"Do Europeans NOT DRINK WATER?!" | American Tourists React
This summer American tourists in Europe sarcastically asked: Hey Europe, why don't you drink any water? Setting off a spirited debate on TikTok as to whether Europeans are just habitually thirsty, or if Americans drink unusual amounts of water. The truth? Our different drinking habits have cultural, historical, and even medically-recommended differences on either side of the Atlantic. Check them out with me.
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📝 In today’s episode, we shine a spotlight on:
0:00 Introduction
01:40 How much Water Should I Drink?
06:35 Why Europeans Prefer Bottled Water
12:11 Do Americans Waste Water?
17:51 Wade into the Water Debate
🔗 Relevant Links & Resources:
@thrillist "The Most Popular Bottled Waters, Ranked"
www.thrillist.com/drink/natio...
Checkout this video by: @theanatomylab "Why Drinking Water Is So Important": • Why Drinking Water Is ...
@DoctorMike The Truth About Sparkling Water | RTC
• The Truth About Sparkl...
💡 In this video, we cover:
- The average water consumption per capita in both the USA and Europe.
- The cultural, climatic, and economic factors that contribute to the differences in water usage.
- The impact of agriculture, industry, and domestic use on water consumption patterns.
- Differences in Tap Water, Mineral Water, and why Europeans prefer carbonated or sparkling water
Episode No. 127
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❓ QUESTIONS or COMMENTS? Leave a comment below; we’d love to hear your thoughts on the fun and interesting differences between life in Europe versus the USA
#americaningermany #americanabroad #americantourister #europeanculture #WaterConsumption #USA #Europe #SustainableLiving #EnvironmentalAwareness #WaterConservation #SaveWater #EcoFriendly
"Leitungswasser" translates to "Pipe water" and around where I am in Europe, no one has any negative feelings to it. We usually consider it superior to the bottles. The reason we do not drink tap water in restaurants is because we usually cook at home and when we go to a restaurant, it's something special, so we drink something special.
I don't drink tap water usually.
In all predominently left-wing countries in Europe of the last 50 years, pipe water isn't healthy. France, Northern Spain, Southern Italy, Sweden, Denmark, UK. Pipe water is just great in Germany, Austria, Croatia, Northern Italy. In the US, it's in the middle. In most countries you drink bottled water, because it comes from the mountains (French, Italians) or has specific nutrients in it. (Germany) In the most part, this is then also sparkling.
@@johgu92 Oh, sure I do - mostly as tea or sparkling-sodastream, depending upon season. But rather than ordering bottled water at a restaurant, we perfer to hydrate ourselves before leaving, maybe because restrooms in restaurants are free of charge ;-)
@@urlauburlaub2222 And here's me sitting in the UK enjoying a nice, refreshing glass of tap water.
@@urlauburlaub2222 source?
I recently returned from a week in the US. As a Norwegian, I have to say that tap water over there tastes like pool water... I also dare to say that a lot of bottled water tastes worse than tap water in Norway. Something can probably be attributed to habit, but that's how I feel.
Bottled water in the US Usually IS tap water. Idk about the rest of Europe but here in the UK Bottled mineral water is standard and is bottled at source. Given all of Norway is basically the kind of place you would bottle mineral water in the UK (highlands/wales) the fact your tap water tastes better is unsurprising.
Is the fluoride
@@lauralvw8445actually it’s the chlorine
I suppose it depends where you go. In some parts of the country I find the tap water undrinkable.
Of course it tastes like pool water. its clorinated. Like our pools are. I was at in Chicago for a week this summer and the moment I drank tap water at my hotel room I spat it out and got something with way to much sugar to drink instead. it tastes awful. How the hell can you go to a restaurant and ruin your meal by chlorinating your mouth throughout the whole meal? I am really happy I can just get some tap water and actually drink it without feeling like im drowning in a pool.
I was born and raised in the Czech Republic and now live in Slovenia. I have never in my life met anyone who preferred bottled water 😅 Literally everyone I ever knew was always drinking tap water, with one exception: Restaurants. You're kinda expected to not get tap water there (although if you ask for tap water specifically, they never have any problems getting that for you, for free). This is one of many reasons why I find Americans grouping all of Europe together very whimsical (for them, Europe is usually France, Spain, and MAYBE Germany and Italy if they're feeling adventurous). I spent a lot of time in the Czech Repubic, Poland, Austria and Slovenia and let me tell you, I've had completely different experiences to what I see online. Another funny thing: I once went to a GI (gastroenterologist, a doctor that specializes in the digestive system) and he straight-up offered me a psychiatric evaluation when I told him that I track how much water I drink. "Your body tells you when it needs water, so why are you tracking it at all?" It was very funny. And in the end, it really turned out that I had a psycholocial problem. So take that as you will 😆
As a german, we also don't have a problem with drinking from the tap. It's good water. But you know I like my sparkling water and am often too lazy for the soda stream. But we even have great flat mineral water from the mountains. Water is not Water.
I'm Czech and I have the exact same experience as you. Nobody buys bottled water here
A lot of what you said is anecdotal and in my opinion and experience, very misleading. I know a lot of people including me, who prefer bottled water, most just dont want to spend the extra money on it, so they mostly drink tap water. As for the restaurants and free water, that was mostly a thing in the past, but recently its mostly getting pushed out and youre pretty lucky to get tap water and extremely lucky to get it for free in czech restaurants.
