I just thought I'd offer a discovery I made recently about
spring water bought in clear plastic gallon bottles. This is
from western NC.
For 2 or 3 years I've been trying to determine what was
causing a skin problem that would occur at least once a
week. (BTW, I'm a male, 43.) The best I can describe them
are one or two separate really deep seated pimples. They
were rarely visually evident to begin with, but you knew
they were there. They were always on the cheeks or jaw. They
were slightly painful if you messed with them. Usally about
the size of a pea. If you actually were sucessful in popping
them they would drain but not readily. Of couse once you
tried to pop them they became more visible. Maybe it was
what they call cystic acne. I never had it diagnosed.
Anyway I thought they were caused by something I ate so I
sysmatically stopped eating a particular favorite food for 2
weeks at a time. No success. I had about given up on trying
to find out. Then we were lured by better prices at a
different supermarket. The only water they offered there in
the clear plastic bottles was <drinking> water, as opposed
to <spring> water, so we bought the drinking water.
(BTW, I dislike the translucent plastic because it flavors
the water.)
Well, it's been 5 months now and the skin problem has never
returned. Buying the new water was the only thing that's
changed in any of my habits. We buy mostly national brands
and I doubt they differ store to store. I never would have
guessed something like this would be caused by something as
pure and natural as spring water but that's what my
experience has been.
Several years ago I called a water bottler to find out what
the difference was between spring and drinking water because
their brand offered both. She said the drinking water has a
lot of the minerals filtered out.
I hesitate to blame a brand because, at my former market,
there were two brands of spring water to choose from, and I
would buy whatever was in stock. It might have been only one
of those brands, but perhaps the symptoms took over a week
to express themselves so I can't be sure.
So in conclusion either one of those brands had a
contaminate that I reacted to or maybe I'm just sensitive to
certain natural minerals. I not about to go back and
experiment!
--wahzoo