Water is essential to keeping our bodies functioning throughout our busy day. Without enough fluid or water, we become ‘dehydrated.’ Imagine leaving a grape in the sun for a few hours…

To compensate for lost fluids, to balance electrolytes and to maintain a healthy blood pressure, kidney function, heart rhythm and brain cognition, we MUST drink enough. This is especially important in hot weather when our bodies lose more water than usual, or when we exercise and break a sweat.

Most experts recommend up to 8 glasses a day. Let’s just break this down.

GLASS = 250ml x 8 glasses = 2000ml or 2 L.

Hold on… that doesn’t appear to be much given our bodies are on average around 55% to 60% water. Most of that in the blood, liver and kidneys.

Let’s crank it up to 300ml. = x 8 glasses = 2400ml or 2.4 L. Again, not much.

Normal daily fluid loss in healthy people is supposedly around 650ml.

2000ml – 650ml = 1350ml

From the picture above, it is easy to see how dehydration impacts the body. Your kidneys will be strained and they try to maintain electrolyte and blood pressure levels. The liver will become sluggish and will not be able to work or filter toxins effectively and the blood will ‘thicken’ or become harder to pump making your heart work harder.

The cure? Surely you need more water.

“I am thirsty, I need a drink.”

“Here’s some cold tap water.”

This is what would have once been the norm for the thirsty. The kids who used to drink water at lunch and dinner rather than the sugar and soda fest that occupies most households and restaurants nowadays. Would you let someone who is dehydrated drink fizzy soda rather than water?

You decide to bulk purchase a big 24 crate of still water – ‘mountain p*** for idiots’ (a fake made up company for this post).

The family is sitting around the table for a roast dinner. You surprise them by telling them you have bought the finest mountain spring water in the country. You decide you are more sophisticated than the average ‘cock (coke) at dinner drinker’ and decide to pour your family a glass of the water. They all hesitate but after you reassure them this mountain p*** is the best, they gulp it down, and ask for more.

Soon, you can’t buy enough of this stuff, and it only cost 20p a bottle – you prefer glass bottles as you want to look impressive to your coking neighbours. The recycling bin has never has so much use, your neighbours are tripping over their garden fences to see what you are dumping in those bins…again! One day, you roll up to your driveway, a trunk of not three, but four cases of this still mountain p*** and begin to unload. You don’t mind the aching arms or the shriveling skin around your neck. You are eager to give this family the best water. Not the peasant tap water or the sugar laced cock cans.

You take it slowly, unloading the bottles into the fridge in the garage. You decide to examine with pride the bottle. Your eyes are drawn to the label at the bottom. Your world has just been crushed, the bottle is slipping from your grasp, but the tears weltering in your eyes literally blinds you are you smash it on the floor.

The bottle is made by the same company that makes the soda, the biggest soda company in the world. Enraged, you hop onto the computer to check mountain p*** and the company name on the bottle. The site confirms it, lots of those diabetic and dehydrated soda drinkers back this company, and this company has created some of the largest water brands in the world. Mountain p*** being the most popular and the cheapest. They have other soft drinks, like orange juice and fruit juices.

The big brand that sells the sugary fizzy drinks is in fact selling these healthy drinks; thus, the profits are funding the large stakeholder, the dangerous drinks. The water brand is a front and you and millions of others have been deceived.

21st century, spring, still, sparkling and an assortment of flavoured waters with toxic additives and flavourings and sweeteners have been added to the market. The bottle waters are over priced and the majority have things added.

The term natural in the water world has no meaning anymore. The only way to truly guarantee safe and clean spring water is to test it yourself. You will probably find that bigger brands are allowed a ‘certain level’ of harmful bacteria in their waters and that bottled water is safer and much better for people.

It doesn’t matter how it is packaged. Water is water. Hyping a natural substance to be more than, when in fact is less than good quality is beyond reason. Granted, a glass of sparkling water with ice in the sun is refreshing. On top of that, the companies have total disregard for public waste, the billions of plastic bottles from these companies will take millennium to remove and clear. Their excuse for not using glass, albeit some do and others use tin, is that the cost of glass bottles is higher. Interesting, your bonus last year could have covered the difference and for a better cause.

Given that companies and advertising agencies are intent on pushing these expensive products on us, they could at least have the decency to tell us what those natural ‘flavourings’ are, because they could be anything. Third world countries have had masses of land and natural resources stolen from them, Bolivia for example. The water is bought by huge multinational countries who build damns, block water to local towns and instead divert and send it to the first world countries. If that isn’t good enough to avoid buying these products, then what is?

If the world is thirsty then give it a drink.