Slashdot Mirror
In the EU, Water Doesn't (Officially) Prevent Dehydration
New Kohath writes with this news from The Guardian: "Bottled water producers applied to the EU for the right to claim that 'regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration'. The health claim was reviewed by a panel of 21 scientists on behalf of the European Food Standards Authority. The application was denied, and now producers of bottled water are forbidden by law from making the claim. They will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the EU edict."
Ketchup is a vegetable (even though a tomato is technically a fruit).
After all, it has Electrolytes!
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
... we find that a committee, presumably with a lawyer or two involved somewhere, trumps common sense... Or, more likely, a board stocked by the lobbyists from various soft drink companies. /sigh/
Agile Artisans
of all the 'claims' to develop a backbone on they chose this one!
...before we jump to the "EU makes dumb decision" conclusion as usual. Sellers of bottled water wanted to use that phrase as a selling point for bottled water. The EU decided that you could get the same from other sources of fluids. It may surprise some US people, but in a lot of areas you can actually drink tap water here...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
21 boffins study water for three years and they still can't come up with any conclusions as to wetness.
Breakfast served all day!
Do water vendors feel the need to state the obvious... like water cures thirst?
“This claim is trying to imply that there is something special about bottled water which is not a reasonable claim.”
Let's give it up for those crazy EU geniuses, always focusing on what matters most. Hold on while I go short another billion in sovereign debt...
And I've never seen plants grow out of a toilet.
Look, people, this is The Telegraph. They are incredibly biased and unprofessional when it comes to the EU. They will happily lie about anything if it makes the EU look bad.
Anything they say about the EU is pretty much guaranteed to be garbage. Please don't encourage this kind of dishonesty by giving them pageviews.
"Common sense advocates applied to the EU for the right to claim that 'regular concentration on solving problems can reduce the risk of not figuring things out'. The logical thought claim was reviewed by a panel of 21 scientists on behalf of the European Logic Authority. The application was denied, and now EU citizens are forbidden by law from making their own, well considered decisions. They will face a two-year jail sentence and "a paddlin'" if they defy the EU edict."
Technically, they are not 100% wrong. Water on it's own will not quickly replace lost salts into to the body (I don't think the salt content of most water is high enough) so is not suitable to rehydrate quickly. If I am hungover, I know that bacon and Coca Cola (or other soft drink) will usually make me feel better than drinking water. Obviously, drinking water will ultimately rehydrate, and offer protection against dehydration, but it is not the whole story.
This really, really sounds like an Onion story.
Brawndo, the thirst mutilator. :D
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/cityofate/brawndo01.gif
In the distance you hear an ominous moo.
Suffocation is not caused by a lack of inhaled oxygen. The European Food Standards Authority has said so.
According to the EU there is no scientific proof that having your head up your ass inhibits vision and hearing. In fact it's considered beneficial to a political career.
... that bottled water causes lobbyists.
I think instead of drinking water they should switch to Brawndo!
Brawndo's got electrolytes!
Brawndo! The Thirst Mutilator!
Perri-Air: 'regular inhalation may reduce the risk of development of dizziness and fainting.'
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/11/18/us/life-us-usa-lunch.html?scp=1&sq=House%20protects%20pizza&st=cse
Ok, ok I know that we're talking about Republicans here but still it shows stupidity is rampant on both sides of the Atlantic!
Someone at the Guardian wrote about this. It was not submitted by bottled water manufacturers:
Now, the ruling from the EU says that the application failed to comply with Article 14 of Regulation 1924/2006, which states "It is necessary to ensure that the
substances for which a claim is made have been shown to have a beneficial nutritional or physiological effect".
I'm guessing that the point where this application tripped up is that they didn't suggest how much water or how often would be beneficial and apparently didn't provide any evidence for the claim, so they haven't actually shown it is beneficial as required by Article 14.
Regular consumption of 'significant' amounts of water can lead to water intoxication: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication
"Regular eating of chips can reduce the risk of starvation."
This claim is trying to imply that there is something special about bottled water which is not a reasonable claim
That's his interpretation of "what the claim is trying to imply". Yet the actual statement does NOT say anything about other fluids NOT hydrating. What it does say is simply:
regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration
How can any reasonable human read into that that other fluids will not do the same thing? I mean, other fluids are generally BASED ON WATER. There is no possible implication from that direct statement that other fluids would not work!
The truth is that anyone supporting this law has failed the turning test, for no-one could believe after that you were human at all... you and others backing this edict are the very definition of a cog in a giant pointless machine.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Must be blooood.... must be fresh....