When USA people discuss Europe they always mean anything west of Italy. I don't personally know people who prefer sparkling water here in Eastern Europe
In France, whether you're at a cafe or restaurant, you'll usually get tap water, for free obviously. Some people who are snobby or like sparkling water will get bottled water, but that's not the most common thing to do.
Speaking as someone from the Netherlands, I don't think bottled water is popular at all over here. Sparkling water is, but just flat water is usually drunk from the tap. It goes so far that I once heared a delivery person say they knew someone ordering was foreign (American in this case) based on the fact that they ordered water with their meal. I have never seen anyone buy bottled water for at home use. Only for drinking it on the way somewhere. I also remember interpreting for a Korean family, who didn't want to refill their water bottles from the tap in the bathroom, because it seemed too much like toilet water. I explained to them that the tap water was basically the same as the bottled water, but the idea made them queasy, so they just bought new bottles. Eventually they did become okay with filling bottles at the kitchen sink though :P
EXACTLY! Why would you ever buy flat water in bottles to use at home when you can just open the tap? That's just shooting your wallet.
@@PaladinfffLeeroy i think she missinterpeted the stats she herself said that bottled water is the most popular drink in the US while it's not in Germany. Maybe she added the bottled flat water and sparkling water stats together to come to that conclusion idk. Still weird. Most of what she said was true though. What they always forget is that bottled water in europe has a cap price while it doesn't in the states. Fun Fact in greece the 500ml Bottles have a cap price of 50cents if you are ever in akropoli in athens don't get scammed because they sell it illegaly to tourists,
Although at home that's very true, at restaurants it's quite unusual. If you order 'water' you often get a bottle of Spa for something like €2,50 or so. Obscene. Americans eat out way more often than us dutch people, so her analysis might be based on more restaurant visits than the average dutch person does. It is, however, very true that at the middle class or upscale supermarkets like Albert Heijn you find a metric fuckton of different brands of waters. As of yet, our tapwater is very good still. It is, however, under threat by 'don't look up' anti-environmental politicians who try and ignore the problem we have with traces of medication and chemicals like PFAS in our tapwater.
Also Dutch, I have no problems drinking tapwater here.
True as a fellow Dutchie, I believe most people I know, including myseld, drink water from the tap.
Fun fact : many French people would be perplexed with La Croix sparkling water because "La Croix" in France is a brand of bleach or "eau de Javel".
Considering how low US standards or for anything consumed by humans, their water is probably so chemically processed that they're not far off drinking bleach. At least compared to Europe.
omg!! I've never put 2 and 2 together, hahahahah, I just went to look under my kitchen sink and yeah, my bleach tablets are La Croix!! hhahahahhahaha
When I traveled to Germany, I bought a bottle of Vitrex solely on the fact that the name sounds like a glass cleaning product. ("vitre= glass pane" in French)
@@LeSarthois Duralex sed Durex.
Lol, I was thinking the same and I'm drinking Vitrex with Cassis taste right now 😂😂@@LeSarthois
This is interesting to watch coming from the Netherlands. Over here tap water is the absolute king (together with coffee). People might buy a small bottle of water while on the go, but only if they don't have a refillable bottle with them. Some people like sparkling water, but you'll get some weird looks if you buy bottled flat water.
If you didn't bring a bottle of tapwater, we often buy a small PET bottle and then fill it up in Restaurant bathroom if it's empty and we are having a long drink. We just don't carry around giant bottles of water.
Coffee is great with pastries. But tea is better when you are a bit thirsty, I think. /Regards from Sweden
dont sure about others as i see people buyng loads of mineralka but in czech rep or slovakia ibguess its the same. tap water. and i drink almost exclusively tea so for me tap water is infused with herbs.
Yeah in the whole north of europe too. Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Estonia, Poland (I would assume Latvia and Lithuania too but I havent been). At least in Sweden its better then bottled water so there is no reason for drinking other water then tap water. Except if you want sparkling water... Typical american too say "In europe they do this .... " and its only France, Germany, Italy or Spain.
@@herrbonk3635 depends on coffee and tea strengths. An Americano is very hydrating, for instance.
I'm Swiss and I drink tap water at home, sometimes humorously reffered to as "Hahnenburger", where "Hahn" is short for "Wasserhahn" with "-burger" as a suffix. If you ever visit a town in Switzerland and see a water fountain assume it will be safe to drink. If it is not, there will be a sign that will tell you it is not safe to drink.
I had a friend over from America a few months ago in summer, and he was so excited by the water fountains we have here. He really missed them when he went back, and ever since then I've started appreciating them much more. I don't think I ever really appreciated enough that it's a rare sign telling you it's not safe to drink, and not the other way around. I wish the whole world had water like ours. Everyone deserves access to clean and fresh water that tastes good
The sign telling you it's not safe to drink might not be in English, though.
"Kranerberger" in Germany. At least where I live. Pretty much the same meaning.
@@haselni It's a pictogram most of the times. Literally everyone using standard pictrograms will understand that.
