Does Anyone Drink Tap Water Anymore?
When I was a kid, I drank water straight from the tap. I wasn’t allowed soda, and juice was a rare treat. Drinks were milk with meals, and water any other time. I’ve always enjoyed water, and I didn’t know any other way than straight from the tap. In fact, I used to be too lazy to get a cup most of the time and stuck my head under the faucet like it was a drinking fountain.
But now, as an adult, the only time I drink water from the tap so to speak is from drinking fountains. I don’t drink bottled water generally, but we do have a Brita pitcher in our refrigerator and we filter all the tap water we drink. Not because I think it is unsafe, but I honestly think the tap water we have now tastes weird. In fact, when the water in the pitcher starts tasting weird to me, I know it is time to change the filter.
I wonder when this happened. When did tap water stop being something I drank and start being something that needed treatment (even if only for taste)? I could tell myself that the tap water would be better cold, except that my filtered water is cold and as I said, when the filtered water starts tasting weird is when I know the filter needs to be replaced. Is tap water now really that different from tap water 25 years ago, or have I just become a water snob?
The filters aren’t that expensive (compared to the cost of bottled water) and we’ve had the same pitcher for over 6 years now with no signs of replacing it, so it isn’t a very significant expense. I don’t change the filter at the suggested intervals - it takes many many months for the water to indicate the filter needs a change. But still, I’d like to eliminate the expense altogether and drink water directly from the tap (with maybe a stop in the refrigerator first for a nice chill, but no filter). But yet I can’t.
Do you drink your water from the tap? A filtration system? Bottled? have you always, or did it change over time?
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July 18th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Nope, I don’t. Can’t stand the taste. We used to buy bottled water, specifically Dannon brand as I prefer spring water over filtered water. I had to buy a really good water filter for my Saltwater aquarium and started using that to make our own bottled water.
I was like you as a kid, straight from the faucet, but we always had well water. City water where I live is horrible, tastes like pure chlorine.
July 18th, 2008 at 6:48 am
Sure, my tap water comes right out of Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite National Park. This is the kind of water people pay big bucks to drink and I get it out of my tap for almost no cost. It tastes fine and doesn’t create waste.
The toxins in the plastic bottles are going to kill you (or just make you fat) a lot faster than anything coming from your tap.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:06 am
We used to purchase bottled water but while cutting expenses that was one place I saw could be cut. We went to the filters then and I wanted to cut that expense too. I can’t stand the taste of the water so I bought a big plastic jug to put in the fridge door and I fill it so it gets cold. It seems when it’s ice cold or if it sits in the fridge it doesn’t taste the same?! I also purchased my husband and myself the reusable bottles (20 oz ones) so that we don’t have to keep refilling a glass, it helps the water consumption in this house. Growing up though (totally different part of the state I live in now) I always drank water straight from the tap with ice!
July 18th, 2008 at 7:10 am
I still drink from the tap at our current apartment, but we are moving (today!!!). The only problem with our water is that it comes out lukewarm, even from the cold side, so ice is pretty much a necessity (I don’t know what it is, but I dislike lukewarm water and will only drink it if ice is not available or if I am too lazy to go get ice).
I really think that whether tap water is palatable or not is a regional variation. For example, I think the water tastes great here, but in other regions the tap water sometimes tastes nasty (Central Florida is the worst offender I have experienced. It is so bad that I can taste it in fountain sodas even).
Anyway, my wife gets bottles of water so that she will have water on the go (we own nalgene bottles, but whatever), and whenever I get a chance, I will refill a bottle and have it be used several times. Otherwise, it is tap water for us, but we would get a pitcher if our water tasted bad.
My suggestion would be to just suck it up and start drinking the water without a filter. You will get used to it (or get over it) eventually. You might even start to think that filtered water is the water that tastes weird. If you aren’t up to that much of a challenge all at once, you might could start mixing some filtered with some unfiltered. Just a thought.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:31 am
I used to love drinking from the tap.