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
The original decision.
Breakfast served all day!
How can you POSSIBLY imply from this statement:
regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration
that other liquids would not also hydrate?
Here's a little test for you. If you honesty believe that statement implies other liquids will not also hydrate, then YOU come up with a statement that says clearly water hydrates without "implying" that other liquids will not.
This edict is absurd.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Wasn't there a sort of politic/economic crisis in Spain, Greece and Italy?
I think this explains a lot...
Bottled water is typically no better than tap water at preventing dehydration. In fact, natural bottled mineral waters common in the EU sometimes have such large amounts of various natural salts (yet don't taste salty, go figure) that they actually dehydrate you (this is or was true of certain Hungarian mineral waters, for example, hilariously precisely the ones street vendors sell to thirsty tourists on a hot summer day in Budapest, at least back when I was there).
So if the EU basically meant to rule that certain "bottled water" products common in the EU do not necessarily prevent dehydration, they are entirely correct AFAIK. It' may not be about ordinary drinking water in general.
TFA should clearly be a link to The Onion. Why is a headline such as this not a story right out of The Onion? Along with pizza being legally considered a vegetable in the US, it looks like truth really is stranger than fiction.
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
And while we are at it.
The UC Berkeley Chancellor, President and Board of Regent and Trustees are guilty of fruad.
It was the UCB Chancellor with approval of the Board and Trustees who hired the private security
people to pepper-spray the students.
Hopefully, in time, the courts will demand the eviction of the UCB Chancellor, Board and Trustees, from
the State of California.
Of course the nation of Mexico or any others will not grant safe haven to these criminals. This will by
necessity grant their killing in public after the Non Gratus status finding is upheld by the USA
Supreme Court.
By by birdy.
))
The panel is correct of course.
If you live in a very hot country, then you also have to increase your salt intake. Too much pure water with no salt can make you horribly sick on a hot day.
That is why in South Africa, Australia and few other places, you get Isotonic sports drinks, which is salty.
Gotta love Americans missing the point of regulation that protects the consumer.
On the other hand in US frozen Pizza is a vegetable now, you know, to protect frozen pizza corporations from healthy food regulations.
http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=pizza+vegetable
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
The statement isn't just an advertising statement. This was an application for a formal, medical, statement so that water can be stated as a viable preventative for a disease. Whilst I'm pretty sure that water does prevent dehydration, I'm also reasonably sure that dehydration isn't a disease.
The rejection is as more to do with the claim that dehydration is a disease than the fact that "water" is can prevent the disease.
But, as you were. Actually reading the findings, or the claim, might actually provide some information that is contrary to expectations.
[Ukip MEP Paul Nuttall] said: "I had to read this four or five times before I believed it. It is a perfect example of what Brussels does best. Spend three years, with 20 separate pieces of correspondence before summoning 21 professors to Parma where they decide with great solemnity that drinking water cannot be sold as a way to combat dehydration."
Ok, I get why the application was rejection (marketing towards idiots) despite disagreeing with some of the reasoning (most subclinical cases of dehydration are due to exercise or temperature, not another medical condition, i.e. some medical professional has spent far too long in the clinic/hospital seeing people with renal disease and its ilk). All that said, this is a trifling matter. It is my understanding that Europeans are more fond of taxes than Americans, but surely this is not the sort of thing that anyone wants them spent on. I cannot say whether this is the indication for the need for less government (i.e. so there's not such a surplus of labor to allow this sort of behavior) or more (e.g. a committee to nix boondoggling).
What about selling air in bottles with sticker stating "Regular inhaling of air significantly increases life expectancy".
someone must have pointed them to
http://www.dhmo.org
scared 'em, it did.
We have 230V alternating current here, you know.
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
In Eu water is for washing things. If you are thirsty, there is beer in the fridge.
This is why I left Europe for the US. Here in America, I can buy bags of Jelly Bellies with a label stating "A fat free food", butter that is "Sugar free" and ice cream that is "a good source of calcium".
the US doesn't have a monopoly on government stupidity.
...drinking lots of (tap?*) water might reduce the risk of dehydration (common sense), but too much can cause hyponatremia, which is the overdilution of sodium ions by osmosis, which can also cause intracranial swelling.
*There is also the suppressed information about halogen salts added to water supposedly to kill bacteria. The amount of chlorine and fluorine added to tap in many countries for this claimed reason is considered to be dangerous not just to bacteria, but in amounts significant enough to pose a real risk to humans who consume "recommended" daily amounts (m/3l, f/2.2l (Mayo Clinic)) of water straight from the tap. This represents a daily ingestion of chlorine ions of around 3mg and more per day (and a lot more through inhalation since chlorine is readily released into the air if you run your tap hard). This is right up there with drinking bleach.
