Is mineral water really healthier than tap water? And do you realize how much more you pay for it? Water is the most important food of all while playing sweet bonanza freeplay.
TWO MAIN REASONS WHY
1. Mineral water is not completely clean
Water is pure, fresh and healthy. Isn’t it? As clear as the water in the glass looks, its quality is often opaque.
Stiftung Warentest regularly finds impurities in mineral water tests:
In June 2015, it found residues in 14 out of 20 mineral waters tested – from a synthetic sweetener, pesticides and an anti-corrosion agent.
In another test in 2016, the testers found germs and traces of a glyphosate degradation product.
In 2017, Stiftung Warentest again only rated one in three mineral waters as “good”.
Still water was tested in 2019. Every second product was found to contain increased levels of critical substances, impurities from agriculture and industry or undesirable germs.
In June 2019, 11 out of 53 waters contained pesticide degradation products and four products contained sweeteners that find their way into mineral water via household wastewater. According to Öko-Test, only half of the waters tested were recommendable.
According to the two test magazines, the residues in the quantities found are harmless to our health.
However, doubts remain about the alleged purity of the water.
There are also doubts about the health-promoting nutrient content: Stiftung Warentest found that only around one in five of the mineral waters tested had a high mineral content – and criticized in 2019 that some still mineral waters even contain fewer minerals than drinking water from the tap.
In addition, scientists repeatedly find chemical substances in mineral water whose origin is largely unknown. It is possible that at least some of them come from PET bottles.
You can drink tap water without hesitation.
Contamination from pesticides, bacteria or drug residues cannot be ruled out in tap water either.
However, drinking water from the tap is generally considered to be the most strictly and frequently controlled foodstuff in Germany. In measurements, over 99% of samples regularly meet all requirements.
After testing tap water samples from 13 German federal states in July 2016, Stiftung Warentest came to the conclusion that tap water is usually better than mineral water. None of the 28 samples exceeded the legally prescribed limits.
The requirements of the Drinking Water Ordinance are much stricter than those of the Mineral and Table Water Ordinance.
Conversely, this means that mineral water may contain more harmful substances than tap water. Tap water is therefore generally at least as “clean” as bottled water.
Incidentally, mineral water does not have to contain a minimum mineral content. Depending on the location, it is therefore quite possible that tap water contains more minerals than bottled mineral water. In addition, we already get enough minerals from our food and are not dependent on those from mineral water.
2. mineral water often does not come from the region
A total of over 500 mineral waters are available in Germany; almost every region has its own well. In principle, therefore, mineral water can be a regional foodstuff. Nevertheless, many consumers buy water from sources hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away.
The popular Gerolsteiner, for example, comes from Rhineland-Palatinate, but is also sold in Lower Bavaria and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Volvic and Evian, for example, travel even further.
