Jane Welborn Hudson column: Put the water bottle down

By Jane Welborn Hudson


Monday, May 26, 2008

The New York Times reported Tuesday that a review of clinical studies has found no evidence that drinking eight glasses of water a day is beneficial to a person.

In the article, a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania was quoted as saying, "I want to relieve people of the burden of schlepping water bottles around all day long."

Well, that is a relief. Now maybe I can go back to drinking tap water when I'm thirsty, instead of shelling out $4 a bottle for Voss water to tote around in my trendy Coach bag all day.

When did we get so obsessed with hydrating? Why did we become afraid to leave the house without our plastic bottle filled with 16.9 ounces of spring water? And what were we thinking, spending so much money on H2O?

When I was growing up, I remember filling up a Looney Tunes glass with tap water and gulping it down on a hot day. If I wanted colder water, I'd have to wring ice cubes out of that plastic ice cube tray in the freezer. Some of the cold cubes always hopped out and skittered across the kitchen floor.

I was thrilled when we got a refrigerator/freezer with an ice and water dispenser in the door. Instant cold water — with the added luxury of crushed ice — was magical on a summer afternoon. I'd bring my playmates into the kitchen and we'd line up in front of the freezer, shoving our glasses up against the button that dispensed the water. Our dirty hands would leave muddy prints on the pristine white exterior for Mom to clean up.

The best water I ever drank was from a natural spring in the woods on my Grandma's farm in the Piedmont. Dad would take me to the spot where crystal clear, incredibly cold water sprang to the earth's surface. I'd fill the beat-up metal dipper that always hung there and slowly sip what tasted to me like liquid rocks. It was so pure and cold that gulping it down would give me a brain-freeze headache.

For most of my life, water was something I drank when I first sat down at the table at the restaurant, before they brought me my sweet tea.

Then came the designer water craze of the late 1990s, and all that changed. Suddenly, water wasn't just the beverage of choice of dieters or athletes. It was trendy to drink water — but not just any water. Fancy water in fancy bottles with fancy names from fancy places. Evian from France and Fiji from the Fiji Islands. Ty Nant, in its cobalt blue bottle, and San Pelligrino, in its green bottle. A Hollywood producer even began taking water from a spring in Tennessee, bottling it in glazed glass bottles adorned with Swarovski crystals, calling it Bling H20 and selling it for $20-$50 per bottle.

There are flavored waters and waters with added vitamins and minerals. One brand brags that it's "smartwater," and another offers "Brain Water," "Muscle Water," "Immune Water" and "Bone Water."

I just want some wet water.

I am guilty of carting around water all the time. In fact, there are 10 bottles of water on my desk at work, just in case I need hydrating while on deadline. There are several more bottles in my car and one in my purse.

But just because I carry water around with me doesn't mean I drink eight glasses of water a day. Now I'm glad that I don't have to worry about that any more.

Because a story in Wednesday's New York Times caught my eye. It states that 51 million cases of vodka were sold in the United States last year, or roughly two bottles of vodka per American. That makes me way behind on my vodka consumption.

Hold the water. I'll have a Harvey Wallbanger instead.