Growing up with spring water as tap water (also Swiss) I noticed on the other hand to have gotten spoiled by it's superior taste. When I was on vacation in either France or England, I got offered tap water. Drinking that felt like drinking water from a public pool when it's treated with Chlorine. Even with some bottled brands I've gotten picky.
In Finland it's pretty common to get just tap water even in restaurants. And tap water is definitely the go-to when you're thirsty. But we do love carbonated water. Sodastream is pretty common too, and you can make carbonated water out of tap water super easily.
Restaurants have a very very high margin on drinks, even Water. Its commonly known here that a restaurant kinda bets on the customer to order one or two drinks and price their food relatively low. A buffet in some chinese restaurants is pretty cheap for what you get, they make their money with the beaverages. So you usually dont get Tapwater in Restaurants. And if you order a "Stilles Wasser" (Without Carbonation), you will almost always get a small bottle with a glass. Wich is easy 3-4€ and costs them maybe 50cents. But we dont go out eating that often, so its fine. At home many people drink Tapwater, or use a Sodastream. Tho it is true many germans absolutely only drink bottled water. My parents drink the same brand of bottled water for maybe 20 years now, and they rarely drink from the tap. I usually drink carbonated tap water.
I was on a cycle trip in Finland. Public taps: none. Buying still standard 1,5l still mineral water? Impossible. Either 0,5l bottle or 5l balloon. When it is 1,5l bottle it is either carbonated which is not the best when cycling or flavoured that I dont like. Ended up drinking milk instead
@@varkonyitibor4409 You can legit ask any cafe / restaurant / heck even bystander if they could fill up your flask. Most have nothing against that. In a pinch, you could even do it yourself in a toilet. No, you won't get poisoned.
@@varkonyitibor4409 Most supermarkets have a tap to fill up drinking water jugs and bottles.
@@DarkR3ignlolWhere is here? What country are you talking about? Germany?
I finally understand why 'paying for public toilets 'is always mentioned in American culture shock videos about Europe. It must be rather expensive to pay a Euro if you drink water all day long 😅
And if you add to that the amount of sodas and coffee by the buckets, it's a wonder they manage to get out of their hotels
Also: the quality of said tap- and ofc toiletwater (as it stems from the same providing main line!) is to a much higher standard, and, as said by many here already, is not privatized. So, indirectly you pay for the general standard of said tapwater if you use public toilets, and the cleaning teams/ladies of course.
Honestly understandable though. Paying for going to the toilet kinda sucks. Should be free. Maybe understandble if it's really just a single toilet out in the middle of nowhere, because otherwise how would that finance itself, but if it's in a station e.g. then DB should just pay for it, if it's in a mall, the people who run the mall should pay for it.
Why are the doors in US public toilets not to the ground
@@picassomanu185 Why Europeans see Americans as some barbaric swamp monsters? It start to look like hate.
As a German family living in the US there are many things that we observe and feel as being weird without understanding why. One of these things is co-workers and other people everywhere walking around with huge drinking bottles as if preparing for a 3-day hike in the desert. In contrast, I hardly mange to fulfill the German recommendations that you mentioned in your video. Your videos always help to understand the backgrounds. Thanks!
I guess last year was the year the gigantic Stanley cups became the "It" item on every girls Christmas list. We flew home for Christmas and had to ask our family why everyone was drinking from cotton candy colored "big gulps" all of a sudden.
When you work manualy, it's totaly normal to have 2L bottle of water with you, especially when it's 33°C and you have to do some manual work, you will get headache without drinking enough water.
The recommendations are totally useless if you don't take the persons body into account. I always had problems getting the 2 l that is recommended. But I didn't have any health problems. Then I found the X ml per kg conversion, and because I'm a small and thin person I just needed 1,3 l not 2 l. No wonder I always felt ok. That's why with the years and everone claiming they know what's best, and some trial and errors, we have found with our friend that it's the best way to follow our intuition. I drink when I'm thirsty. And I have my habitual morning cup of coffee and a tea in the evening. That's already half of what I should drink, so why stress about the rest? All these huge cups are just another stupid trend to yet again sell something to the people.
Just came home after three weeks in the US. Met some German people who have been living in Florida for some years. We took a sightseeing trip by car, a/c on full blast, about 29 Celsius outside. My wife and I of course had something to drink with us, a 0,5 l bottle each. Both Americanised Germans had giant cups of water with them, looked like they were ready for a hike in the sun. But we just drove around indoors Naples. And what surprised me: every shopping cart had one or two bottle holders. Who needs to drink in a shop that’s cooled down to nearly freezing?
@@dagmarbubolz7999 I and probably almost all doctors see it the same way, according to the latest (?)! insights! As with food intake, the body knows best when it needs “fluid”. As a rule! Completely dependent on the actual need at any time, which will also vary depending on the activity and whether part of the fluid requirement is already covered by other foods. For example, if you eat a bowl of soup, you have already covered part of it. Even other solid foods “always” consist of water. Nothing edible is completely dry. The “average” recommendations are therefore very inaccurate and must be considered individually!