Boiling might not make bleach any safer, but it'll sure reduce the risk of chlorine poisoning through drinking tap.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Any loss of the water bottling industry is a win for humanity.
If you were able to read the entire parent post. You deserve it!
"We are neither surprised nor delighted."
It's as difficult to imagine what was going on in panel members' minds as for all the equivalent people in corporations, who at least can exasperate and demoralize and humiliate far fewer people -- and those can at least generally get their pay or their goods&services somewhere else.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
But ... but ... look in the dictionary. Dehydration is *defined* as a lack of water.
Which dictionary?
And defined for what purpose?
What the EU is saying is that claims of medical benefits -- expressed or implied -- must not be framed in a way that can mislead the buyer.
but this is still a selling tactic.
see xkcd .
Ha Ha.
Yes, with something people have not had much experience with, you might be able to claim the layman without much direct experience might think claiming something had a property implied anything else lacking the claim did not have that property...
But remember we are talking about DRINKING LIQUIDS here. A topic every living human has VAST experience with beyond just water. Even if the darkest and most remote corners of Africa, they are cracking open beetles the size of your head to drink the living nectar within as a tasty alternative to water. If you translated the original statement about water and asked if it would also then imply the beetles could not quench thirst, they would figure you were some kind of genetic freak and cut your head off so as not to pollute the jungle or gene pool with your particularly acute form of mental derangement.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
the tl;dr; version is that industry wanted to advertise that their water would prevent the disease of dehydration, and the science board said no, as a matter of fact it can't prevent that as a blanket statement- you can drink a ton of water and still get dehydration from other diseases. If you want to label it is a miracle cure you can forget it. They are not saying that drinking water will help if you are thirsty, they are talking about science, something you level 1's apparently don't get.
The longer versions are here.
The document
Condensed version
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
What law? The one that requires companies to apply for permission to use such medical phrases as "x can reduce the risk of development of y" in their marketing material? I think that's a good law.
It may have started out as a good law.
But when the time comes that it does not allow a simple and FACTUAL claim to be made, that is patently obvious even to a two year old, then something has gone terribly wrong.
Any law that blocks factual description of the properties of something should be instantly revoked until a case should be made why it is allowed to return, and why they will never again make the mistake that led to revocation.
A claim that a product does something it does not is obviously a problem. Tearing into claims a product makes about something it DOES do is a grave mistake and eventually leads us to this terrible and embarrassing point, just one more straw on the camel of respect for law that eventually leads to everyone lacking all respect for any law.
If you really think some laws are good, as I do, then you of all people should be as appalled as I am at what a laughingstock they have made of it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In short, while the claim on the bottled water is not necessarily always false, it is somewhat misleading, and I applaud the EU for not allowing vendors to put that kind of bullshit on their products. I personally prefer to live in a pragmatic no-nonsense democracy than in one that follows its lofty principles so dogmatically that common sense goes out of the window.
Oddly, I see the pragmatic society as one that allows companies to make reasonable claims that everyone knows are true, vs. one that thinks the average person has so little common sense they could possibly misinterpret a claim about water helping dehydration and thus "protect" them from said claim.
The choice they have made is as far from pragmatism and as close to Orwellian NewSpeak as it is possible to get.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
While we're talking about fruits and vegetables, let's not forget about nuts. Nuts are a lot of fun. Here's a beautiful picture of my friend Shrike's nuts: http://metalnet.dyndns.org/baseoa/nuts.png
-- TwEeK!
This is more "we corporations wanna advertise our product as having medicinal benefits!" than "the government does not encourage drinking water for hydration".
How can you POSSIBLY imply from this statement:
regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration
that other liquids WOULD also hydrate?
There is nothing explicit in this statement that implies other liquids hydrate or not. You are filling in the gaps and assuming some context that isn't stated in the text one way or another. You are making the assumption that by definition all liquids hydrate and so the statement must necessarily imply other liquids hydrate as well. This is not the case, however, as alcohol is a liquid and will dehydrate you. So will drinking lots of caffeinated beverages.
And apparently in the EU they are out to set a new record for idiocy... I have an idea - lets lock them in a room with nothing to drink for a week and see how they feel then...
It's both refreshing and depressing to see that idiocy is alive and well outside of my country(The USA).
