Summary
Coca-Cola's Dasani brand of bottled water was found to have illegally
high levels of bromate, a cancer-causing chemical, say company
executives in the UK. Coca-Cola, which had called their water, "as pure
as bottled water gets," immediately recalled 500,000 bottles. It is, of
course, a public relations disaster for the company, which has been
trying to develop new markets other than soft drinks.
So what's the
real story? For years, Coca-Cola has stood adamantly against consumers
buying water. In the United States, the company even ran a campaign
called, "Just say no to H2O" with Olive Garden restaurants that trained
waters to push soft drinks onto guests who might otherwise have only
wanted to drink water. Prizes and free trips were given away to the
waiters who sold the most soft drinks to customers.
In time,
however, Coca-Cola realized it couldn't fight the trend towards water
forever, so it came up with its own water brand. But instead of bottling
spring water, Coca-Cola decided to bottle tap water. That's right: the
very same water you get out of your kitchen faucet. Only Coca-Cola
purified the water and then added in a minute amount of minerals. They
then sold the water at enormous markups: as much as 300,000% (not a
typo) over the original price for the water. That's the Coca-Cola way,
it seems: take a bunch of really cheap ingredients, slap on a pretty
label, and push it to the public at extraordinary markups. Heck, it
worked for soft drinks, why not water, too?
Unfortunately, this
process of purifying the water turns out to be less than ideal, in this
case at least, since the Dasani water was found to be contaminated with
bromate. The lesson here is that there's no water as pure as spring
water. If you want to drink bottled water, shop for water that's bottled
at the source, from natural springs, without any added ingredients.
I should point out that every Dasani bottling plant operates on a
different water source, using different equipment. And this was a scare
in the UK, not the U.S., so just because high levels of bromate were
found in the UK products doesn't mean they're present in the States. But
the point is valid: tap water is never as good as spring water, no
matter how you process it.
Original source:
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Details
Dasani, the tap water bottled by Coca-Cola and marketed as specially
pure with a huge publicity campaign, was withdrawn from the market
yesterday after impurities were found to have been introduced in the
production process.
The water, which was launched two weeks ago, labelled prominently as
"pure" and referred to by Coke executives as "as pure as bottled water
gets", was found to have illegally high levels of bromate, a chemical
which the Food Standards Agency said could lead to an increased risk of
cancer.
Last night it was withdrawing all 500,000 bottles of Dasani - sales of
which had been expected to reach £35m in its first year - which had
arrived on high-street shelves.
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health author and award-winning journalist with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He has authored and published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like health and the environment, and he has created several downloadable courses on survival and preparedness, including his widely-downloaded course on personal safety and self-defense. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In 2010, Adams created TV.NaturalNews.com, a natural living video sharing site featuring thousands of user videos on foods, fitness, green living and more. He also founded an environmentally-friendly online retailer called BetterLifeGoods.com that uses retail profits to help support consumer advocacy programs. He's also the CEO of a highly successful email newsletter software company that develops software used to send permission email campaigns to subscribers. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit consumer protection group, and regularly pursues cycling, nature photography, Capoeira and Pilates. He's also author of numerous health books published by Truth Publishing and is the creator of several consumer-oriented grassroots campaigns, including the Spam. Don't Buy It! campaign, and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. He also created the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds.
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Wednesday, May 05, 2004
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