You shatter me, your grip on me a hold on me so dull it kills

[venta]

I've just finished a bottle of Princes Gate "still natural Welsh spring water". It tasted repellently of plastic, but that's probably my fault for leaving a half-drunk bottle lying about on my desk for a week.

As I considered whether I could throw the bottle accurately into the recycling box from my desk (unlikely), I noticed that the label says:

"Lovingly drawn and bottled on our fully Organic site in Pembrokeshire, Wales."

The "Organic" is in yellow (the remainder of the text is a sort of soothing blue).

Which led me to think... hang on a minute, this is naturally-occurring water. In a plastic bottle. What is there to get all organic about? I assume we're talking organic in the food-accreditation sense rather than the chemistry sense. They're big on the idea that all they do is wait 15 years for rainwater to filter through rocks and then put the outcome in a bottle. Maybe they only feed the rocks on naturally-produced fertisiliers, or something.

Having visited their website (which was a challenge, because the URL on the bottle returns a 404), I think it means that their bottling plant is on a farm, and the (largely-unrelated) dairy business is organic.

I can't help feeling it's a little disingenuous advertising bottled spring water as organic, though.

Comments

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

This is still one of my favourites though -
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=264504403&sc_cmp=pcp_GSF_63868639

[venta.livejournal.com]

:)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Although at least - even though it goes badly against the grain to conceded organicness of comething which has no carbon in it - you can tell the sort of thing they mean.

I genuinely have very little idea what non-organic-accredited water might be :)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Since "organic" is defined in food labelling terms by what hasn't been done to the product rather than what has, the concept of organic water is perfectly well defined no matter how bang-head-against-wall stupid it may be.

An example of non-organic water would be tapwater, since the water company uses various chemicals to render it suitable for human consumption.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Whereas if it happens to pick up naturally occurring chlorine, that's fine :)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Well yes. Quite apart from anything else, natural chlorine is higher in dietary fibre.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

you can tell the sort of thing they mean

I'm not even clear about it on that basis. What fiendish processes might non-organic sea salt depend upon?

[uitlander]

Yes. I was thinking of that, but you got there first.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Use-by dates on water always worry me. I've seen bottled water advertised as low fat and low sugar, which, well, I should bloody well hope so!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Really? I've never noticed the low-fat/low-sugar thing.

I'm vaguely terrified :(

I don't buy water that often, and read the labels even less often. I may start... and then I may wish I hadn't...

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Water will generally have a 'best before' rather than a 'use by', and that's because all commercial food products are supposed to. And of course, as venta notes above, the taste of water is affected by chemicals from the plastic bottle leaching into it. So in effect it's the bottle that 'goes off', not the water.

[hjalfi.livejournal.com]

As a water snob (I grew up in a community which got our tap water from the next spring along the hill from where Highland Spring bottled theirs) I should point out that proper mineral water always comes in glass bottles.

I now live in Reading, and despair every time I turn on a tap.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I should by all rights disagree with you on the basis that it's just water damn well drink it, but actually I went into a shop to buy some mineral water because the previous plastic bottle had got smelly after the 10th refill and found some Snapple which still uses glass bottles which don't go smelly at all, so I bought it instead.

Also I grew up in Reading and every time I go home I have that little moment of "is there a dead pigeon in the water pipes or something?" So I am forced to concede that you may have a point.

[smiorgan.livejournal.com]

Camelbak better bottle:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Camelbak-Better-Bottle-Tritan-Black/dp/B0019DA7IW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1332420249&sr=8-3

Does not go smelly, difficult to spill all over your desk. I have 2, they're great.

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

I did once spend time scouring the shelves looking for diet soda water, I must confess (in my defence, I had tonic water on the brain, and that /does/ come in both regular & diet - although tonic water on the brain sounds like a rather unpleasant medical condition experienced in the tropics, when phrased like that!)

[thegreenman.livejournal.com]

fertisiliers

I love that word....

[venta.livejournal.com]

Fertilisiers are brilliant. You put them on your plants, and they brandish light musketry until the plants agree to grow better.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

If they shoot aphids I'm in.

[smiorgan.livejournal.com]

Careful, you might shoot your plants.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Customer: Is that still natural Welsh spring water?
Salesperson: It was last time I looked.