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| Yes | 58% | 284 votes | Total: 488 votes | |
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Add to FavoritesMany people question the health benefits of bottled mineral water-as well they should. All mineral water is not equal, just as all bottled water is not equal. That minerals-a wide variety of them-are vital to human and animal health is hardly questioned. All living things need minerals in specific amounts-some minerals are needed in higher concentration than are others. Many people who would never question the health benefits of a daily vitamin are less sure when it comes to taking minerals as a daily regimen. Many cheaper vitamins contain no or nearly no minerals, or minerals in a form that are not readily absorbed. And there are no real requirements for the minimum amount of specific minerals to be included in bottled mineral water.
All water is technically mineral water unless it is softened or distilled. Water softeners remove minerals that cause scale on plumbing pipes. Distilling removes all minerals. When water comes out of the ground, it is suffused with whatever minerals are present in the rock strata it is pumped from or those above it that leach into it. Some areas of the country have a higher compliment of minerals in the water than others.
Mineral water au natural is usually called "hard" water and anyone with a well which pumps rusty or lime scale water has either much iron or calcium in their water. In some areas of the country, there is concern that there is a high level of natural arsenic in the water and it is usually filtered out. Minerals are what lends a specific "taste" to water and many households are drinking water of considerable mineral density without even knowing it. Hard water usually has a bad reputation among home owners because of the expensive plumbing problems caused by scale and the fact that hard water does not allow detergents to work as well. This has kept the Culligan Man in business for many years.
A couple of generations ago, the majority of the country drank "hard" well water and ate vegetables grown in soil that provided a variety of minerals. These soil minerals are taken up into the plant and provide the most digestible form of minerals for human health. Unfortunately, as the home garden has disappeared, to be replaced with mega-farm fruits and vegetables grown only with the use of fertilizers on worn-out ground, fewer minerals are absorbed into the food crop. Because plants need specific minerals to even grow, most fertilizers are primarily a concentration of minerals. This fertilizer is not balanced to provide optimum human health benefits, however-only to allow the plant to grow and produce. It should be obvious then that additional minerals should be added to the diet.
Iron is well-known as vital to the development of a healthy blood system but is readily available in meats, eggs and many legumes. Two other minerals are commonly referred to as being vital to circulatory health. These are calcium and magnesium. Other minerals, such as potassium are also necessary to proper heart function. Calcium in particular is stressed as vital to bones and teeth and as a preventative for osteoporosis. However, the usual recommendation to assure an adequate supply of calcium is to consume lots of dairy products. This is a problem as many, many adults are lactose intolerant. Races particularly prone to "milk allergies" are blacks and Orientals. As calcium is the most common mineral to be found in mineral water, it can be a vital addition to the diet of the lactose intolerant. Scientific medical studies have proved that calcium-enriched mineral water is just as bio-available as that in milk in a study group of young women.
Often doctors and nutritionists recommend the dark, leafy vegetables such as broccoli as a source of calcium. Once again, the historical concentrations of minerals in plant-based foods has been dropping since at least 1945 and there is little way to tell if a particular head of broccoli, mustard greens or Chinese vegetables contains an optimum amount of calcium. Properly labeled mineral water may well be a better choice in this instance for obtaining needed calcium, and may be of great benefit in the prevention of osteoporosis in the elderly.
There are some concerns over bottled mineral water: a 1977 study in India placed part of the blame for the spread of a Cholera epidemic on polluted locally-bottled mineral water. There is less concern over the cleanliness of commercially bottled water in the more developed countries, however and there is no evidence such water has even been responsible for a disease outbreak here. Other concerns, those regarding the formulation of plastic bottling materials are somewhat valid. A recent study found that harmful chemicals can leach from the plastic into the water but usually only if the water is stored at higher temperatures. Water kept under refrigeration is not suspect, but one never knows the conditions under which it was stored before it gets to your kitchen. This is true of any bottled water, not just mineral water.
Yes, mineral water can have valuable health benefits, but this is a qualified yes: the minerals included, the underlying base of the water (much bottled drinking water is municipal water from one location or another), the bottling method and how the water was stored make a great deal of difference. Medical science need to devote much more study to the availability of minerals in local ground waters and the needs of particular individuals for mineral supplementation to improve their health.
Calcium bioavailability from a calcium- and sulfate-rich mineral water, compared with milk, in young adult women.
http://www.ncb i.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed /7491887
Learn more about this author, Linda Sunkle-Pierucki.
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No
For the purposes of this article, I am going to assume that "mineral water" means the bottled type produced and sold in all major food markets. Often this bottled mineral water advertises the minerals it contains, and it purports itself to be a healthy water. I am going to assume that the title of this debate is asking whether or not the bottled mineral water is in-fact healthier than other types of water including bottled types such as filtered drinking water and spring water, and also water from other sources such as tap water and well water.
From a nutritionists point of view, water is water; your body will utilize it regardless of what type of minerals are in the water, as long as said water is not contaminated with pollutants, poisons, or microbes that might make you sick. All of the minerals we need are already found in the foods we eat, so having those minerals in the water has no real benefits.
From a chemists point of view, these minerals in the water are of the inorganic form meaning that the body cannot even absorb these minerals and use them. Minerals we take in must be of the organic type, the type that we find in the foods we eat. Plants make the conversion from inorganic minerals to organic minerals for us.
From a biologists point of view plants take inorganic minerals and convert them to organic minerals. These plants are eaten by herbivores and humans. The herbivores get eaten by carnivores and humans. We may also eat the carnivores, so we are absorbing these organic minerals in every food we eat.
Mineral water is bottled and thus should be a safe source of water, but there is no evidence suggesting that the added minerals are beneficial. Bottled spring water and bottled filtered drinking water again should be safe sources of water contaminant-wise. Tap water is usually a perfectly safe source of drinking water due to the addition of chemicals such as chlorine, though microbes can still grow in some cases. Well water is usually a perfectly safe source for drinking water as well, though microbes and bacteria can grow in the water, and well water is also susceptible to contamination through the water table. Rain water contains microbes, bacteria and spores from the atmosphere though this is nothing that the average immune system can't handle.
The only reason why bottled mineral water would be more desirable than any other sources of water is if you live in an area where the tap water smells or tastes bad because of the chemical additives, the atmosphere where you live is heavily polluted as is found in most major cities, or the ground water is not drinkable due to industrial/commercia l/residential contamination.
In conclusion there are no health benefits to drinking mineral water when the said minerals are not even of the organic type, and able to be utilized by your body in the first place.
Learn more about this author, Ryan Silva.
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