The FastDay Forum

OK There are exceptions. I am really thinking that the bottled water industry is no better than the soft drink industry in terms of profit motive,

Well, they wouldn't bottle water for charity, would they?

I've read A LOT of bad stuff about coke and diet coke recently in 'health' magazines so I switched to sprite Zero ...then I read that diet soft drinks are Possibly worse than regular ones?! Lol I've given up listening and drink what I like

As they say... I read so much about what smoking does to you that U had to quit reading!

BTW, this thread had me craving for coke. So I had a regular one. Twas goooood!

Pure poison for sure. Go for great superfood and superdrinks: herbal organic tea and organic coffee! Kombucha is great too and very healing.

Whenever we go sailing we make sure we have a supply of Coca Cola as it is the only drink we have found so far that quickly replaces energy and rehydrates. I carry rehydration sachets but they don't work as quickly or have the same effect. A flat coca cola is also a remedy for seasickness. However, if I have a coca cola at any other time it makes me belch!

@ Merlin - I have just read some of this thread and although I don't have a strong opinion on diet drinks (I don't drink sodas myself!) I agree with you on the bottled water thing. It is one of my pet hates to see the mountains of discarded plastic containers in town centres, the countryside, floating on my favourite loch, along the paths of mountains, for goodness sake...could go on and on. Why don't people just get themselves a preferably glass bottle (I know that is not always practical, so plastic if you must) and fill it and reuse it instead of endlessly adding to the mountain of plastic rubbish we are generating?

Coke and diet coke, I will drink the odd one with some rum, most of the time I use it to bring up our sinks to a lovely shine and clean the loos too- hate to think what it does to our insides!

Yep, a can of Coke poured into you loo overnight will bring out the shine - its the phophoric acid!
It's the desperate man that drinks lavatory cleaner, I love a coke now and again...

Coke is bad for you in large quantities. Would it be ok to drink less?
Coca-Cola drinking 'linked to New Zealander's death'

A nice glass of metal cleaner now and again puts me in touch with my inner alky!

@ Merlin - I have just read some of this thread and although I don't have a strong opinion on diet drinks (I don't drink sodas myself!) I agree with you on the bottled water thing. It is one of my pet hates to see the mountains of discarded plastic containers in town centres, the countryside, floating on my favourite loch, along the paths of mountains, for goodness sake...could go on and on. Why don't people just get themselves a preferably glass bottle (I know that is not always practical, so plastic if you must) and fill it and reuse it instead of endlessly adding to the mountain of plastic rubbish we are generating?

Dhana, fill it and reuse it... but from where? When I go to my favourite island I do so in the village spring but we don't have any village (or city) spring in Athens...

Many things that we eat and drink everyday are excellent cleaners. My mum washes her curtains in club soda, lemon cleans stains from rust, sugar cleans old silverware, banana peal cleans stains from markers, vinegar cleans stains from coffee, milk cleans leather goods and a mix of green or mint tea and bicarbonated soda will make your loo look whiter than snow.

So, just because it cleans something it doesn't mean it's bad for you...

IF the water is safe to drink-from the tap.
Bottled water isn't necessarily purer or safer.

Ah, that's the thing. Most of us (at least here in Greece) drink bottled water for a reason. And that is that tap water is not safe to drink...

I agree it can be a problem in 3rd world and developing countries in that tap water is often not safe to drink. Surprised that Greece falls into this category? Whenever I have lived in Africa or Middle East I have either used various filter methods or bought large containers and we have filled our bottles from those. This is going completely off topic but plastic waste is a huge problem in a lot of developing countries eg. where foodstuffs used to be wrapped in paper the wrapper of choice now is plastic. Years ago when we live in Sana'a in northern Yemen my son thought the brightly coloured bags which would get blown about and end up on tree branches were flowers! Particularly on the outskirts of villages where the rubbish is dumped there would be little forests of "bag trees" and mountains of plastic water bottles. Not a pretty sight!

Half of Greece is islands, islands have water that is either brackish and/or stored in huge tanks.
Tap water in big cities is safe to drink as long as there is no particular reason to not drink it. For example, I have a certain sensitivity in my kidneys and I'm only allowed to drink bottled water.
To be fair though, I've never seen any bag trees or mountains of plastic bottles around here. All our bags are reusable and/or biodegradable and all plastic bottles go into recycling.