Industry experts: 90% bottled water is not suitable for long-term drinking

Some persons in charge of bottled water enterprises do not drink bottled water produced by themselves

Zhong Yi and Sun Xu

So far, 2221 kinds of organic compounds have been detected in water all over the world. Hundreds of millions of people in China drink this polluted water. More and more people are found to have various metabolic diseases. Medical departments and relevant experts have confirmed that this is directly related to unclean drinking water

Ice Dew Mineral Water, Unified Alkaoua Drinking Natural Water, Watsons Distilled Water/Drinking Mineral Water, Nestle Drinking Water (from deep groundwater)... various bottled water with various names in the market is dazzling. Industry experts told the First Financial Daily that the so-called natural water, distilled water and mineral water are all kinds of bottled water, Its essence is mostly playing with concepts. The quality of water has not changed much, and only a few can really be suitable for long-term drinking. 90% of bottled water in the market is not suitable for long-term drinking, and long-term drinking will be harmful to the body.

In addition, a lot of bottled water has also been detected that the potential carcinogen bromate exceeds the standard, and the seemingly pure bottled water is actually not so "pure".

The concept of "blindfold"

According to the classification of packaged drinking water in the national standard GB10789 General Principles for Beverages, and according to the characteristics of water sources and processing methods, it can be divided into six categories: drinking natural mineral water, drinking purified water, drinking natural spring water, other natural drinking water, drinking mineral water, and other packaged drinking water. The bottled water market can be divided into four categories, including distilled water, drinking pure water, drinking mineral water, drinking natural spring water and natural mineral water. Dong Qingli, a food expert, told reporters that water is one of the main ways for human beings to obtain minerals, one of the six nutrients.

Nowadays, Watsons' distilled water has become popular with many young people, and has aroused a wave of distilled water fever in the drinking water market. As Watsons' distilled water said on its packaging, it is made by high-temperature gasification and distillation, every drop of which is pure; There is only one ingredient distilled water. This concept has attracted many consumers who have high requirements for the quality of drinking water. In their eyes, the distilled water packaged by the business concept must be free of any impurities. Moreover, due to the high cost of distillation process, these distilled water are often sold at a higher price than ordinary water.

Liao Lei, secretary-general of the Natural Mineral Water Professional Committee of the China Mining Federation, told reporters that distilled water does not contain minerals needed by the human body, and is basically acidic against the human body. Long term drinking is not good for the human body. In Europe and America, this kind of water is mainly used in industry, such as blending wine and some drinks.

Liao Lei further explained: "Purified water, including distilled water, is safe according to national standards, but through many comparative experiments with mice in the laboratory, long-term drinking is not conducive to life and health, is not beneficial or even harmful to the body." The Shanghai Municipal Education Commission also issued a document stipulating that primary and secondary school students and kindergartens will no longer use pure water as drinking water. The document quoted a demonstration result from the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission and the Shanghai Municipal Health Bureau: "Primary and secondary school students are at the stage of growth and intellectual development. In addition, good exercise consumes a lot of inorganic salts and minerals. For example, long-term drinking of pure water will affect the healthy growth of primary and secondary school students."

So, is the mineral water added with minerals beneficial to human body?

Mineral water is made by adding mineral food additives on the basis of pure water. Generally, it is made of urban tap water as raw water, and then filled after pure purification, mineral addition and sterilization. Take the ice dew drinking mineral water produced by Coca Cola Company as an example. The ingredients list indicates that magnesium sulfate, potassium chloride and other food additives are added. In fact, all water in nature contains minerals.

Therefore, In Liao Lei's opinion: "Purified water and mineral water are basically the same thing. Mineral water is to add some minerals in the purified water, mainly two kinds, magnesium sulfate and potassium chloride, which is meaningless. It is equivalent to adding salt in the water. The minerals we need are not only magnesium and potassium, which are all in tap water, but also in table salt None of the national mandatory standards for natural mineral water has any requirements for basic minerals such as calcium and potassium, because all natural waters have them. The enterprise emphasizes that adding minerals is actually changing the concept, and takes this feature as a selling point. "

Dong Qingli told reporters that the minerals necessary for the human body are macro elements that need more calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium and chlorine, and trace elements that need less iron, zinc, copper, manganese, cobalt, molybdenum, selenium, iodine and chromium. Therefore, Liao Lei believes that mineral water, like distilled water, has related problems that are not conducive to human health and is not suitable for long-term drinking.

So, is bottled water made of natural spring water suitable for long-term drinking? In fact, it is not.

