PEPSI ADMITS AQUAFINA COMES FROM TAP WATER
By Mike Adams
NewsTarget.com
August 2, 2007

http://www.newstarget.com/z021962.html

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It's a great marketing gimmick: A bottle of water with a clean, blue
label
showing images of snow-capped mountains and the claim, "Pure water,
perfect
taste." That's the image created by Pepsico's Aquafina brand of
water, and
many consumers leap to the incorrect conclusion that Aquafina is
sourced
from mountain spring water.

In reality, Aquafina comes from tap water. Yes, the same water you
get when
you turn on your kitchen faucet. Of course, Aquafina is filtered,
purified
and perhaps even enhanced with trace amounts of added minerals, but
it's
certainly not mountain spring water
<http://www.newstarget.com/water.html>.
It's just processed tap water
<http://www.newstarget.com/tap_water.html> --
the same stuff that fills your toilet bowl when you flush.

Both the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) and the FDA
believe
there's really no need to require bottled water
<http://www.newstarget.com/bottled_water.html> manufacturers to admit
their
products come from tap water. No surprise there -- both these
organizations
routinely act to protect the interests of powerful corporations
<http://www.newstarget.com/corporations.html>, and when it comes to
bottled
water, the biggest companies are often those sourcing the lowest
quality
water (such as tap water).

This idea that consumers should not be informed their high-priced
bottled
water is really just filtered tap water is consistent with the aims
of food,
drug and beverage corporations, who almost universally agree that
consumers
should be given less information, not more, about the products they're
swallowing. Over the last several decades, corporations have
vigorously
opposed truth in labeling laws and regulations
<http://www.newstarget.com/labeling.html>, including those requiring
the
labeling of trans fatty acids, sodium content and even ingredients
lists!
(If the food corporations had their way, all ingredients would be
considered
"proprietary formulas" and not listed on the label at all.)

This bottled water issue brings to light the apparent deceptive
practices of
some of the largest suppliers of bottled water products. By avoiding
the
honest labeling of the source of their water while relying on snow-
capped
mountain imagery, these companies quietly mislead consumers into
thinking
their water products are from a pristine, natural source such as a
mountain
spring.

CAI pressures PepsiCo to tell the truth

PepsiCo only agreed to tell the truth on their bottled water labels
after
being pressured by Corporate Accountability International (CAI), a
non-profit organization that helps protect consumers from corporate
abuse.
See their website at <http://www.stopcorporateabusenow.org>.

CAI rallied consumers from around the world to complain to PepsiCo
about the
current labeling of Aquafina, and thousands of consumers slammed
PepsiCo's
phone lines so hard that the company was forced to shut down call
center
operations. CAI told NewsTarget that within 30 minutes after the
call-to-action announcement went live, PepsiCo's consumer phone lines
were
no longer being answered and would not allow callers to leave voice
mails.
Pepsi executives reportedly held an emergency meeting and made a
decision to
add the phrase, "Public water source" to Aquafina labels.

Reluctantly admitting a small part of the truth

Even then, the phrase "public water source" isn't very descriptive.
To some
people, the phrase simply implies that Aquafina is itself a public
water
source. It's not the same as admitting, "Aquafina comes from tap
water,"
which would be a far more honest way to label the product. But
PepsiCo seems
to have no interest in advertising the source of their Aquafina
product, and
my guess is that the "public water source" text on the label will be
really
small and difficult to read. It's much like the labeling of side
effects of
prescription drugs: They bury the bad news somewhere that most
consumers
won't ever look.

Aquafina is currently the top-selling bottled water brand in the
United
States. According to CAI, 4 out of 5 consumers now drink bottled
water, and
1 out of 5 drink it as their sole water source! (Gee, that's a lot of
plastic going to landfill, too...)

The bottles used to package bottled water are almost always made from
plastics containing bisphenol-A (BPA), a carcinogenic chemical that
often
leaches into the water and gets swallowed by consumers. Click here to
read
our articles on BPA <http://www.newstarget.com/BPA.html>, a chemical
widely
believed to contribute to certain cancers. This contamination factor,
however, is true for all products stored in plastic bottles, not
merely
water. Sports drinks, sodas <http://www.newstarget.com/sodas.html>,
fruit
drinks and even "healthy" smoothie drinks packaged in plastic all
share a
common risk of BPA contamination.

