Somewhat off-topic. Does the naturally occuring calcium carbonate in the water aid with digestion/acid reflux? Common antacids, like Tums, are nothing but calcium carbonate and sugar. Any of our Chemistry/Biology/Pharma people able to answer this?
Funny the OP refers to Swiss water as "nasty tasting"... wonder if they are from North America and miss the taste of chlorine, fluoride and other added chemicals
Some say that it helps your bones. I however don't know whether there is any truth in that claim. What I however CAN say is that it ruins the flavour of tea, which makes those Britta filters a good thing
According to the Yorkshire Tea website:
The "white stuff" consists of calcium precipitates and calcium channels only transport the free ion.
ion = Ca2+ = soluble
precipitate = CaCO3 = solid
There's not a lot of calcium carbonate getting into your digestive system (I think) because it's not very soluble in water. Unless you're scratching the bottom of your water kettle before pouring a cup of tea and making sure that the chunky bits find their way into your cup.
You sure that's it? I only ask because dry skin and hair is more often associated with very soft water. Tiny amounts of soap will have a mch greater detergent effect in soft water, hence removing oils from skin and hair much more than in hard water.
Can't claim any special knowledge, but I would have thought that even in very hard water the amounts in suspension must be tiny compared with a tablet thereof. And if it's in a dissolved form then it's actually not Calcium Carbonate per se, but various calcium, oxygen and carbon ions in various combinations which form into the solid form in certain conditions, which would not, I'm petty sure, exist in the stomach.
its like to have skidmarks in your shorts! dont freak out! you can wash it! -> use your brain!
I remember watching CNN news about 5 years ago, and on the ticker at the bottom came the story: "Study Finds Plastic Beverage Bottles Positively Linked to Decreased Testicular Development in Adolescent Boys." A few minutes later, the story dissapeared. I imagine the people at Nestle or Coca Cola made a quick call to CNN and had it buried.
Apparantly, plastic bottles leach compounds called phthalates, whish are used to give plastic more elasticity. Although they are not technically not used in production of PETE bottles, they find their way in there somehow, according to many studies. Check out phthalates on wikipedia- you wont want to use plastic anymore. Now if only they made a wooden macbook....
To paraphrase JFK
"let them come to Zürich ! "
when they will have seen what that fluid limestone, for example in Glattbrugg, does with their tea, they will hop out and back on the next available flight