I live in Scotland in an area that has recently become practically overrun with short-stop American tourists; seemingly drawn by the untrue rumour that this was where the ultra-English Harry Potter books were written. What really astonishes us is how the Americans keep going into shops to purchase multiple plastic bottles. Yes, that's right; they buy many plastic bottles. These bottles happen to be full of water, but they might as well be full of air, because the water in them comes from precisely the same source as the water in our taps. If we get thirsty for water, we just drink it from the tap. It's free of charge and doesn't require millions of non-degradable plastic bottles.
what are they supposed to do? go to a tap and fill their pockets with water? fuckin euros man, every time
@@moonasha As a European, I have reusable bottles, which can be filled from the tap. Easy. I use them for my whole day hikes as well. And yes I use them when travelling round Europe too! Saves money, environment.
Refill the same bottle. @@moonasha
@@moonasha go to a tap and fill a bottle with free water you absolute goof lmao
Yeah, Americans don't seem to get this: it isn't about 'us' and water, it is about 'them' and bottles. That they have to carry literally everywhere like some protective charm. Typical 'You don't do the thing the same way that I do so you must not do the thing at all' kind of culturally ignorant thinking.
From Denmark: Here its just like, we dont spend money buying waterbottles - we are getting the reusable ones and refill it and carry it in out bags… Thats why you cant buy bottled water everywhere, there is no sales in it 😂
Now wait a second; i think a better translation for "Leitungswasser" should be "pipe water". We don't drink water that goes down the drain, but that what comes out of the tap. And for good reason: in Germany, "Pipe water" is (allegedly) way stricter regulated and controlled than the raw materials and the processing procedures of the food industries. At least insofar as that tap water is not allowed to be enriched with any sort of supplements, unlike bottled water.
It's same in all EU countries, since such are the EU regulations 🙃
In the Netherlands they experimented with adding fluoride to the tapwater / pipe water, to improve dental health of its citizens, but it was shut down.
@@nfboogaard there was this idea in Poland too but tin foil hatters started to panic 😉
@@nfboogaard Germany had the same discussion. Fluorides are added to certain tooth paste brands. As a consumer you have a choice. Btw nothing wrong with fluorides in the correct doses. We all intake chlorides (same chemical family) on a daily basis.
@@Rsama60 I guess the fluoride dosage in our tapwater was too high, there were reports of adverse health developments (increase of migraine, stomach ailments and depression), which rose 5% in the years following the implementation.
I think another factor is being a tourist. If you are walking around all day you need to drink more but you are probably getting less. Hotels have tiny glasses and no easy way to rehydrate. I'm British, I rarely worry about water at home, but travelling in Europe I always need to buy large bottles of water
Just occurred to me, that's probably worse for Americans who often aren't used to walking around all day
which is easy to do, gas stations, grocery stores, supermarkets
When i lived in Helsinki centre, i was always dehydrated when out in the town but being close to home meant that i didn't need to carry a water bottle. That is one difference, tourists drink outside, the locals drink it indoors, out of view.
Hotels have baths in every room where you can get unlimited amounts of tap water.
@@Tokru86 I was never in an hotel with a bath in every room, the bath was often another room if not down the floor.
As a German who has lived in the US for a couple of years, the US tap water would be deem undrinkable due to the high level of chlorination used. That extends to sodas offered at fast food restaurants preparing the drinks with Sirup and tap water at the fountain. We even refused Ice in the sodas for that reason. I never got me head around the obsession with drinking and expecting tap water in the restaurants.
I lived in Germany for 10 years, and 5 in the UK. Water is a God given right, it should not be denied. In flights water is mandatory for a good reason. You can't be forced to buy a bottle. It is provided to you. Also, the choice of bottled water is expensive, and restaurants make a hefty profit from it. It should be an option to order perrier for example and not an expectation. I have lived in many parts of the world, not just traveled. Germany has a long way to sand its corners in this regard, and end its vindictivness about this subject. I generally add an extra tip when my waiter follows intructions and serves me tap water.
buddy refused ice in sodas lmaooo
@@richardacevedo280 Wow, you sound personally insulted about that germany has regulations to keep drinking water clean and not to have to pollute it with chlorine and stuff? And yes, that costs a bit.
I did the exact same think. I refused that completely unnecessary ice in already cooled drinks (usually juice) ... I had a very bad time in the usa with food and water.
This, most american tap water wouldn't get approval for human consumption in europe *g*
In Europe you usually drink bottled water in a restaurant when it is the only drink you have. If you however drink coffee or alcohol and ask for a glass of water next to it, it usually is tap water for free. This has more to do with that we find it strange to charge for tap water, but bottled water can be charged as a normal drink.
It's not like that in Sweden. They will always serve tap water for free if you ask for it
I'm Dutch, but I drink tap water all the time. Never had a taste for sparkling water. The USA seems to be even more impressible by marketing than we are here in Europe. Trends always seem to be more extreme My mother had kidney failure and had to life with dialysis and the often accompanying moisture restriction, so the topic of hydration was something that came up a lot with her specialists. What it always came down to was that it depends on your other intakes. If you use a lot of salt or potassium (also salt sort of ;o)) the body needs more water to keep the body healthy, but if you eat and drink "normally" the need for water is not that high. Drinkable water is a resource, just as oil and iron, and seems to become less readily available again, mainly due to pollution. Looking at the more wasteful US society in general, I sometimes wonder how long it will last. I would think with such large areas in the US where water is not readily available there would be more awareness, but that does not show. One thing that you didn't bring up, but really annoys me is the large amounts of drinkable water being wasted on the lawns in places where these shouldn't exist. Why?
