Even the comrades at Mother Jones are upset about “organic water” bottled by Llanllyr Source in Wales. The LLanlyr web site states:
Llanllyr SOURCE is one of the world’s premium quality bottled waters. It comes from our sources beneath certified organic fields in west Wales in the UK…
The farm has been accredited organic by the Soil Association for many years, but more than that it has never been farmed any other way.
Our sources are entirely sustainable. We have Organic Farmers and Growers accreditation for both our line and processes and have established programmes to maximize the use of recycled materials including now over 25% of the glass we use. We are UN Global Compact signatures.
As Mother Jones points out,
… by definition anything “organic” must contain carbon. Water has two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule: no carbon. The USDA, in fact, specifically exempts water from organic certification. And although Llanllyr is smart enough not to actually put the word “organic” on their label, they’re obviously trying to make that association, even going to far as to have servers call the water “organic” when offering it to reporters.
As remarked by Politico,
Can organic air be far behind?
I’m holding out for organic space-time.
My bottled water is Outhouse Springs, America’s Truly Recycled Water. This was a campaign in 2003 by an outdoor advertising company to show people looked at bill boards. It attracted so much attention that the product was actually bottled. I still have a few bottles.
Outhouse Springs says all I need to know about bottled water. However if they had an organic variety, I might not drink it.
“Outhouse Springs” ….. hmmm.
In Australia, an “outhouse” refers to an old-fashioned outdoor dunny, a sawdust dump toilet, uncommon these days but quite common in the 40′s and 50′s in suburban backyards prior to widespread sewage reticulation.
I don’t think that the “Outhouse Springs” campaign would have met with much success DownUnder.
It has the same meaning here in the U.S.
According to “Mother Jones”, I guess “Organic Air” is okay as it does contain Carbon (and Thank God too)!!!
Don
How about “natural” water?
Wales is full of coal fields too. Anybody want to buy some green coal mined from beneath genuinely certified green fields – only double the price.
Actually water is composed of two hydrogen atoms (could be considered equivalent to a molecule) and one oxygen atom
Mother Jones is not scientifically inclined.
CO2 must be OK after all since it is organic!
OK smart guy — How do you account for carbonated water? Ha! Got you there, didn’t I? There’s also CO2 in carbonized water, which is water that has been used to put out a campfire or some such and gotten burned. And there’s carbonized, hydrogenated water: That’s water you’ve done underwater welding in. It causes hydrogen embrittlement when the CO2 generated from the water through the welding process, augmented by global warming, joins with hydrogen and coats the weld with a sticky substance resembling peanut brittle before you cook it. I have hundreds of other examples, but if you can’t think like a real scientist I’d just be wasting my time.
I guess our schools just aren’t teaching science these days!
Cholly. Seriously? A molecule of water contains no carbon, hence not “organic”. Dissolved CO2 in carbonated water doesn’t change the molecular structure of water. Water that has been burned? I certainly hope you’re kidding. Water boils, it doesn’t burn because it is already oxidized (unless you stick your hand in boiling water, then I guess you could say it burns). In underwater welding the embrittlement is caused by the dissociation of water from the arc welding and the hydrogen gas produced getting trapped in the weld. The residue is likely from the organics in the water getting cooked by the welder or the flux in the rod itself, but not from “…CO2 generated from the water through the welding process, augmented by global warming…”. I guess that must be another thing added to The List, if it hasn’t been already. I have some other absurd examples to go along with yours: lemonade, soup, and beer. All contain water, but none contain “organic” water. You shouldn’t be so critical of others for getting things right.
Actually, organic is composed of carbon atom containing molecules, normally with a carbon-hydrogen bond. Thus hydrogen is an important factor, also. However, not all carbon-containing compounds are organic (carbon dioxide, calcium carbonate, etc.) and not all compounds containing C-H bonds are organic.There ya go, fixed it for ya.
I keep waiting for organic salt. We already have sea salt, which is, of course, much better than salt from a mine – it has all that dead sea life mixed in, along with the fish droppings.
A neurologist recently told me that I was wrong to have reduced my salt intake in order to lower my blood pressure (recommended to me 30 years ago buy another doctor), despite the fact that it had lowered my blood pressure to the desired range. What I need instead is “ORGANIC SALT”, precipitated from an ocean once covering the central USA, and not “iodized”; it is sold as “organic sea-salt” at a fancy, well-known (pricey) food market.
The only reason for sea salt/kosher salt/rock salt/etc is it’s different texture and mixability. Watch the food network some time.
I think that it is nice that Mother Jones has recognized that a molecule must contain a carbon atom to be organic.
Now, can we get them to acknowledge that every compound that contains carbon, except for carbon oxides (i.e. carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide), cyanides and carbon hydrides, is organic?
Ah, but where is the mysticism in that?
Organic water? Oh boy! Does that mean I can burn it in my car?
Yanno, because of the decades-long war the NEA and teachers’ unions have been waging against public education, there are probably a lot of libtards out there who’ll accept the organic water premise without batting an eye.
“Organic water? Oh boy! Does that mean I can burn it in my car?”
We should work to convince libtards that you can burn it as a gasoline replacement so they will pour it into their gas tanks.