Unfortunately, my current home has sulfur water and I hate the price of a water system mainly because they can’t guarantee it will work. Plus, most use a form of chlorine which I’m allergic to.
I buy bottled water for drinking straight & I have two filters in my fridge (one in the fridge and one in the water line to the fridge) so we can use that water for cooking and to make koolaid, etc.
The price I have to pay for getting a house in a great area for a very cheap price.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:33 am
I recall drinking water straight from the faucet–and the garden hose–when I was a child, and thinking it was just dandy. I can’t remember when I first started to think faucet water tasted odd… but I sure do now. I have tried going back to tap water, but I always wind up thinking, “Well, I’m not really *that* thirsty…” and just pouring it into my plants instead. (Poor plants.)
I think Brandon is probably right–if I wanted to switch back, I’d just have to do it cold turkey and give myself no other option. I think I might wind up dehydrated though, and tending to flooded plants, if I did that!
I have a reverse osmosis system installed at my house, and the annual cost of upkeep is incredibly reasonable. So I use that for everything–drinking, cooking, for my dogs… and usually for my plants. My parents have the same system, as does my brother, and we all love it.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Municipally treated drinking water will vary in taste from place to place, depending on the minerals that are in the raw water source. Where I live, the water tastes pretty good from the tap, but I have lived in places where there was a distinct chlorine taste at all times, like drinking from a swimming pool. Chlorine is the last thing that drinking water is treated with at the treatment plant to kill any remaining “bugs,” and usually the taste dissipates by the time is arrives at your house, but sometimes it doesn’t. As for safety, there is no doubt in my mind that drinking from the tap is safe, it’s just a matter is taste. I think that when water started being bottled, the companies tried to convince us that we needed pure spring water because it was so much better. But many times it’s not.
July 18th, 2008 at 8:03 am
I drink tap water and don’t notice any taste difference.
July 18th, 2008 at 8:20 am
I drink tap water - I also like my water closer to room temperature (like from the hose outside when we were kids!) so always ask for ‘no ice’ in restaurants. It is also something most of the rest of the world will do (drink room temperature water). At a forum where Mikhael Gorbachev spoke, he commented on the US’s fascination with putting ice in all its drinks. (Ice itself can become old-tasting because of smells in the freezing system.) At the time, I was in an MBA program doing a team study on water and water fountains, which included customer’s habits. Many people do refill their water bottles from the fountains in the airports (which tend to have drinkable water as you’ve found). At the same time, the other student (from India) and I discovered our common practice of letting that cooler water from the fountain warm up before drinking it. I have noticed regional differences like Brandon mentioned as well. The tap water in Ohio is not drinkable if there is no water softener on it. Whereas I like the water in Northwest Florida and find it sweet. I will drink tap water wherever I can, but switch to bottled water if it is not drinkable. I drink between 64 and 80 ounces a day and find it a great way to stay younger looking, healthier/glowing and more hydrated, as well as to stave off hunger and arthritis. It’s one of the three pillars for successful weight loss, and thankfully tap water is still fairly inexpensive!
July 18th, 2008 at 8:20 am
I’ve never been fond of the taste of public tap water. When I was a kid, we lived out in the country and had amazing well water. I would go over to friends’ houses that had city tap and would screw my face up at the taste of the water. Since marrying and moving to different places, I’ve begun using a Brita pitcher to get that pure taste. Like you, I don’t change the filters nearly as often as recommended because I just don’t feel the need to. I do drink tap water occasionally and fountain water all the time, but I much prefer my tasty Brita water!
July 18th, 2008 at 8:26 am
I live in Washington, DC where the tap water is undrinkable. When I moved to the area the first gift I received from a co-worker was a Brita water pitcher with express instructions to not drink unfiltered water.
I am trying my best to start drinking water exclusively again, but I couldn’t drink it unfiltered. In my opinion, the cost of filtering your water is worth it to get the unnecessary chemicals and things out of it.
