 1: packaging and who are um using it to sell you
Speaker 1: our products, and it's not our fault. Finally, finally, some
Speaker 1: people in legislatures are calling bs on that, and there's
Speaker 1: something called extended producer responsibility laws. Yeah, me too. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're thinking of them in Washington State, Maine, and Michigan,
Speaker 1: and it basically says you have to figure out, like
Speaker 1: you are responsible for dealing with the packaging waste that
Speaker 1: your product is solding. You don't just get to walk
Speaker 1: away from it. And I think they're trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how to make that happen. But the fact that
Speaker 1: they're even talking about this stuff is another example that
Speaker 1: we're starting to wake up. Finally, that's amazing, that's cool.
Speaker 1: I think of hearing that I do too, Chuck. Will
Speaker 1: it make a difference. Stay tuned. I should shout out
Speaker 1: my friends film. By the way, I just realized, like
Speaker 1: Dave's one of my very best friends. Uh, you want
Speaker 1: to watch that documentary. It's very eye opening. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it is called Flint The Poisoning of an American City. Uh.
Speaker 1: And boy, if you want to, if you want your
Speaker 1: eyes opened about you know, the fact that it can
Speaker 1: be you know that you're in the twenties and that
Speaker 1: we're still just like pumping poison water to a to
Speaker 1: a town astounding rates, then you should check it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to check that one out. I'll bet it's good.
Speaker 1: It sounds blood boiling. What about the taste of bottled water,
Speaker 1: because that's sort of the one thing we haven't really
Speaker 1: covered is some people say they like the taste more,
Speaker 1: and you know, they're certainly haven't been very scientific studies,
Speaker 1: but there have been random like things and and stuff
Speaker 1: like that where they will, uh, they will do like
Speaker 1: blind taste tests, and it depends on where you are, obviously,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of these have happened in
Speaker 1: New York. But yeah, unfair, yeah, because they have good water,
Speaker 1: but in blind taste tests. It seems like a lot
Speaker 1: of times that people either can't tell the difference or
Speaker 1: they rate tap water kind of higher than they ordinarily
Speaker 1: would if it was labeled as such. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: depending on how um gross your tap water tastes, or
Speaker 1: how much you're into mineral water, um taste can be
Speaker 1: a factor. Like if you don't want your water taste
Speaker 1: at all, go get yourself some purified water and call
Speaker 1: it a day. Or if you if your tap water
Speaker 1: is pretty bland and you like a little taste to it,
Speaker 1: you might want some mineral water, sparkling mineral water. Who knows, right,
Speaker 1: So taste is probably the one thing that you can say, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that might actually be a factor, um, but not always
Speaker 1: a lot of people choose tapwater and blind taste tests
Speaker 1: like you were talking about. Yeah, I saw a water
Speaker 1: Somalia in New York. Oh, I've I've seen that guy?
Speaker 1: Did you see that? It was? I think? Why do
Speaker 1: I want to say? It was that TV show that
Speaker 1: uh Zach? What's his face? Who's the hunky guy? I
Speaker 1: think all all guy's name is Zach or hunky Za Galivanakis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's example he really always been hunky. I can't remember
Speaker 1: the zac Efron Uh, he has that show and if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, he sat down with the water Somalia Uh,
Speaker 1: and it was it was really interesting. I mean it's
Speaker 1: very easy to scoff at something like that, but water
Speaker 1: are different kinds of water for sure, have different flavor
Speaker 1: profiles and um, and it's interesting to sit down and
Speaker 1: sort of listen to someone walk you through that. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I would go to the water Cafe
Speaker 1: or wherever this was that they were doing this, but um,
Speaker 1: I just found it interesting. It is interesting. It's like
Speaker 1: the water Boy. Remember that that movie with Adam Sandler.
Speaker 1: Sure he had that magic water that just tasted amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my brother is on record, is uh. It's very characteristic
Speaker 1: of him as saying that his favorite water is hose water. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hose water is pretty good, have that nice rubber taste. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think he's being serious too, and I think it
Speaker 1: evokes uh uh, you know childhood stuff when you're outside
Speaker 1: playing and having like a water hose fight. Then you
Speaker 1: drink some of that stuff. Yeah, the added sensation of
Speaker 1: like that slight sting because it's coming out a little
Speaker 1: faster than you wanted to, or is a spider perhaps
Speaker 1: gonna come out right. So there are some people who
Speaker 1: are like, hey, hey, this is all fun and games
Speaker 1: to to poop poo Americans over use of bottled water
Speaker 1: and everything. There are plenty of places that don't have
Speaker 1: access to clean drinking water, and in that sense, bottle
Speaker 1: of water is literally a lifesaver. Um. There's nobody arguing
Speaker 1: that or denying that. I think what people are saying
Speaker 1: is like, look, if you live in America, your tap water,
Speaker 1: for the most part, with some um some places shamefully accepted,
Speaker 1: is probably as healthy, taste, probably as good, and as
Speaker 1: roughly as pure as the bottled water that you're paying
Speaker 1: hundreds to maybe thousands of times more for, you know,
Speaker 1: drop for drop, and is having far less of an
Speaker 1: ecological um impact than your bottled water is your little
Speaker 1: bottled water habit. And I think that makes sense, and
Speaker 1: that certainly was a sensible thing to say in two
Speaker 1: thousand five. But there are people who who say, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe we don't do bottled water. I get that because
Speaker 1: I'm concerned about microplastics. I also realized it's an ecological nightmare.