Some people say that math is the universal language, I'd say that idiots are far more universal than the ability to do math.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
In the OP's story, the author implicitly suggests that government would better serve the people by getting the hell out of their lives. In second story, the author implicitly suggests that a country's problems are best solved by intellectual firepower getting more involved in people's lives.
In order for "regular consumption of significant amounts of water" to "reduce the risk of development of dehydration", it would need to do so beyond the baseline risk.
regular consumption of significant amounts of water CAN reduce the risk of development of dehydration
Read much?
The implication of the statement is that if you don't regularly drink a bunch of water, you might get sick. That's a lie.
Only a compete and utter idiot (and here I am in fact referring to you or anyone who thinks like you) would think the statement implies what you say, even if it lacked the qualification you so craftily (yes, idiots can be crafty) left out.
I beg you to tell your friends your reasoning behind the support of this resolution and see if they are as charitable as I in the opinion of your intellect!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It is *also* true that words become useless when their definitions are too sloppy or numerous. When that happens, one must use many more words than would be otherwise necessary to communicate his meaning. When communication becomes too wordy it becomes hard to understand.
I say there's an easy way to solve this debate. Take all of the people here supporting the ban of the claim that water can reduce dehydration, and all of the people thinking it's silly into two groups.
Drop both in the middle of the desert. To the people in support of water we leave 30 gallons each of the water of their choice.
To the people against the "absurd" claim that water can reduce dehydration, we give them either nothing or all the hot sauce they can carry.
Then we come back after a week and re-poll to see where the general though on dehydration and water is trending.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hey, your comeback is just as stupid as the last guy that brought up that XKCD...
In short it's reasonable to think other people might not know something about cereal. It's stupid to assume anyone still living does not know about what liquids do when you drink them.
Also where in the statement on water does it claim to omit something harmful?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There is nothing explicit in this statement that implies other liquids hydrate or not.
Well that's pretty much my whole point, so thanks for the support.
That's the same mistake they are making is disallowing the claim.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Just another example of the kinds of logic that brought us stuff like:
"This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer."
"Water - 99.99999%. In accordance with the New Jersey right to know act, contents partially unknown." Yup, there just might be a carbon atom floating around somewhere in there...
You can whine all you like about how it should be, that isn't how it is. Natural language is an evolving thing. It changes all the time, and in different regions and so on. I don't care if that upsets your geek sensibilities that is how they actually work.
You have to deal with the real world, and in the real world, words have multiple meanings and those meanings shift with time. Like it or not, it is how things are.
The claim that water prevents dehydration is demonstrably false. The decision was made to protect the willfully ignorant and the hopelessly stupid, like the people here posting with their self-righteous populist outrage about how "dem big gubment politishuns gone done sumtin stupid 'gain". Do us a favor and pull your heads out of your collective asses.
Think of it this way: Does air prevent a plane from crashing? Does water prevent a boat from sinking? Yes, it's true that a plane cannot fly without air (aerodynamic flight to any pedants, I know what you are thinking). Having air, however does not prevent a plane from falling from the sky. A boat necessarily requires water in order to float. Having water does not, however, mean that a boat won't sink. Likewise, water is required to be hydrated. Water alone, however, DOES NOT PREVENT DEHYDRATION. Saying that this is a stupid decision would be akin to saying that it should be perfectly acceptable for a company to sell cans of air to passengers in an airport to prevent their flight from crashing, or cruise lines telling passengers that bottled of water makes a suitable substitute for a life preserver.
Just because your teeny weeny little brain can't get around the fact that sometimes there are actually people in elected/appointed positions making decisions that are both correct and good intentioned in addition to those that aren't, doesn't mean that you should react as though you are afloat in a sea of stupidity. A little investigation might lead you to discover that you are the one filling the wading pool in which you stand.
what's with that shithole region always descending into retardation. burn it all down and cleanse the gene pool.
Look out Apple your next !
n/t
limit filter sucks like a hoover
Article 14 states:
Source
I fail to see how it doesn't comply...
That's what misleading advertising and PR are for.
I am not a chef, but I thought it was *tomato paste* rather than *tomato sauce* in the pizza base, which I understand are two different things (Tomato paste just being puréed tomatoes or some such, IIRC)
As for *why* it is there? Well, it's a matter of tastes, here in Asia (at least in my part of the world) people like things spicy and sour. VERY spicy and sour.(Hint, you make *light* pickles in water base, we make a lot more *heavier* pickles in oil base, your pickles taste like flavoured water to us, to be given to kids. Major difference in taste)
Ketchup has vinegar in it, which makes it kinda sour and tangy. Also, in my country, they also give either "Hot&Spicy" (Some chillies thrown in) or "Chili Garlic"(a lot more chillies and garlic paste to boot) ketchup with with it, with people preferring the last.