I absolutely agree about wasting water on lawns....there ought to be a law against it.
I am an American living in the state of New Mexico. The reason for large lawns is largely due to status. The United States is a _very_ materialistic and class oriented society. Also, Home Owners Associations can control what your yard and house looks like, even if you own your house! There was a proposition in Carlsbad, New Mexico to ban green lawns, but was struct down by popular consensus of the city's population at the time. Also, for drinking water consumption, if you live in New Mexico or Arizona, you will need that large amount of water in the summer time believe me! " Arizona~the place where your tires can melt just by driving to the grocery store as it approaches 44°C at mid-day. "
I don't think people in the US are more significantly more easily manipulated by marketing. It's just that they have so little regulation around advertising that the general population is just constantly lied to, both implicitly and explicitly.
@@cockatooinsunglasses7492 As far as I understand, in Arizona (and probably NM too) the tap water is heavily subsidized to keep the cost down. As a result, people waste it to maintain big lawns. Socialism in action 🙂
@@AlexusMaximusDE In this case it seems campaigns for drinking bottled water instead of perfectly fine (and often identically sourced) tap water have been more successful in Europe (at least in the Netherlands and Germany).
As a German, an addition to the "no tap water in restaurants"-thingy: Restaurants here often earn more on the drinks offered than on the food. There has been a price fight, especially in places where they have to make lots of money in only a few opening hours (p.ex. serving meals to office workers mostly in the middle of the day - some restaurants only open from 11am to 3pm). The food is often a bit more salty than is the norm, so people drink more, and drinks are providing the extra income. That is also the reason why McD and BK do not offer free refills in Germany, they also make most of their money on the drinks. Even more so, since they can offer soft drinks from the tap (mixed on site from concentrate, water and gas instead of offering small bottles where they would earn less like smaller outlets have to). Also, maybe I missed it, but there's a law here that bottled water has to be brought to the customer in a restaurant in a sealed bottle and it has to be opened in front of the customer, so that he knows what he is getting (since some restaurants refilled the expensive mineral water bottles in the back room with carbonated tap water and brought them to the customer already opened). This also leads to people thinking they are getting ripped off if this is not the case and some happily pay more for "fresh and secure" water because they do not trust the kitchens (otoh: why do they eat there if they don't ?).
This is a good point, restaurants definitely make most of their money on drinks, hence the tiny glasses of water that many offer if you ask for tap water.
They mix it on site from concentrate? That explains why every coke I’ve had at a Burger King tastes like it’s flat and watered down.
@@Jay_Johnson Correct.That is they way worldwide with all larger chains, the taps you see there have big jugs of concentrate and a water connection as well as a gas bottle. Now the mixing ratio is normally provided by the manufacturer, but some outlets choose to tamper with it in order to make more revenue. Even Ikea is not excempt to this. (and on the other hand many people do not notice because drinks are flavored according to regional preferences. Ever tried drinking Fanta in Ireland? Thats pure sugar with syrup and sweetener added on top!)
@@Jay_Johnson I remember soft drinks in a McDonalds in Washington D.C. tasting like they were based on water right out of the local swimming pool.
This! My grandparents had a Pub/Eckkneipe and were quite famous for their Hausmanskost (home-cooking-style-food) in their area, they said 'the food brings in the customers, but the drinks bring in the profits.'
Here is a relevant joke from Bulgaria. A journalist interviews a 100 year old woman in some remote village and of course asks her how she managed to live that long. And the woman responded that she drinks some rakia (a bit like brandy). If she has a low blood pressure she would drink a glass of red wine. And if she has high blood pressure, she'd drink white wine. The journalist asked her: "But water? When do you drink water?". "I haven't been *that* ill" said the woman.
That's cute but it's bullshit. Alcoholism certainly is correlated with a shorter lifespan.
The trend in Germany is very much going towards drinking more tap water, especially as water carbonators like sodastream are getting more popular. It's much easier to carrry just a cartridge every couple weeks than a crate every week.
I use sodastream all the time, here's a word of advice, don't bring those sodastream bottles in your backpack or training bag or whatever, they will leak water and ruin books, electronics and stuff like that
Being served chlorinated tap water and drinks with ice cubes made from that in US restaurants was a culture shock for me due to the awful taste. It felt like drinking from a swimming pool.
it‘s even worse without the icecubes
Oh yes! Even 20 years later, I'm still traumatized from taking a sip of water at a restaurant between San Diego and Los Angeles! It really tasted like they'd taken a glass of water from the swimming pool at the hotel I was staying at. Absolutely disgusting!
Two additional points to the "pool water taste": 1) My daughter was on a high school exchange in the U.S. and found the tap water disgusting due to the strong chlorination. 2) In my childhood, the tap water in my home town (northern Bavaria) was also chlorinated (which I always disliked because it reminded me of the public swimming pool ["Freibad"]) because we had a garrison of several thousand U.S. troops in town for whom the tap water otherwise wouldn't have been drinkable; in more recent years, with the number of G.I.s being reduced, the chlorination eventually was dropped.
