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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
...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.
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.”
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.
... that bottled water causes lobbyists.
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.
The original decision.
Breakfast served all day!
but this is still a selling tactic.
see xkcd .
In Eu water is for washing things. If you are thirsty, there is beer in the fridge.
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.
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. That baseline isn't "drink nothing at all". It's "drink what you normally do". And the amount of fluid that people normally drink is sufficient to prevent dehydration. Drinking a bunch of water adds absolutely nothing, because unless there's something very wrong with you, you already take in enough fluid to stay healthy.
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.
Are you sure you're not the one failing the "Turning" test here? Flying into a rage at the slightest provocation and hurling around insults is not a sign of a deep and thoughtful mind.
This is more "we corporations wanna advertise our product as having medicinal benefits!" than "the government does not encourage drinking water for hydration".
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.
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.
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.
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.
You'd think that eating is something people would have about as much experience in. Yet you get to see the most harebrained claims on every pack of crap that are either simply not true (like the claim of "no MSG" in soups containing yeast extract) or that are, like in this case, implied by the nature of the product (like the low-carb meat and lard and the low fat bread). Hell, I've even see the claim of "zero calories" on bottled water, to stay on topic.
This is just plain silly. Yet it sells, it seems. If it didn't, if people would consider their intelligence insulted, it wouldn't, would it?
The claim that bottled water prevents dehydration is misleading. The ban doesn't imply that bottled water can't do that. The reason is not that the statement was untrue. Only that it's misleading. The ban is about them not being allowed to say that their source of fluids was in any way superior to other sources when it comes to the question whether they prevent hydration.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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
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