Pizza without the Chilli Garlic sauce tastes rather salty and bland to our spice-tolerant tongues, with a lot of people having a "chilli-shaker" for the express purpose of adding chillies to that *bland* western food.
So if they can't have the Chilli, they will *at least* put some ketchup to get the sourness. Better some flavour than none!
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
So would it also be OK for Marlboro to write stuff like that on their cigarette packets? "warning: if you quit smoking, you could die of cancer." "some doctors prefer this brand of cigarettes" "many smokers have won the lottery"
Here's a better article on the same subject from the same newspaper.
The correct advice would be "Drink water when you are thirsty and when you are sweating[1]." There are no studies showing that drinking while neither thirsty nor sweating would reduce the risk of dehydration.
The EU took a stand against the lobbyist's here. It is the exact opposite of what happened when the US declared pizza a vegetable.
[1] In really dry and hot climate (like a desert) you might not notice that you are sweating, so drink anyways.
long time, increasingly frustrated, reader, first time poster
Seriously, Slashdot? Have we gone that low in publishing standards?
The Guardian never wrote such things, contrary to what TFA sneakily implies in its byline (while linking to The Telegraph: a rag notorious for its vociferous anti-EU stance).
In fact, the Guardian wrote the exact opposite:
Read the full article at the Guardian for a sensible explanation of why the EU did not, in fact, "rule that water was not good for you" or whatever. The article also takes the time to bash all the right-wing tabloids that picked up and distorted the news (welcome to the club, Slashdot).
You've been mislead.
First off, I don't know where you got your definition from (since you don't cite anywhere) but dehydration is *not* defined as a lack of water. Here's one part of what Wikipedia has to say on the subject:
> There are three types of dehydration: hypotonic or hyponatremic (primarily a loss of electrolytes, sodium in particular), hypertonic
> or hypernatremic (primarily a loss of water), and isotonic or isonatremic (equal loss of water and electrolytes)
So, if you are suffering from hypotonic dehydration then you are not suffering from a lack of water and drinking more water will not help. Please read the wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehydration for more information.
Second, look at what the EU was *actually* ruling over. The specific claim is that "[..] regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration and of concomitant decrease of performance." No, what reduces the risk of dehydration is drinking *sufficient* fluids (e.g., water) while maintaining you salt levels. "Significant" is neither here nor there, it needs to be enough, which depends the current rate of fluid loss (urination, perspiration, etc).
What's actually happening here is that two doctors deliberately created a phrase that sounds obvious (hell, it fooled you and me too when I first read it) but is actually wrong. They knew the EU would advise against it (not ban, actually). The anti-EU right-wing newspapers can then print their stories about how crazy and outrageous this ruling is.
It's a common enough game for these newspapers: we've heard stories about EU banning sausages, cucumbers, etc under the headline "you can't make this up" ... only these newspapers do.
I suddenly remember the watre bottles they had at the HAR2009 conference.
See one of them here: http://chaos-darmstadt.de/cda/bilder/har2009/2009-08-16%2015.48.15.jpg
And now they made this forbidden.
Very scary.
This must be 1985.
You've given a proper smackdown, I'm not be facetious: if slashdot is for science nerds, then this is the we should understand this topic. Thank you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Of course drinking water (from the tap of from bottles) prevents you from getting dehydrated ... if you are an otherwise healthy person. No doubt about it.
If, on the other hand you are suffering from a clinical condition that puts you at risk of dehydration, you shouldn't rely on bottled water as a form of self-medication, but you should consult your GP. Unfortunately, allowing manufacturers to put the claim reduces the risk of dehydration on bottles of water blurs the line between a normal person drinking water simply to keep from becoming dehydrated and someone with a medical condition refraining from seeing his GP and instead relying on bottled water.
For that reason: why allow bottled-water manufacturers to make some half-witted medical claim with which to praise their wares? Bottled water has always sold well enough without ascribing quasi-medical claims to it.
Supposing that by "basic foods" you meant "natural foods", IMHO the tax plans are meant to promote at all costs "plastic foods" which have much higher profit margins. Even in schools. Even when plastic food reduces your and your children's life expectancy by 10 or more years. I'm starting to get sympathetic to those conspiracy theorists that say this is a part of the great plan to effectively and proactively reduce the population of the Earth.