What about water travelling through the aquifer from other places. Underground, water flows horizontally and vertically depending on the lay of the land, underground structure, etc. Just because the water is pumped on pristine land doesn’t mean it didn’t originate from somewhere else. I know, I know! The water has been filtered by passage through pristine “organic” soils and rock. Everybody knows the tired cliché that “water purifies itself every 60 feet.” The point is that the whole marketing campaign is aimed at the totally clueless. Do the people selling the water believe all that BS themselves? If they pump a lot of water to bottle, then the aquifer replenishes pulling in more water from the surroundings. The concept is so silly. And people are paying for that ?!
Is carbon tetrahydride organic or inorganic?
Actually, the detrmination of “organic” or “inorganic” for compounts with a few carbons is somewhat fluid.
Carbon tetrahydride is CH4, which we call methane. It is assuredly organic.
I once drank some organic water from a brook in Colorado. It had the organic giardia parasite in it. I won’t be drinking organic water ever again.
it’s those pesky “organs” again. If we could focus on something other than organs all the time, we might evolve a bit more.
Yeah. And whatever happened to guitars and pianos?
people will fall for anything these days..like $4,000.00 water machines…sheesh! I’m talking Kagen…what a scam…look, take a lemon & put it in your filtered water…wa la…alkalined…
All they have to do is carbonate it
Organic has a connotation to it when farming, I visualize cow turds being mixed with the soil and I also visualize the cow waste reaching the aquifer . meaning in short organic water being classed that way because of cow waste being placed in the soil above it surely will have people talking about you if you walk around with a bottle of it in your hand, just as I took a label on a can of corn beef hash once and replaced it with a dog food label, many of the people who knew me said behind my back he can eat better then that . shame shame on ole Ken
Heh! If it is organic water perhaps it contains some organic “matter”… :)
Dear Paul Hildebrand… CO2, calcium carbonate, and other compounds are organic molecules just for containing carbon. Hydrogen presence in a molecule does not determine if the compound is organic, but the presence of carbon. Perhaps you’re referring to biotic or abiotic origins, although carbon dioxide and calcium carbonate are biotic and abiotic in their origins because they are produced also by biosystems.
Nasif, I hate to tell you this, but you are going by an old definition from the Way Back Machine. The modern definition of organic compounds are those compounds that contain carbon bonds in which at least one carbon atom is covalently linked to an atom of another type (commonly hydrogen, oxygen or nitrogen). Some carbon-containing compounds are traditionally considered inorganic. (those would be carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, calcium carbonate, magnesium carbonate, etc). Would you consider limestone to be organic?
I have long been amused by one company’s marketing ploy here in Australia. This enterprising firm sells ……… wait for it ………… organic salt!
That would be salt from sweat? Umm…Umm…good!
Salt from sweat. You have described Gatorade. The researchers (Robert Cade, et. al.) from the University of Florida developed the formula by vacuuming sweat from athletes on a treadmill and analyzing the salt contents. They reproduced the salt distribution and concentrations, added some glucose and a flavoring. Viola! Gatorade.
But, Gatorade tastes so much better than sweat…and, it doesn’t sting your eyes!!
So I suppose sewerage is organic water?
“So, I suppose sewerage is organic water?” Very organic, I’d say.
Do these people know if the rain falling onto the ‘organic’ farms actually ends up in the aquifer they are using? Unless they have evidence from BGS or another knowledgable organisation their claims are baseless.
Organic air? I produce that whenever I fart!
The term organic as used has nothing to do with carbon based materials. Organic refers to the quality of being safe for organic lifeforms.
Kind of like changing global warming to climate change, you need change the meaning of organic to whatever fits your needs at the time. IOW, it depends on the meaning of “is”.
Actually, non-organic water contains the dangerous chemical dihydrogen monoxide. It is responsible for many deaths every year and makes up 95% of the global warming. It is also used in nuclear power plants, like Fukashima. Be afraid, be very afraid!
I just had to file a claim against Certainteed for Organic Shingles that failed prematurely. So organic for me has some negative connotations, and I stopped using natural fertilizer long ago. Since the water is raised from below an e coli contaminated soil, that the truth in advertisers should require the statement:
“This water may contain filtered livestock excrement, and other various natural chemicals and pathogens. No attempt has been made to utilize modern methods to remove these possible hazards. Thus, the consumer of this liquid may experience, typhus, salmonella, dysentery, heavy metal poisoning, and fatal e coli infections. Rest assured that this is an all natural product.”
I highly doubt that our friends would accept such a truth in advertising label.
I never buy bottled water. Why should I? My water supply has been just fine for 64 years.
There have been studies that children who drink only bottled water have dental problems caused by an absence of floride. I guess one could go for the added expense of a floride rinse etc. along with the cost of bottled water.
Marketing…….it works.
That’s one of the great ironies. Eating too much “Health” food undoes the great public heath advancements of our time. Replacing enriched flower with wheat germ removes all those vitamins listed on the side of the wonder bread packaging, and the wheat fibers actually absorb the vitamins that are in your digestive track. “Organic salt” means you don’t get the iodide, and bottled water means you don’t get flouride.
You don’t see poor people anymore with vitamin deficiencies. It’s the rich who suffer from rickets and hyponatria.
I got a free bottle today. Tasted like water.