The so-called natural water refers to the water existing in nature, such as the water of Qiandao Lake, the source of Nongfu Spring, or the water of Huangpu River in Shanghai, which are all natural water, and all natural surface water are natural water. Unfortunately, many natural water have been polluted. In the second half of the last century, the development of industry made the water polluted by industrial wastewater and waste residue, especially the wastewater containing heavy metals, which greatly endangered human health. In recent years, with the rapid development of industry, a large amount of wastewater containing complex organics has been produced and discharged into natural water bodies without proper treatment. Therefore, among the problems of water pollution, organic pollution is the most prominent.

So far, 2221 kinds of organic compounds have been detected in water all over the world. Hundreds of millions of people in China drink this polluted water. More and more people are found to have various metabolic diseases. Medical departments and relevant experts have confirmed that this is directly related to unclean drinking water.

Liao Lei stressed that almost 70%~80% of the water is polluted to varying degrees, so even our tap water has certain risks. At present, the water plant's ability to deal with water pollution cannot keep up with the speed of water pollution, and the production process of tap water is often insufficient to solve the problem of water pollution. Similarly, enterprises that use natural water to produce natural drinking water are safe if they strictly follow the standards, but the risk of water source pollution cannot be ignored.

It is difficult to reach a high standard to play the concept of "being close to famous brands"

Since natural mineral water is widely considered as the most suitable drinking water for human consumption, it has also caused many water enterprises to play the sidelines. For example, this year, many places have introduced the landmark of "mountain spring water". Liao Lei believes that these are actually more packaging and hype in the concept. The removal of the word "mineral" from natural water and mineral water means that they are not subject to strict approval and testing of mineral water, which greatly reduces the cost of enterprise production. When consumers looked at it, they thought it was mineral water, but in fact, the quality was very different. Because the approval and production standards of mineral water are higher, the water source and production standards of many enterprises cannot meet, so the deep groundwater of Nestle is not the same as natural mineral water, and the retail price on the market is only a little lower than "natural mineral water", which is suspected of playing tricks on the concept.

Nestle related people also admitted that the drinking water produced by its Shanghai factory could not meet the standard of natural mineral water, so the new package only called Nestle drinking water. However, the reporter found that its package was still marked with natural deep groundwater.

In fact, with the intensification of industry competition, major enterprises have invested a lot of money and energy in brand marketing, but they have not done enough to improve the quality of drinking water. The overall growth rate of China's beverage industry slowed down in 2012. According to AC Nielsen data, the overall sales volume of the beverage industry increased by 9.1% in 2012, a new low since 2000. Xiang Jianjun, a researcher in the food industry of CIC Consulting, told reporters that the current competition among water enterprises is quite fierce. In order to expand the popularity and cope with the fierce market competition, the marketing expenses and advertising expenses of water enterprises are rising.

Of course, the problems of bottled water are not limited to these. All bottled water, including natural mineral water, has the risk of exceeding the standard of bromate, a potential carcinogen. On January 9 this year, the Beijing Food Safety Office reported that the bromate of "Shenyi Guquan Natural Mineral Water" exceeded the standard by four times. Bromate is internationally recognized as a potential 2B carcinogen, and the national standard has strict limits. The reason for bromate exceeding the standard is the defect of the water treatment system of the water production enterprise. Bromate is produced in the process of ozone sterilization in production and processing.

In fact, due to the problems in the bottled water market, some heads of bottled water enterprises do not drink their own water. Liao Lei admitted that he himself encountered several heads of water enterprises do not drink their own water.

Xiang Jianjun told reporters that at present, the competition points of China's drinking water market mainly focus on the water source and product quality. In order to gain a broad market share and win the trust of consumers, the quality of drinking water must be guaranteed. Drawing/Jiang Haoming

Definition of six categories of drinking water

Drinking natural mineral water

Use unpolluted underground mineral water naturally gushing from deep underground or collected by drilling; Containing a certain amount of mineral salts, trace elements or carbon dioxide gas; Under normal circumstances, the products are made from water sources whose chemical composition, flow, water temperature and other dynamics are relatively stable within the range of natural cycle fluctuations.

natural spring drinking water

The product is made of natural spring water gushing from underground or unpolluted underground spring water collected by drilling and not passing through the public water supply system.

Other natural drinking water

Products made from unpolluted wells, reservoirs, lakes or mountain glaciers and other water sources not passing through the public water supply system.

purified drinking water

The products, including distilled water, are made from the water conforming to GB5749-2006 (Hygienic Standard for Drinking Water) as the source, and the minerals in the water are removed by appropriate processing methods.

mineral drinking water

The product is made by taking the water conforming to GB5749 as the water source, adopting appropriate processing methods, and purposefully adding a certain amount of minerals.

Other drinking water

The product is made from water conforming to GB5749, without color mixing treatment, using appropriate processing methods, such as flavoring water added with proper amount of edible essence (ingredient).

Source: National standard GB10789 General Principles for Beverages

(China Business News)