■ Community survey

Zhong Yi and Sun Xu

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 said that the essence of the so-called natural water, distilled water, mineral water and other bottled water is to play with concepts, The quality of water has not changed much, and only a small part of it is really suitable for human long-term drinking. Ninety percent of bottled water in the market is not suitable for long-term drinking, and long-term drinking will be harmful to human health.

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.

It is not suitable to drink purified water for a long time

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.

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; Its ingredient is only 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.

In this regard, Liao Lei, secretary-general of the Natural Mineral Water Professional Committee of the China Mining Federation, believes 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."

Pollution risk of natural water storage

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, the raw water is urban tap water, which is 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, pure water and mineral water are basically the same thing. Mineral water is to add some minerals in pure water, mainly two kinds, magnesium sulfate and potassium chloride, which are meaningless. It is equivalent to adding salt to water. The minerals we need are not only that magnesium and potassium, which are all found in tap water, Salt also contains these. There is no national mandatory standard for natural mineral water in China that requires magnesium, potassium and other basic minerals. Because all natural waters have these minerals, enterprises emphasize that adding minerals is actually a steal of the concept, taking this is not a surprising feature as a selling point.

Dong Qingli, a food expert, said that the minerals necessary for the human body include 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, 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% to 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.

High standard of natural mineral water

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. Natural water and mineral water 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 seems to play 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.

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. (From China Business News)

(Original title: It is not suitable for teenagers to drink purified water for a long time)