Purified Water

Our older kid is very sensitive to things like tastes and smells.

I felt like they were being a little ridiculous when they insisted that our tap water is totally undrinkable, and that we had to buy bottles of Ozarka instead.

I understand "a little ridiculous," and don't hold that against D. I understand that D has needs that I will never be able to comprehend.

I remember going to Grandma's when I was a kid and not being able to drink the water because "the lake is turning." I still don't understand what that means, but I know that our city goes through carefully controlled cycles between "so much filth that it's going to kill the fish in our lake" and "so much bleach that it's going to kill all the fish in our lake."

I think I'm basically a very simple, low-maintenance kind of person. I think most of the rest of the world can agree with me that range between those two extremes doesn't really taste all that different. A rare few (like D, Mal, and at least one of our nephews) aren't, and that's fine. Others (like Laura) just don't appreciate the delicious taste of water.

Our problem is that we haven't been able to find Ozarka water in ages.

So Laura took advantage of our luxury life and rented a cooler plus 5 gallon buckets. Our current plan is to go through 3 of those every 2 months.

The cooler is loud. And both surprising and annoying. But it does produce delightfully cold water on demand.

And I was shocked at how crisp and clear it tastes when compared with what we get out of the filtered tap from our fridge.

Earlier today, Laura pointed out that D hasn't had any, yet. I've probably gone through a gallon, and I'd been trying to swap evenly between the Ozarka and our tap water.

The Ozarka does taste a lot better, but we aren't getting it for me and my low-brow "needs."

This brings to my actual point about potable water.

Submarines (and probably most other naval vessels) have to use excess heat from their engines to purify sea water so the crews have something the crews can drink.

I vaguely recall something about a 70% purity rate being good enough for human consumption.

And I also vaguely remember that our rate was a little higher than standard. One of the guys warned warned me before we got underway that I'd have bright green baby shit because of this.

He also warned that our digestive systems start doing really weird things when we switch to really pure distilled water, which was another option that our sub never resorted to.

I don't know what Ozarka does to make it taste so much like a delicious mountain stream.

It's great. If you enjoy water at all, you should try it. If you don't, you should give it another chance.

It is not pure water.