I asked for soda without ice and the bartender looked at me as I was totaly crazy. But I'm special I like lukewarm and stale coke light. Anyway I think the ice is good for the profit. It's often ice with only a little from the ordered drink and you have to pay sky rocking prices for that.
in Germany, if water companies have to chlorinate their tap water, something went wrong and they are fighting a [temporary] problem like bacteria in some pipes somewhere along the network. they try to fix the problem asap to stop the chlorination because nobody wants to drink tap water with the taste from swim halls.
I'm 71 now, but when I was a kid, soda in North America came in reusable glass bottles or metal cans. Milk was often home delivered in glass bottles, and milk sold in grocery stores was in cartons made of paper and parrafin wax. I don't recall seeing my first plastic beverage bottle until the 1970's.
Here in England many people still have milk delivered to their house in glass bottles every day. We do.
@@ajs41We got rid of it in the US because too many kids started looking like the milkman
@@ajs41 I'd love that service here in Germany. We had it, but we almost gave up on it completely
@@MrNickelbrille I think ajs41 is one of the lucky ones in this regard, I do know of various places that still have a milkman but it's certainly not that common anymore. There are also some farm shops or refill shops popping up that offer a similar option but you have to got to them so not quite as convenient unless you live close.
@@redjoker365 "started looking like the milkman"? What the _ does that mean? Am I missing something culturally important here?
I live in Germany and only drink tap water. It's like someone else wrote here: Restaurants (the real ones, not fast food) are for special occasions, so the rest of my food I prepare at home or at work. At a restaurant I drink other beverages. At work I have tap water too. The quality of tap water in Germany is amazing. I visited other countries in Europe and it almost always tastes like chlorine elsewhere. I think they don't even notice there anymore, but it is not drinkable, if you're used to have good tap water at home. We have exstremely strict regulations when it comes to our drinking water.
I think in a lot of places, unless they have chlorinated tap water, people drink mostly tap water at home and at work, or some derivative of it like coffee, tea, lemonade, soda stream. Chlorinated tap water seems to be mostly Southern Europe and ever there it is getting better and better.
There's another important issue: not all waters are created equal. What matters is mineral content. All these different brands you shown in the German shop apart from being different brands also mean different levels of mineralisation. People here generally know that water low in minerals is of poorer quality. From what I know, bottled water in US is very low in minerals. It's now wonder they drink it so much as it's really hard to quench the thirst with such water.
This is nonsense. There is no evidence at all for the (tiny amounts of) minerals in 'mineral' water being healthy. Indeed the opposite can be true, as waters with mineral content above certain (very low) levels are often not allowed to be used for drinking. And real mineral water (eg from thermal spas) can taste absolutely foul!
Bottled water is definitely not the standard in Sweden, we almost always take tap water at restaurants. There definitely are people that drink fizzy water at restaurants, and it's always an option, but most people usually go for tap.
Tho drinking tap water in a restaurant is very "low class" in Sweden. You might have that together with a glass of wine, but nobody ever drinks JUST that.
@@ZapAndersson Oh I beg to differ. Nothing wrong with just having water with your food instead of something else to drink. (edited) [I know a woman whom enjoy the meal with water and] she still enjoys her meals at the restaurants, the kind where you have a waiter bring you the food to the table. Not posh places but I would not call them cheap either.
@@ZapAnderssondrinking tap water is standard if you go out during lunch or by the designated driver during dinner in my experience.
In my opinion it has nothing at all to do with class, but drinking mineral water like Loka or Ramlösa from bottle or can must be much more common in restaurants in Sweden than tap water.
Sweden is also number last when it comes to bottled water consumption per capita. You guys consume like 10L of bottled water per capita per year. Meanwhile in Italy they consume 200L and in Germany like 170L. All Scandinavian countries consume very little bottled water. Same goes for the Netherlands. The Baltics, the UK and Ireland are also down there and are quite a bit below the average. The European average is 118L. The US consumes even more bottled water than they do in Italy, with 211L per capita per year. So for every bottle of water a Swede buys, an American buys 21.
My body tells me when I need water, by beeing thirsty. Then I give it what it wants. If I crave salt, I eat somethung salty. I does often not need a lot so no need to over consume. And so on. Never force your body if it does not "ask" you for something.
Then you are lucky if that works for you. I can totally forget about drinking enough and only notice when my body starts suffering, by getting tired for no reason or headache.
@@madrooky1398 stress and some difficult days absolutley makes one ignore the signals, but headache and low energy are harder signals from your body, telling you it needs something. Be kind to yourself and hopefully you will hear it before you get those more severe signals.
@@madrooky1398 you are not getting tired for no reason. You get tired for a reason. Low blood sugar most likely 🙂👍
@@madrooky1398That's not 'lucky', that's human bodies working the way they were designed.
@@cjoor If we start cherry picking wording than "design" is a poor choice of words. 😆 And I remain by my choice, because you are lucky if everything turns out out to be working as intended, designed or evolved does not matter.^^
Every proper European know that water belongs in the espresso machine, not in the human body.
