The Choice Is Yours

7. The Choice Is Yours

Now you have done a good deal of thinking about what type of water is best fit to drink. As a less burdensome (and hopefully more fun) way of reviewing some of these ideas, let’s now listen to a group of drinkers and see what they have to say about the virtues and vices of drinking their respective beverages.

The setting for the following conversation is in the living room of a home shared by three young men. It’s Friday evening, and some friends and neighbors have come by to celebrate the beginning of the weekend.

Frank: Ahhhh! There’s nothing like a refreshing cold beer to start the weekend right!
Ted: I don’t believe it. (disgusted voice) No matter how much I tell you that beer is bad for you, you still guzzle the stuff. Man, that alcohol goes right into your stomach lining! Not to mention it’ll raise havoc in your whole digestive tract.
Frank: Aw, I’ve been drinking beer for years and I’m never sick.
Julie: C’mon Frank, I’ll go to the sink and get you some water. Maybe that’ll please your worried friend.
Ted: With, all the chemicals in that stuff, you might be better off with the beer!
(At this point John and Amy enter the room.)
John: I couldn’t help overhearing your little discussion. I started drinking spring water a couple of years ago. It’s full of minerals which I’m sure we need. You want some, Frank?
Frank: Nope. You just don’t get that good feeling from water that you get from beer. Besides, this beer is made from spring water. Does that make you feel better, Ted?
Ted: No way. Mineralized waters, including spring water, are full of inorganic minerals. Those minerals are poison to your body. And, oh yes, Frank, just because you’re never showing the symptoms of illness doesn’t prove you’re not sick. Maybe your beer drinking proves that you are sick though (laughs).
Julie: Ted, you’re just never satisfied. I went to the faucet to get a drink. I suppose I’m going to die because of that?
Ted: Well, you might. All the toxic chemicals in tap water are best avoided. How many miles of pipeline did that have to go through?
Ann: Well, I’m drinking some distilled water.
Julie: Let me have a taste (Sips the water) It tastes like nothing!
Ann: That’s right! Pure water has no odor or taste. And it doesn’t have any inorganic minerals to clog up your system or be deposited in your body.
Ted: Well, Ann, you’ve got the right idea in my opinion. As long as you’re going to drink at all, you’re best off drinking distilled water.
Frank: What do you mean, “as long as you’re going to drink?” You’d die if you didn’t!
Ted: Not necessarily. If you eat mostly raw fruits and vegetables, which is man’s natural diet, you will need little or no more water than is found in the foods you eat. Frank: Yeah, right. Anybody wanna go for a burger?

We can’t hope to legislate the behavior of everyone around us. Ultimately the choice for what we put into our body is individually ours alone. “What’ll it be, Mac?”