Strolling the aisles of the supermarket, the hip and health-conscious know better than to stop at the endless array of sparkling and spring waters. These bottles offer only hydration. The aqua-chic want something more.
Their water must be enhanced. Alluring new brands with herbs, chemicals and even supposed twists on the inherent structure of water, promise a host of health benefits that regular water doesn’t provide.
Fortified with a potpourri of nutrients, caffeine, fiber and ever more exotic extras, they build on a following created by their now-pedestrian cousins, those waters spiked merely with fruit or a few run-of-the-mill vitamins.
They have names like Skinny Water and Woman on Top’s Slimmer You H2O (with an appetite suppressant to help you lose weight), Penta and HiOsilver Oxygen Water (structured and oxygenated to help you hydrate better), and Smartwater, Vitaminwater and Propel (with electrolytes, vitamins or minerals, to help you energize, immunize and rejuvenate yourself).
Not all of the products look like water; they can be pink, yellow, green or blue. They don’t always taste like water – they may be flavored with cherimoya, pomegranate, sugar or herbs.
And unlike regular water, these beverages often contain calories, although not as many as, say, a regular Coke.
For all the health hype, though, experts say most of these waters do not do much more than plain old water. They hydrate and they refresh.
For many of the waters, nutritionists say, extra benefits depend on the brand and the specific quantities of minerals and vitamins. As with any product, consumers need to read the label.
“If they have vitamins added, clearly they have things regular water wouldn’t contain,” said Susan Bowerman, a registered dietitian and assistant director of the University of California, Los Angeles Center for Human Nutrition. “The question is, is this the best way to get your vitamins?”
When you eat a whole food, Bowerman said, you get more than the vitamins. You also get minerals, fiber and, most important, phytonutrients – compounds in plant foods that give them their health benefits.
She said she is not aware of any water that contains the equivalent of a multivitamin, and says in fact that would be unlikely because some vitamins are not water soluble.
“They definitely don’t make up for a bad diet,” Bowerman said.
It can’t hurt, though, she said. But getting vitamins through water is an expensive alternative at up to $2.50 a bottle.
Nutritionists and chemists dismiss, however, the waters that claim to have chemically different structures than plain old H20. These so-called oxygenated, structured, clustered, unclustered and vitalized waters purport to raise energy levels, reverse aging, remove stress or, in the case of one water, just make water “thinner and wetter.”
“It’s snake oil,” said Stephen Lower, a retired chemistry professor from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C., who runs a Web site on “water-related pseudoscience, fantasy and quackery,” www.chem1.com/CQ/.
“There is no evidence that you can change the structure of water,” he said in a phone interview.
On his site, which features a Bunk House Gallery evaluating dozens of water products and their health claims, Lower writes: “The hucksters who promote these largely worthless products weave a web of pseudoscientific hype guaranteed to dazzle and confuse the large segment of the public whose limited understanding of science makes them especially vulnerable to this kind of exploitation.”
None of that seems to matter to many consumers. Ed Winston, who runs a shop in Culver City, Calif., with natural snacks and fresh food, said he sells a lot of beverages, and enhanced water is in the top 5 percent.
“A lot of people don’t eat well, and they know it,” Winston said. “They figure if they get vitamins in a bottle, they are doing better. They are trying.”
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