Speaker 1: But I don't know that it's a good idea to say,
Speaker 1: everybody just drink water out of the tap, and what
Speaker 1: they point to is the Safe Drinking Water Act from
Speaker 1: the seventies. I believe. I think Ironized Cody really had
Speaker 1: an impact on that one um and then it was
Speaker 1: updated and then that was it. And since then our
Speaker 1: science of oh, what's this thing in the water we
Speaker 1: didn't notice before that we said was fine, maybe we
Speaker 1: should start studying that. Oh it turns out it gives
Speaker 1: you bladder cancer? Or how is it okay to have
Speaker 1: chlorine in your water really even in small amounts? Like,
Speaker 1: all of this research just is happening, and more of
Speaker 1: it needs to happen. But just as much Congress these
Speaker 1: to say, hey, scientists, what have you been finding out
Speaker 1: about water that we're drinking? Since let's update the laws.
Speaker 1: Because the municipal tap water can be within those those
Speaker 1: those quotas or limits set by the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean it's actually safe. It just means that
Speaker 1: from what Congress has set the limits for, it's safe.
Speaker 1: It's what Congress has said is safe. It's not necessarily
Speaker 1: scientifically safe. So we need to do more and more
Speaker 1: research on the water drinking because it's such a vitally
Speaker 1: important part of our world. Um, and it's pretty ridiculous
Speaker 1: that here in the United States that hasn't been updated
Speaker 1: for twenty five years. Yeah, and that would give you know,
Speaker 1: some Southern member of Congress to stand up and like
Speaker 1: beat their shoe on the desk and say these laws
Speaker 1: are as out data is an old water article on
Speaker 1: how stuff works. That was a great Trent Lot. Trent Lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is that guys still around? No? No, I'm just trying
Speaker 1: really hard to demonstrate how irrelevant and out of date
Speaker 1: we are. Oh. I thought I had something else to say,
Speaker 1: but now I can't think of it. Sorry, man, I
Speaker 1: didn't mean it, derail. No, No, I'm good. Well, if
Speaker 1: you want to know more about bottle water, you could
Speaker 1: do worse than checking out this anequated article on how
Speaker 1: stuff works. You can check out Serious Eats for some
Speaker 1: great history. We also got some search from yep, Time magazine,
Speaker 1: healthline all over the internet, and there is something called
Speaker 1: the Environmental Working Group. They have a tapwater database. It's awesome.
Speaker 1: You can go in, type in your zip code, select
Speaker 1: your water utility, and then just have the socks scared
Speaker 1: off of you when it reveals to you what's in
Speaker 1: your water? Checking out? I did that yesterday. I know
Speaker 1: what I was gonna say. Uh, you know the little
Speaker 1: um box water that they're doing now, is is a
Speaker 1: better alternative even than single use plastic? Oh yeah, the
Speaker 1: box water that sends you a check every month and
Speaker 1: the hopes that you'll mention them. You chill. It's not
Speaker 1: a brand, I don't think, is it? Yeah? Oh? Is
Speaker 1: it really? It's called box water, I believe. So Okay,
Speaker 1: I just meant water that's packaged in something that's uh
Speaker 1: not leaching plastic and it's easier to recycle. But I
Speaker 1: got you right? Do you know those boxes are made
Speaker 1: from baby lambs? Ah? What are you gonna do? Then? Nothing?
Speaker 1: You just give up? I guess all right. Well, since
Speaker 1: I said give up everybody, that means it's time for
Speaker 1: a listener mail. I'm clickity clicking, and I'm finding it.
Speaker 1: See I've got four good ones stored up here. Oh good.
Speaker 1: You know I'll do this one because this is uh
Speaker 1: promoting a documentary that I want to see another one. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: love your show. Always thrilled it when a new episode
Speaker 1: pops up. My girlfriend and I both listened separately and
Speaker 1: together it was great to hear an entire episode dedicated
Speaker 1: to Wiseman's movie to the Cut Follies. Though any self
Speaker 1: respecting documentary filmmaker knows it well, it's a movie that
Speaker 1: many in the civilian world quote unquote don't. I'm surprised
Speaker 1: by how many people have never even heard of Gray Gardens. Anyway,
Speaker 1: been wanting to write for a while in hopes of
Speaker 1: turning you guys onto a movie that I made, and
Speaker 1: this recent Titticut Follies episode seemed to be the perfect excuse.
Speaker 1: It's called strad Style. It's a documentary about a rural
Speaker 1: Ohio gentleman with an obsession for strativeri the violin, of course, who,
Speaker 1: through the magic of social media, convinces a famous European
Speaker 1: concert violinists that he can make a copy of one
Speaker 1: of the most famous and valuable violins in the world.
Speaker 1: If you've ever seen and liked something like American Movie,
Speaker 1: I think you might dig this. Uh it was shot
Speaker 1: by the way that Strade Style has a shot in
Speaker 1: it that it is own that has an homage wink
Speaker 1: to Titticut Follies in it as well. And he sent
Speaker 1: me the trailer and uh it looks great. It looks
Speaker 1: like it did quite well in the festival circuit. It's
Speaker 1: like a real deal documentary and it's called Strade Style
Speaker 1: s t R a E made by listener and filmmaker,
Speaker 1: uh Stephen Abalos and go stream it. I'm gonna watch it.
Speaker 1: It looks really good. Same here. It does sound magnificent. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks good. It looks right up my alley. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks Stephen or Stefan, depending on how you pronounce your name.
Speaker 1: Congratulations on your doc. That's a huge achievement and we're
Speaker 1: proud of you. We don't even know you, and we're
Speaker 1: proud of you. So thanks. Thanks for letting everybody know.
Speaker 1: Thanks to you Chuck for letting everybody know. If you
Speaker 1: want us to let everybody know, let us know via email.
Speaker 1: Send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.