Fruits and vegetables need a lot of care and affection to come to your grocery store in that great shape and look, while all "plastic" food needs is a colourful and shiny packaging. Not to mention that producing natural products requires human labour too
Does any sane person actually believe those studies arguing that ketchup is "equivalent" to fresh tomatoes or that canned orange juice is offers the same health benefits as fresh oranges?
I believe there is another reason that EU should ban producers to claim that bottled water prevents dehydration (premise). It would trigger a common logical mistake constantly abused by advertisement companies, leading to the conclusion: if you want to prevent dehydration, you'd better drink bottled water.
B: Drink bottled water
D: Prevent dehydration
B => D
D
therefore, B
See any book on mathematical logic, or simply http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent
You don't have to drink bottled water to prevent dehydration. It can be anything which prevents dehydration, as pointed out by Prof Ratcliffe in the article. (I believe the claim would lead to logical issues if we used quantifiers also.)
New Kohath claims to be citing The Guardian (a respectable British centre-left newspaper), but the only link is to the right-wing Telegraph newspaper, which has a track-record of publishing "made up" (or, at least, grossly misrepresented) stories about the EU.
The Guardian article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2011/nov/18/1 provides much more depth and debunks this "EU daft ruling". This link provides a much more revealing article.
Please update the posting to include a link to the actual Guardian article: not doing this is dishonest.
Through most of Europe, tap water is perfectly drinkable, and healthier that bottled water. So what this European committee ruled on is whether companies selling bottled water have the right to promote them by claiming that they have a therapeutic benefit. I think it's quite ok to reject this claim.
In my office, we have this big fridge distributing bottled drinks, made available by a company linked to Coca-Cola. It comes with printed claims and brochures explaining what we need to drink at least 4 x 5 dl per day (the machine contains free bottles of 5 dl).
I'm an MD, and while a liquid intake of 1.5 to 2 liters is generally needed, it is wise to get most of it from the tap, or from soups and vegetables. You can certainly live well without any "drinks" - and premature death is guaranteed to those who would drink four bottles of these sugary drinks every day.
My friend living in Japan was bringing local colleages to a training to be performed in Germany. As they passed through the security controls (this was before the US 9/11), he discovered that one of his Japanese friends had dozens of bottles of water in his carry-on. He asked him why...
The explanation given by the colleague was that he had heard that beer is the water of Germans, Germans only drink beer (yes, it's a popular joke...). But he doesn't drink beer and he needs water...
But even if I will not mention the issue of creationism, the Telegraph is probably misreporting a fact (the telegraph is part of the sensationalism press when it comes to the EU)
The real ruling is probably due to the fact that bottled water brands are trying to claim that it is better at hydratation than other products. If you read the telegraph and slashdot without cross checking facts, you are sadly dumber than your idea of Eurocrats.
.. by dehydration. (if your salt is not replenished in time)
I will spell it out for those of you who have been staring at the naked torso in the biology classroom, instead of listening.
Drinking water will decrease your salt levels and causes your cells to expel water to maintain the correct level of salinity.
This causes your cells to dehydrate and wrinkle like a raisin, until you die or replenish your salt.
Drinking sea water does the exact opposite causing the cells to take in more water until they pop and you die.
So bottled water with the correct level of salinity (basically iv fluid) will prevent and cure dehydration.
But that tastes terrible and is unsellable.
Of course Water does fight dehydration, but so does Coka-Cola, Orange Juice as well as most drinks containing large quantities of Water.
The EU is simply refusing generic statements on products that don't have any distinguishing meaning compared to other products in the same class.
McDonalds might want to put "Two BigMacs will give you 70% of your daily calories need", which may be true, but it is highly misleading.
The whole purpose of this EU law is that consumers can trust the statements made by manufacturers are both true and distinguishing for that product compared to others in the same class.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
The water here doesn't prevent dehydration, and I doubt that when I move to USA it suddenly will... If it works for You, fine, but it doesn't work for european people, like me. Believe me, I've tried. If one drinks more water than one needs for a longer amount of time, the effect is dhiarrea which not only doesn't prevent dehydration, but can cause it.
Most bottled water is sold by those same soft drink companies. For example, the Coca Cola company owns dozens of bottled water brands.
If i stop the intake of water then dehydration will follow, no matter if i consumed it regularly before or not.
So it does *not* decrease the risk of dehydration. The risks stay the same.
Moreover, also an intake of .5L per day could be regular, but not prevent dehydration.