I think the obsession with Sprudel is a very German thing. Where I live in Austria and even when I visit my German in-laws, tap water is the go to and certainly not reserved for cleaning. Sprudel is just considered "the better water" as in if you go out to eat, you would have a fancier drink than tap water, since it doesn't happen often and it would seem cheap to invite people and serve them tap water. Much like wine, as you said, we show our class with water. Also, if you order coffee it is usually served with water, under the assumption they coffee dehydrates and ordering a large glass of tapwater with the coffee on a hot day is pretty normal. Those Americans just don't see people drink as much water, because of the recommendations being different and we listen to our bodies, that just need less because of sugar and sodium and they don't get a glimpse of home life. We even tell our kids to not overdo it with the salt and sweets, "otherwise you will be thirsty at night".
Yeah, German's love "Sprudel". Few people like still water. Here in Switzerland, both are common. But in my experience, more people will be happy with still water. Fun fact: We now have taps that can serve chilled, carbonated and boiling (for tea) water. No need for extra devices!
Whoah.. As a Swede, even the German intake seemed a LOT. I drink when I'm thirsty. I never ever carry around water unless maybe in the form of coffee ☕
Well in sweden coffe is the alternative to water 😉
That is the thing. You get 90% of your needed water intake from solid food.
Norwegian here, we often carry water in our own bottles in summertime, we take it from the tap. At the same time in summer the shops are frequently empty. That's about a couple of weeks here in Oslo.
When it comes to coffee people here say you need to drink more water if you've had a cup. Something about coffee tying up water in your body.
@@TullaRask which is a myth. Sure, caffeine has a diuretic effect - but so has water itself... and you take in more water in each cup than the caffeine in it forces your body to get out.
In Germany, Leitungswasser (tap water = directly from the pipe) is the most regulated and safe type of food we have. But when I grew up, we didn't drink it just like that. Bottled carbonated water was the norm and only in the last couple of years, people around me have started to drink more tap water. I personally love it, because here in the Harz region, we have excellent water that even tastes really good 🙂
Kind of funny. As your neighbor from Denmark, we almost never drink sparkled water 😅. I remember trips to Germany in my childhood with only the sparkled water. As a child I hated it, today I sometimes but it 😉
@@hellebachmann8260 I seem to remember a story of my 92 year old grandpa who, to make a long story short, is very much of the opinion that carbonated water was very much considered "rich, cultured and advanced" in the 50's and 60's and thus became a major hit in many mid-income german households instead of drinking "boring" ol' tapwater.
@@fj8264 I Think it was because water was the only option for them. In my youth in the 80' we only got soda on fridays. I remember it as so special 😅
@@hellebachmann8260 Same here. Coca Cola was "Teufelszeug". Still, I distinctly remember Gramps saying that "that bubbly water was (initially) great for impressing friends with wealth in the 50's, and later on just "better than still water". I personally prefer still water and tea over anything else.
It is regulated where it is prepared for home use, but you never know about the quality of the pipes. Especially in very old houses there is a very real danger of lead in the water, and if if that isn't the case, there can still be issues with the pipes.
*EVERY VILLAGE HAS AN ARTESIAN WELL* here in Bulgaria - but they all taste different so people will drive 20km to the best one to fill up the 20L bottles for the week The one that supplies my building is very heavily mineralised so I put it through a water filter to soften it to my taste. Our water filters come in different colours to denote the level of removal they achieve, cos you still want some minerals in it for the taste. So I use a pink filter - medium.
Wow, thank you that was really interesting!
This is remarkably different from my personal experience. The first time I was on the west coast that wasn't Canada (i.e. LA), I was shocked about the water quality. After a shower I needed a bottle of (bottled) water just to get that chlorinated stuff off my skin before I got dressed. There is some imperfect water to be had around the world, but this was much worse than the worst overtreated swimming pool water I had ever experienced literally anywhere. That was the stuff they called "water" from the tap. I completely understood and could empathize with people who only drank water from the cooler. I would have bathed in and showered with bottled water only, had my budget not been too limited.
In many places in the U.S., especially in the Californian desert, the water is rather hard, that is, alkaline. What you experienced is that hard water doesn’t rinse the soap well.
@@ebahapo Thanks for explaining. I believed they pumped all that water ~600km from the Colorado river through a desert to LA and made it reasonably safe for human consumption by adding a lot of chlorine. That doesn't sound reasonable. If somebody watered an orchard or even a lawn with that stuff, it would die. Your hypothesis of high pH sounds much more tenable.
Hate to tell you this, but bottled water here comes from the tap unless you're importing some fijian special drip. Go ahead, check your bottle. "Bottled by Coca Cola", I'd bet, with the same tapwater.