July 18th, 2008 at 8:57 am
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July 18th, 2008 at 9:00 am
We rarely buy bottled water; only to take camping or longer car trips. In two places we lived, we did use a Pur filter on the faucet, one because we were in the country at the end of the city water line and got a lot of sediment in our water; the other because it improved the taste. Where we live now, the water has a good flavor. Much better than bottled water, which I think tastes “flat” for lack of a better word, and sometimes tastes bitter.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:04 am
I drink tap water but usually filtered. I dislike the taste of chlorinated water and water with excess flouride also has a funny flavor to me. Hence the filter.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Unfortunately, I drink bottled water. I have become so accustomed to the taste of Ozarka, that anything else won’t pass for me. I just told my 19 year old last night I am going to cut down by at least buying the gallon jug of Ozarka and a smaller case of “drink from” bottles to reduce my dependence on those pesky plastic bottles. I’ll drink from the gallon at home and only take the bottles to work.
I also may try tap water with ice and a slice of lime at home. I just need to find a way to mask the taste of tap.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:22 am
It has depended on where we live, sometimes the water tastes okay and sometimes not. When we moved into the house we currently lived in, I refused to drink the water and insisted we get a filter. My husband thought I was crazy. Our filter started breaking and I decided that the tap water tasted fine. I was also no longer pregnant, so perhaps I am picky about my water when I’m pregnant.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Heh, this is always a bit of a contentious issue
I honestly think that many of the taste differences people note in tap water are due to the fact that tap water comes out of the faucet warmer than iced bottle water, and our taste buds operate better at that temperature, so we taste more. It’s also possible that the filter is growing funky stuff and adding to the weird flavor you get when the filter needs changing.
Or, it’s also highly possible you’re right
I still happen to think bottled/filtered water is kind of silly, but so many people report differences to me that I’m not 100% invested in this position.
But then, I have well water, so I admit to being a bit spoiled.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:56 am
I’ve drank unfiltered tap water for most of my life. I usually think it tastes better than the bottled stuff - I agree with Annie Jones about bottled water having a “flat” taste. I had a Brita filter pitcher for a short time in college, but I was always forgetting to use it in favor of filling my glass at the tap. I like the way it tastes where I live - or, since I always get people bitchin’ at me that “water doesn’t taste like anything” whenever I say that, I like its “mouthfeel.”
July 18th, 2008 at 10:02 am
The comments here are interesting. One person says DC tap water is undrinkable. That’s all I drink and I think it’s fine (in fact, I hate Brita water). So I guess it really becomes a matter of personal taste.
Bottled water is one of the worst things we are doing to our environment. It’s also not regulated, so you really don’t know what you are drinking. A lot of times, it’s just filtered tap water - something you can do on your own for a lot cheaper. Spring water “tastes” better but can still be prone to microbial contamination. Plus the methods used to pump spring water (even from artesian wells) is pretty catastrophic to the environment. And then there’s the fuel cost of transporting water (which is heavy)…
I’m a big proponent of tap water. It’s cheap, easy, safe, and environmentally-friendly.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:09 am
I always drink the tap water, but that’s because I’m cheap. I’m on city water now, which is fine, but when I go back to my parents’ house, I can barely tolerate it, and I don’t know how I drank it as a kid. They live in Central Florida, and they’re on a well, and it absolutely reeks of sulfur. It’s really gross.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Interesting question…
I think it is ridiculous to buy water in Canada (being on my own well, I don’t pay any sort of water fee) so I won’t do it. I have a bit of a weird way of getting water. I have my own well and the water is good but there is some sediment in the water and I haven’t gotten around to getting a filter put on the well.
Instead, I get my water from my parents house (2.5 hours away). We have a couple of these huge jugs so have managed to never run out of water…one of us is regularly going to visit the other so Irefills arrive in time. It was never meant to be a permanent thing but now that I think about it, we’ve been doing this for six years now. Oops!