Consider the evidence. 100% of the people through history who drank water died, or will die. Ditto for those who breathed air. Clearly that proves that H2O and O2 must be deadly toxins.
If the EU can't disprove that, I guess they must ban them.
They should also look into this 'fire' thing. It's time to put to rest the age old myth that fire burns. It's not fire that burns, it's some material that burns, and 'burns' really means that some material is undergoing oxidization and temperature increase.
You can't handle the truth.
Hi, I'm almost a 40 year old internet cumgrudgeon. I've been on the net so long, I still type gopher:// and telnet by mistake sometimes, and I knew how to use finger in a way that didn't offend. I had high hopes for the internet when it came out. But this right here wants me to sever my wifi connection and read a physical book. Ya hear me? You guys are arguing weather or not water hydrates you. Really 500 + posts about this? The internet is letting me down. Sigh.
really, snowgirl. please learn some facts before
spewing this forum with misinformation.
Another issue that hasn't been pointed out here is the host of problems associated with drinking *too much* water. We were warned in First Responder training, for example, that hyponatremia has often been mistaken as sun-stroke, but water is the problem rather than the solution for hyponatremia; it can occur because of drinking too much water when you're exerting and sweating, which then flushes out vital electrolytes from the body. Bottled-water manufacturers suggesting that people drink "significant" amounts of water could be seriously endangering their customers' health.
Advertisements are used all over the world to let people buy things. Telling people the drinking of bottled water keeps you from dehydration is the same as telling them that Actimel is healthy. Yes, yoghurt ist not bad for your health and even if Actimel is full of sugar it is still healthier than not eating. However, these advertisements imply that only eating that yohgurt or that bottle of water is healthy, meaning other sources are bad. And that is wrong and therefor it shall not be used in advertisements. You can drink the water which comes out of the tap. In all EU countries I have been, that water is of better quality as the stuff you can buy at the supermarket. Furthermore, it is controlled more often and has to be "cleaner" as table water.
Selling bottled water to people - lets say in Gemrany - is like selling fridges to Inuit or sand to Bedouin or to carry coals to Newcastle. BTW: It is ecological insane to transport water in bottles around the world when there is save tap water. But that's another story.
He said that water (implying buying it in bottles) is not necessary to maintain 'hydration' (whatever that means) in the interests of health. Like, you can drink tea or fill a cup at the watercooler. He meant you can't make an advertising health claim that running around like a big baby with a plastic bottle and teat is better for you than having a drink when you feel like it
I think you got your osmosis effect backward.
Drinking water for dehydration can be lethal.
Snake-oil seller's unhappy. News at 11.
Regular consumption of significant amounts of water can result in death. (for some values of 'significant')
they want to claim that
'regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration'.
that they should let them, then require them by law to include a warning on their bottles that
'regular consumption of significant amounts of water can lead to water poisoning'.
Really? With all that bull flying about and the marketing hype around various "good" or "bad" ingredients of food? People have been made insecure about what they know to the point that they don't really know what they know anymore.
That too is a stupid argument, because the statement about water in question has nothing to say about ingredients - only effect, that effete being one everyone is utterly familiar with since the dawn of mankind.
If the statement said ANYTHING else, like even that it had energizing minerals, or that "it brought a spring to your step" I might agree. But as it stands it is indefensible and you are beclowning with you support.
Ask 4000 people if drinking water will help if you are dehydrated, what answer do you suppose you will get... yet you would pretend otherwise, that people are "confused" about what happens when they are thirsty and want something to drink!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Then explain me the reason why would the statement in question be printed on the label of a bottle of water?
Np, YOU explain to ALL OF US why it should be disallowed to print a simple FACT on anything. What happened to freedom of speech? When you are not allowed to print a simple fact why is that not an utter transgression, a boot on the throughout of humanity? Yet you would lick that boot and ask for more. Have at it, I hope you get what you want but I sure hope I don't end up living there as I am not a slave to absurd demands.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's like the claim by cereals that they give you the nutrients needed to start the day.
WRONG. It claims nothing other than something factual, that water can hydrate - it does not claim something undefinable like "it can help start the day". It doesn't say it's the best, it just says it has that effect.
I am done responding to you, I have gone way over my quota of attempts to correct stupid people from falling on their own literary sword - repeatedly...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
defy the EU? put a dog leash on the EU, they are wacked. They make bad weather with classified tech, then call it global warming, blame it on cars, and provide the solution as tax, brainwash the greens, and seek global control through their ponzi treaties, everything they do is tax, everything they touch turns to garbage, every government they bail out will be debt slaves. They will be teaching through propaganda, next up, the EU needs a global bank to collect the global carbon tax, a global government who will dole out eugenics, and agenda 21 while wiping sovereignty.
