When I was a kid, America considered bottled water froufrou—a European luxury.

Now many people prefer bottled water. They don’t see it as an inessential luxury. They believe it’s healthier.

Yet, as a population, we’re less healthy than then. As a nation, our land and water is less pure and less clean than then.

Why you drink bottled water

How do you explain people thinking they’re healthier when they aren’t?

Simple: the bottled water companies market better than people think for themselves.

We don’t realize it. On the contrary, most people would probably say that marketing doesn’t affect them.

But consider this: if people believe something is healthier—healthier than what?

What are they comparing bottled water to?

Partly to tap water, but studies show tap water healthier than bottled, with rare exception, which are known. It certainly pollutes more so isn’t healthy when the plastic infects the food supply.

The answer is that they’re most comparing it to soda, sweetened drinks, juice, and other empty calorie drinks.

They’re saying it’s healthier than soda. As a culture, we’ve accepted that soda is a standard—that is, normal.

The marketers won!

As a culture, we believe that soda is normal and water is a healthy alternative.

Some results:

• Impoverishing people paying for something that’s free
• Ignorance about health, purity, and pollution
• This:

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