[wombatmobile]

I’m a big fan of H2O.

The reason I’m posting that here is because for many years I don’t drink it. I was so used to hydrating from soda and other beverages advertised on TV I completely lost touch with plain old H2O.

Then one day I rediscovered its pure refreshing goodness. What a surprise! I savoured it and marvelled at the pureness of the way it quenched my thirst.

Water! Quenching thirst since before the dinosaurs.

Affordable. Convenient if you have a tap. Amazing on a hot day if you have a fridge and a pitcher.

[staticassertion]

Someone recently was exclaiming how good water was. We had been drinking heavily and I insisted they drank water while we were drinking alcohol since they were complaining about hangovers. They woke up with no hang over.

It turns out they just don't really drink water. It's always something in a can - flavored seltzers or soft drinks.

It kinda blew my mind that there are people out there who don't drink water. It feels as natural as breathing to me.

[WelcomeShorty]

My kids had friends (round 10 yo) who claimed they did not like the taste of water. That blew their minds since they'd been drinking water their whole life.

It is still the main beverage we drink, and there are still those who never drink it. Incredible.

[mbg721]

To be fair, tap water in different places tastes different. If you're in a rural area of the US with well-water, what comes out of the faucet can have a strong rusty taste.

[quesera]

Exactly. As a kid, I thought I hated the taste of water. Our municipal tap water was terrible -- it was safe, but no one drank it because it was so unpleasant.

On the other hand, NYC and SF both have excellent tap water. And other cities are somewhere in between, or at the extreme end can even be dangerous (Flint MI).

The same is true of well water. Some of the best-tasting and perfectly safe water I've ever had has been well water. And as you mention, it can also come in all sorts of off-putting flavors. And it can be contaminated and dangerous (biologically or chemically).

People talk a lot about the variations of coffee or wine or beer, but I think the variations in water are even more interesting (and sometimes contributive to the others).

[1_player]

There's something very wrong with the first world when people discover drinking water. I'm not singling you out, I've heard the same story from other people, usually from the US, and it's mind boggling to me. I know it's the parents fault.

It's like discovering that clean air is pretty good for you and feels nice when inhaled.

[kwhitefoot]

> I know it's the parents fault.

True. But it might also be because tap water in the places I have been in the US (mostly Raleigh NC) is really not a very pleasant drink.

[Tagbert]

That is not true of most areas in the US where tap water is fine to drink. Some localities do have high concentrations of iron or sulfates in the water that taint the flavor.

[1_player]

Soda isn't more convenient than buying bottled water in a shop, so I don't think it's because of water quality.

[kwhitefoot]

Isn't the availability of bottled water a relatively recent thing? It certainly wasn't available for most of the time that I lived in the UK (1955 to 1985), but sweetened carbonated drinks have been a thing for well over a hundred years.

[kiliantics]

> It's like discovering that clean air is pretty good for you

Still waiting for this discovery to reach the mainstream so I can live somewhere that has banned cars...

[vba616]

Erasmus Darwin wrote in "A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education, in Boarding Schools":

   "For the drink of the more robust children water is preferable, and for the weaker ones, small beer..."

Sounds rather...Darwinian.

[animal531]

That's perhaps from the days when water wasn't quite as clean as it could be, and other drinks were preferred.

[throwaway984393]

Beer is basically liquid bread, so it's nutritious (or at least has calories). Small beer has low alcohol so you don't get drunk

[emodendroket]

I used to drink soda for every meal and I went down like 2 inches on my waist size when I stopped. I mean I did eventually gain that back, I guess, but it took years.

[sgt]

How much soda did you drink? I can't imagine a small can of coke makes a difference.

[gutta-percha]

I have heard folk wisdom to the effect that a can of Coke a day results a pound of weight gain per month. According to this (somewhat dubious) article, 20oz of soda per day results a pound of weight gain per week!

https://abc7news.com/soda-weight-study-on-how-adds-pounds-ga...

[emodendroket]

A glass of soda with every meal, maybe more than that. Either way a can of Coke is over 100 calories that don't make you feel full.

[sgt]

I think people react differently and metabolism matters. I find 100 calories is nothing, and you burn that quickly just being alive.

[emodendroket]

An extra 400 calories a day isn’t nothing.

[gpcr1949]

Soda and other beverages are also 98%+ H₂O though. By most standards even beer would count as technical grade H₂O.

[wombatmobile]

Soda is 98% water and 46% sugar.