I prefer a society that monitors medical claims
That's fine, but only so far as it blocks invalid medical claims. What right do they have to block true claims for anything?
That's the Newspeak aspect, it's Newspeak by what true things they choose to block and thus change thought through language.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
interesting. It seems that the bottled water lobby wanted to declare dehydration a disease that was cured or prevented by their water. The EU decided they were full of shit and said no. Here is the text of the decision
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
Yes, Virginia, there really is a frozen food lobby and they get congress http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-wartman/pizza-is-a-vegetable_b_1101433.html to declare that because pizza has a tiny smear of processed tomato sauce pizza counts as a vegetable for the purposes of getting federal funding for school lunches.
If they're just trying to claim that consuming water reduces the chance of dehydration, no matter how technical you get, it must be true.
If it is not true, then the opposite must be true.
Indirectly, the EU has stated that removing H2O from your diet will not increase your chance of dehydration. I feel so much better knowing that I can just purchase dehydrated foods. They last longer and pack better anyway. If this is the case, why do people in the desert fight over water so much. Idiots don't even know drinking water doesn't reduce the chance of dehydration.
Regular consumption of significant amounts of sweets can reduce the risk of dying of starvation
Hey americans, we invented fucking french fries. Don't tell us what we can put on them, yeah.
I'm not American but I'll take your word for it, I never knew they could be used in that way and I REALLY don't want to know what you put on them.
One thing I noticed when reading the article was the fact that the headline did not reflect the entire issue. Since it was from the Telegraph, I have learned to parse the words with care. "They applied for the right to state that “regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration” as well as preventing a decrease in performance." As well as preventing a decrease in performance. That seems a bit more than claiming their bottled water can reduce the risk of dehydration. Preventing a decrease in performance almost sounds like a health claim. In any case, I agree with the ruling (what can I say, I live in Brussels) in the sense that the claim does imply that bottled water has some special property other than coming in a convenient reusable container. I used to buy bottled water (carbonated) but got sick of the amount of plastic recyclable waste I was creating. Now I drink tap water.
Perhaps if you read a little you'd see that this didn't come from the bottled water industry nor is there any evidence that bottled water manufacturers were claiming or even planing to claim this. The submission came from two doctors: Prof. Dr. Moritz Hagenmeyer and Prof. Dr. Andreas Hahn who think the EU is getting a little stupid with their regulations and I'm inclined to agree.
Your statements are kind of cryptic as they don't appear to form any cogent argument defending the EU's decision. Do you simply believe that should an unbranded source of something exist (say Vitamin C) then there is no grounds for a branded product containing it make a health claim? (i.e. "Contains Vitamin C - which prevents scurvy"). Or is it that you doubt the science behind the alleged benefit? That is, that water doesn't help you reduce the risk of development of dehydration. If so then your comments about "tap water" are even more strange as in that circumstance tap water also doesn't help you.
Cheers to the Euros for preventing the bottled water marketeers from claim that their product is needed to prevent de-hydration. Tap water will do that more effectively because it does not cost so much. Evian spelled backwards....
European committee logic:
You can stay hydrated with only food. I did this on a raw vegan diet.
-OR-
A Coca-Cola rep is offering me 5.6mil Euros to pass this law.
When you put them in a stew or sauce because tomatoes are not sweet.
There should be a warning Label: "WARNING excessive consumption of dihydrogen-monoxide can cause severe injuries and death, especially when consumend trough the respiratory tract".
Every year, thousands of people world-wide die of dihydrogen-monoxide (ah well, a lot less than those that die of the lack of it, actually).
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
So, everyone calm down. The bottled water companies wanted to put a dubious medical claim on their bottles, and when they got caught because contrary to their expectations it was investigated by actual scientists, they decided to run to the press for sympathy, knowing that Britain's yellow journalism doesn't let facts get in the way of writing a sensationalist story.
I am disappointed that so many "scientifically literate" people here at slashdot are just naively piling on the EU without critically examining the claims of a bottled water distributor. Yes, preventing dehydration does require maintaining a proper electrolytic balance. Drinking excess water can cause serious health problems and deplete the body of salts.
By EU logic then, many current automobile commercials should be banned if they show a car zooming around in anything but bumper-to-bumper traffic.
This is just brain dead stupid. So I guess I'l have to be arrested and sent to jail??
You just dilute it with water...and enjoy.