It might be sort of normal to us because when we lived in Germany we use to get our drinking water directly from a fresh spring - we’d put our plastic jugs up to the spout coming out of the mountain…that’s what people did there and the water was incredible.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:34 am
The main concerns with city tap water are the additives and environmental hazardous materials that leach into it. Fluoride, one of the most toxic substances added which is actually a chemical waste, as well as chlorine, and many other chemicals are added to “keep the water pure” and “aid our health” when in actuality these additives make the water acidic to our bodies, and cause an untold number of health issues. Natural health care practitioners all recommend filtered water.
We do filter our own, after years of buying bottles. A good Reverse Osmosis water filtration system pays for itself in a few months if you’ve been buying bottled, and the flavor is consistent. We found ours at Sam’s club for $150.00–much more costly than the Brita filter, but the flavor is way better in our opinion.
Just my twenty cents worth…
TM
July 18th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Go with a reverse osmosis system. We switched about four years ago. It increased our water intake significantly, we even carry as much as we can when we travel.
Sam’s or Costco is probably okay, we got ours from these folks - http://www.pwgazette.com/ very nice to deal with and quick service.
Drink On!
SandPine
July 18th, 2008 at 11:34 am
I’m back to regular old tap water again. It depends on where I live. Growing up, we filtered our water because the water that came out of the tap was… not always clear. A peril of living in a rural area, I guess. It was safe, just not appealing. But once I moved to a place where the water from the tap was clear and didn’t have a strange taste, I went back to drinking tap water. I do have a Brita that I keep in the fridge, but I find I’m often too lazy to pull that out and just fill my glass from the tap instead.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Water, straight from the tap, nearly all the time. I’ve been drinking more milk lately - I used to think I didn’t like milk, but my boyfriend got me drinking 1% milk, and I’m thinking that I just don’t like skim, which is what I grew up on.
I have juice about twice a week. I love it, but I generally drink it too fast when I buy it, so I try to limit how much I buy.
I stopped drinking soda regularly as a teen - I have caffeine sensitivity, so I got used to drinking the caffeine-free varieties, and since college started, I’ve really toned it down due to cost.
Some places the tap water is just better than others - I say if you need a filter where you are, then you need a filter. That’s fine, it really isn’t a big expense in comparison to drinking not-water.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
At my old house in central NJ, we had a well and the water tasted awesome. Our part of NJ was known for its deep aquifers and good well water. We had a treatment system, but that just fixed the pH and reduced the mineral content of the water a bit. Even at times when we had the treatment off (like for maintenance) our water tasted pretty good.
Now in Rockland county NY, the water isn’t nearly as tasty but we still drink it just the same. We have a Brita pitcher but use it only intermittently. Our ice cubes are usually made from tap water. The kids get tap water. We have reusable bottles we take with us. I got a flat of water bottles for free from Costco when I upgraded our membership, and it’s lasted for months.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Interesting comments about Central Florida - it depends where you are, I think. I’m in Daytona Beach and I think our tap water is fine; I drink it all the time. It’s actually won awards in water competitions. Just over the line in Ormond Beach, though, their water tastes kind of nasty to me now, whereas I used to live there and drank it from the tap all the time - maybe it’s what you get used to??
July 18th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
When I was a child we had a water cooler that held a 5 gallon jug - but we never filled it with anything other than tap water. I don’t know how the energy costs compare, but with seven children and two adults, I believe it was a good investment (to pay the electricity to run it - it was given to us) when you consider how many times the door of the fridge would have been opened for chilled water. I stopped drinking “city” water years ago because it tasted bad and was fluoridated. Now that we live out in the country we drink well water. It is delicious and flavorful.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I just use the tap if I want water - I can get it to come out pretty cold, and I’m not going to buy water to drink in the house when I’ve got a huge source available to me for next to nothing.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Your a water snob! No Im kidding. Seriously tho, I agree with you. Tap water these days tastes horrible due to all the chemicals they put in to treat it. That is unless you have a well or a spring that you tap water from. We once had a water filtration salesman come to our house and test our water. He basically told us that our tap water was equivalent to pool water because of the chlorine in it. The other thing for us is the fact that our city water comes from the lake and about twice a year the lake turns over (warm water shifts from top to bottom or vice versa in the spring and fall) and the water tastes like mold. We try to drink bottled water during that time because even filtered water tastes bad. The rest of the time, we just drink the chlorinated tap water. I never really thought about getting a filter for the rest of the year.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
i still drink tap water, but i run it through one of those pitchers with a filter on it. i think it’s a brita, but whatever it is, it works well and takes the weird taste out. the only thing i use straight tap water for is making sweet tea!