Bottled water vs. public water infrastructure

The widespread shift towards bottled water products is increasingly
causing
consumers to lose faith in public water infrastructure, which
ultimately
leads to public reluctance to support investment in public water
supplies.
This concerns many cities who are worried that a lack of public
support will
cause funding for water infrastructure to erode.

These people tend to describe treated municipal water as remarkably
pristine
and safe for human consumption. In my opinion, however, tap water
should
never be swallowed without filtering it, since tap water contains
scary
levels of toxic chemicals such as chlorine
<http://www.newstarget.com/chlorine.html> and fluoride, a dangerous
water
additive chemical often contaminated with arsenic. (Click here to
learn the
truth about water fluoridation
<http://www.newstarget.com/fluoride.html>.)

So I wouldn't drink from the public water supply in the first place,
but
neither do I rely on bottled water. I use a water filtration system
to clean
tap water before I drink it. (Coincidentally, this is similar to what
PepsiCo does when creating Aquafina water, except PepsiCo uses plastic
bottles, where I only drink out of glass or stainless steel.)

You can get clean public water in places like Hawaii, Oregon and
anywhere
that's close to the mountains, but most folks in first world nations
are
getting tap water that's far from pristine. The public water
infrastructure
in the U.S. may be among the best in the world, but that's not saying
much.
I won't even shower in U.S. public water without using a chlorine
filter on
my shower head. (Recommended brand: Aquasana at
<http://www.aquasana.com>.)

My view on PepsiCo

Since this story has much to do with PepsiCo, I thought I would offer
my
personal opinion on this corporation. In my opinion, PepsiCo is a
highly
destructive corporation that is partially responsible for obesity,
diabetes,
depression and bone disorders among hundreds of millions of people
around
the world. Through its aggressive (and deceptive, in my opinion)
marketing
campaigns, lack of corporate ethics and ready willingness to exploit
human
beings for profit, PepsiCo has risen to be one of the most financially
profitable yet ethically bankrupt organizations on the planet.

If PepsiCo were to disappear from the face of the earth tomorrow,
humanity
would be healthier the very next day. PepsiCo's brands include:
(followed by
my opinion statement about that particular brand)

Frito-Lay: Dangerous junk food that contributes to obesity, heart
disease,
cancer, depression and other serious diseases.

Pepsi-Cola: Toxic beverages that destroy bone mineral density and
poison
consumers with chemical sweeteners in diet drinks.

Gatorade: Crap sports drinks that contain artificial colors made from
petrochemical derivatives.

Tropicana: A low-end fruit juice brand engaged in deceptive labeling
for
many of its products.

Quaker: This is perhaps the only tolerable brand in the PepsiCo
portfolio.
Oatmeal is essentially good for you, although instant oats and all the
sugars found in many oatmeal products make it a rather high-glycemic
food
that's not recommended for most people (especially diabetics or obese
people).

Put it all together and you have a collection of some of the least
healthy
foods and beverages on the market today. When future historians
examine
today's epidemics of obesity and diabetes, they will no doubt
scrutinize the
role of companies like PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, both of which are
partly to
blame for modern disease epidemics. Both companies, by the way,
continue to
engage in routine marketing of junk foods and sodas to children.

Pepsico is a corporation that won't even list the acrylamide content
in
their fried foods. Nor will it publicly admit that high-fructose corn
syrup
has any link whatsoever to obesity. PepsiCo, in my opinion, is a
corporation
living in a deviant reality, unwilling to take responsibility for its
role
in poisoning the population through its toxic food and beverage
products.

That's my personal opinion of PepsiCo, its brands and its products.
Personally, I wouldn't buy anything made by PepsiCo. I have no desire
to
financially reward this company by purchasing its products. If
anything, we
should all be boycotting PepsiCo products (and Coca-Cola, for that
matter)
and getting our water from somewhere else.

When traveling through airports, of course, I am sometimes forced to
buy
Aquafina or Dasani, as nothing else is available. This is the only
time
you'll ever see me drinking out of a PepsiCo bottle.

If I were in charge around here, I would immediately ban all
advertising of
junk foods, sodas, snack foods, cigarettes, pharmaceuticals and other
harmful substances. It's the only sane thing to do if we care about
the
future of our children. Of course, such advertising bans will never
actually

take place because corporations run the government. See my
CounterThink
Cartoon, Government of the People for a humorous depiction of this
current
state of affairs.

And as far as Pepsi's water brand goes, I think it should be renamed
to
AquaFib.

..........

NHNE Body Burden Resource Page:
http://www.nhne.org/tabid/443/Default.aspx