July 18th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
All these comments really made me think. I am more determined than ever to stop my bottled water addiction. I also hate lugging those cases of bottled water up to my 2nd story apartment.
So, no more bottled water for me. Let’s see how I do.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Straight from the tap for me. Tastes just fine but that may be because I don’t know any difference. We don’t even own a filtering pitcher. Oh, and I prefer it room temperature or at least not chilled.
When we go to restaurants, I order it sans ice.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I drink it straight from the tap and I’ve never had any issues, taste-wise or otherwise. I think you find tap water weird now because you have got used to the taste of filtered water.
July 18th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Tap water comes out chillingly cold and delicious here. I can see the watershed and feel comfortable about where the water comes from. (NW coastal Oregon) Once in a while it has a chlorine smell - so then I’ll set it on the counter for 5 minutes and the chlorine smell goes away.
I fill bottles with tap water for work - as there is no drinkable water there.
Grew up with well water, but the salt water started intruding in the 60’s and we had to get city water (SW Florida)
July 18th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Paidtwice, I use a Brita pitcher at home as well - and for the same reasons as you. I used to drink from the tap as a kid, but it tasty lousy then (and was disturbingly cloudy!) and it still tastes lousy now.
I used to drink 2-3 small bottles of water per day at work. Now, I just keep a bottle at my desk and fill it straight from the water fountain. The taste took some getting used to, but now I’m fine with it. Luckily, it also comes out ice cold! If I had to go back to drinking tap at home, I could probably do so, but to me the filters definitely improve the taste.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
PT - to answer your other question - yes, tap water is different than 25 years ago. We have much fancier methods of treating it, and we create more hazardous waste (and have new emerging infections), so we have to treat it more.
And for the record, the chemicals used to treat tap water are safe at the low doses you’re exposed to, unless you have allergies or a compromised immune system. If you can smell chlorine, that’s because you’ve got a major polluter upstream from your water source (or possibly near the treatment plant), and the chlorine content has to be upped to prevent contamination. In those cases, you might have to worry about DBPs, so a good reverse osmosis or activated charcoal filter should do the trick.
And the idea that using something that comes from a waste product is bad doesn’t make much sense. Welcome to the natural life cycle of Planet Earth, where everything is basically created from waste! If we didn’t have waste, we wouldn’t have life.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I drink my water from the tap. We have great tasting water where I live. I use a permanent water bottle filled with tap water when I travel. For environmental reasons, I try to never purchase bottled water.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
I never drink tap water, even though our water is supposed to be among the best in North America! The chlorine gives me a sore throat and post nasal drip. I used to just never drink water period until I discovered bottled water.
And I’m not giving it up, even though one of our city councillors just proposed banning bottled water from city hall and all city owned properties (like community centres). I mean, give your head a shake, Mr. Councillor. Prior to people drinking bottled water vending machines only sold sugar and phosphorus laden soft drinks. So, let’s take the water out of the vending machines because then the kids will all drink tap water. Right.
July 19th, 2008 at 12:35 am
I always drink tap water and it tastes just fine! But I do know that depending on where you live, the water can be hard or soft or more chlorine, etc. I think for the most part, filters are a waste of money as is bottled water. The amount of waste created is so harmful for the environment.
I also think we have been convinced by marketers and media that the water is “bad” but in fact it isn’t. Communities spend a lot of money on treatment. We just need to educate ourselves and not be so quick to listen to advertising that says drinking bottled water is better for us.
July 19th, 2008 at 4:27 am
I refuse to pay for something that is freely available from a tap. I keep a glass at my desk in work and use Sigg bottles for the gym and out-and-about.
Living in Belfast probably also helps as our tap water is coming straight from the Mourne mountains - no “recycling”
July 19th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
I drink tap water all the time, mostly because I’m paying for it and I’ll be darned if I’ll be corralled into paying MORE for the same stuff sold in bottles.
But… I think you’re right. It’s objectively true that what used to be good to drink really DOES taste weird.
I expect it’s the chemicals added to sterilize it. In the summer here, the water stinks of chlorine and, whenever there’s any kind of problem, the city adds another chemical that really smells and tastes awful. One summer even the dogs wouldn’t drink it…I ended up having to buy bottled water to get the dogs to drink out of their dog bowls!
If you put tap water out of my kitchen sink into a pool chemical test kit, you discover that it tests the same as nicely balanced swimming pool water. And if that doesn’t explain why it tastes weird, nothing does….
July 19th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
When I lived in Washington State growing up, we always drank tap water. It tastes incredible and very fresh/clean. I moved to San Diego for college, just graduated and am staying down here. The tap water here is absolutely DISGUSTING and I cannot stand it - even using a filter! As such, I buy bottle water. Many people I know here are very used to the tap water, even if they have moved here from other states with cleaner tap water.
I miss WA tap water!!
July 19th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Growing up our town had three faucets: hot, cold, and drinking. The local water was alkaline and foul and not drinkable, so drinking water came into town on railroad tank cars daily. Wonderful “sweet” water. Eventually the town got a reverse-osmosis system which worked beautifully and the water tasted great. Now I think they have canal water.
When we moved where we live now the water tasted awful (we had well water previously) and we were glad our refrigerator had a filter, which we changed when it said to change it. Then we noticed something … the water didn’t taste so bad anymore, so for a year now we haven’t put in a new filter and we’re just fine with the taste of the water. Just took getting used to, I guess. The refrigerator has a cold-water dispenser so that’s what we drink mostly, with added ice. Yeah, I like ice water year ’round. But often tap water is just fine.
We have a fifth-wheel RV and often local water doesn’t taste good to us, so we use bottled water then.
July 20th, 2008 at 2:12 am
It’s been said already, but I notice a difference regionally, even as small as different counties. We’ve had our PUR fridge filter for years for drinking and coffe/tea making, but when I visit parents in Colorado I drink from the tap–don’t know if it’s because I grew up on it or “trust” it more? Basically I can’t stand the chlorine taste, and if I can smell it from the faucet it’s a no-go for me. But, I’d fill up my own water bottle before going back to a plastic habit.
July 20th, 2008 at 8:41 am
I drink our tap water. I did the same at college.
But I don’t like the tap water at the house where I grew up, I prefer getting it from the filtration system there. I also don’t like DC tap water, for the most part. And at one aunt’s house, it tasted like sulfur…horrible.
I believe the taste of tap water varies quite widely. I suppose if it tasted bad here, we’d use a Brita (not yet at the stage where we’d go all-out on a filter, since won’t be here long).
July 20th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
We use the refrigerator’s filter almost exlusively.
Confession… even our dog is a filterned water snob. Sounds crazy, but she has a lot less tear stains, so maybe it means something.
The worst water I’ve tasted, hands down, Florida!
July 21st, 2008 at 1:32 am
I have chlorine tasting tap water so we use a Brita pitcher for water filtration, we used to buy bottled water but it didn’t make sense to considering we have a filter. We are also picky about the taste of bottled water, but Brita works just great for us.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Occasionally I will buy bottled water, but only if I need a new water bottle or if I am traveling and don’t have any along. At home, I generally drink just regular tap water, although occasionally I will refill a bottle and store it in the fridge to cool.
I do agree though that most of the time, the filtered water like you have does taste better.
August 23rd, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I used to drink tap but I just have doubts about the overall safety. My wife and I bought a house filter and it seems to taste better plus gives us peace of mind.