@@ebahapo Nah we have hard water in germany as well. Especially near the alps. Nothing you can do about that, that's the rocky ground. Water tastes phenomenal though. It's like you are drinking straight from a fresh mountain source. No overtreated bs
I'm from PEI located in the south-east coast part of Canada aka The Maritimes. I once visited a friend in Scranton, Pa. when I took a shower I think I got a tan it was so yellow. It's similar to Sydney, Cape Breton both places are historically coal and steel towns both have terrible water, sulphurous, smelly, horrible.
i remember my first time in germany i was on a trip with other french kids and we had so much trouble trying to get non carbonated water one time i tried getting an apple juice because i was tired of trying to ask for flat water in my broken german (i was 12), i felt so betrayed when i got sparkling apple juice it was hilarious
In Austria it's the other way around today. If I want a juice with water I have to tell them I want sparkling water or I certainly will get flat water. And even then it happens that they get it wrong.
Good story. I feel for your 12 year old, disappointed self.
The first time I went to the netherlands and bought a bottle of Ice Tea it was quite a shock to find out it was sparkling aswell. Now I love it 🤣
I still don't get the tiktok from the beginning: wtf does that woman mean with "we finally found water" and "Europeans don't believe in water"?? Like.... turn on any tap that you come across and there's drinkable water? Especially in southern European countries almost every store has a fridge full of cold water?
I assume they meant it's hard to get free tap water in restaurants, and they don't see it on other tables in the restaurant or see Europeans carrying water bottles.
If she was in Italy we have a lot of water fountains in our big cities
7 gallons per day, that is 26.5 liters of water. The nut at 6:28 has a strong death wish! This amount of water would wash so many electrolytes out of the body that it would no longer be able to function. Just 5, 7 or even 10 liters can lead to considerable damage and even death. This is because the large amounts of fluid in the body also increase the water content in the blood - so the blood becomes thinner. This in turn leads to a drop in the salt content of the blood. However, she is probably not able to drink that much.
If you work outside on a hot summer's day you can easily drink 5 liters in a day
I’m a 61-year-old American living in France. At restaurants here, we know to ask for *une carafe d’eau* which will be tap water. While many people will ask for water in a bottle, most tourists do not know how to ask for tap water, thus paying for a high margin addition to their meal. (We make a joke in asking for *de l’eau neuvième*, making the tap water of the 9th arrondissement of Paris sound extra fancy.) I mention my age as I too remember when we did not need a bottle of water with us constantly. In some ways it is smart to have a bottle of water handy during that 1 hour train trip to quell a coughing fit but I travel regularly from home to a location 1h45 away without taking a single sip. As an architect, I did also notice that the rise of carrying a bottle of water around was accompanied by the general disappearance of bubblers or hard-plumbed water drinking fountains in pubic buildings. In Paris and other locations in France safe drinking water is available to all in public parks and on the street. Kids will use the hydrants in parks after some raucous play. Folks without a home have a ready source of water on the street. And because Parisians are not immune to the rise in carrying about a reusable bottle, I’ve seen a few dispensers of sparkling water in newer parks. 😂 And that glass filling thing at American restaurants, particularly with ice water? That makes me crazy. Just leave a used wine bottle of tap water at my table and I will take what I need. (At the few places where that is done in the US, I imagine the servers are taught to dump that out when the diners leave as it would be “unsanitary” to just give it to the next table.) In France, even the small basket of bread at your table might have just been passed over from the adjacent table where diners just left.
I have used "Aqua Municipale" or "de l'eau municipale" or "gemeentepils" (municipal pilsner).
I think at least in Germany the relationship to tap water has changed over the years, especially since the invention of the soda stream, which will make your tap water sparkle. People nowadays drink more tap water I think. The reason it’s frowned upon in restaurants is because they make money with the drinks here. So if everybody just ordered free tap water, it would be bad for them financially. Asking only for tap water and no other drinks basically comes off a bit cheap, while if you ordered other drinks, they will usually be happy to also give a glass of tap water. I just travelled to the US and while free refills and tap water were great, the prices were also crazy in comparison. So I think it’s kind of included in the price to have unlimited water, while here it isn’t.
Is Germany the main market for Soda Stream? It seams as it's not very popular in other countries. We had the first ca. 35 years ago.
@@arnolsi Don't know. But it helped, that the German courts decided, that other companies are allowed to refill the cylinder. Now you get the refill at many places and at half the price than the US.
@@orbiradio2465 Ah that can be a difference. To be honest I don't know about any ruling in The Netherlands concerning refilling the cylinder, but I doubt we have such a court-ruling in place: I bet the Dutch like to get their pockets emptied with such a device (which, indeed, is not new, 'Soda Club' machines existed in the nineties here, but just never caught up. I think Sodastream just benefits from a 'going green' movement, besides aggresively campaigning the product, while I can't remember ever seeing a commercial for a comparable machine in the nineties.
@@arnolsi SodaStream is wildly popular in Denmark, too, and we love fizzy water just as much as our German neighbours. We actually call it Danskvand (Danish water) as if we own it xD My mother got us a SodaStream 40 years ago and we could have one cola or orange soda once a week with our Saturday sweets and rented VHS film. Aah, those were the days ^_^ PS: I just googled and SodaStream came to Denmark in 1973! A pair of English tourists had one with them which inspired a Danish retailer to market them here in Denmark. That was before I was born xD
I mean it's not like Sodastream invented home water carbonation. Soda carbonation bottles were commonplace decades before the modern Sodastream became a thing.
If only the human body developed a mechanism to alert the conscious mind to its need to increase fluid uptake... I'm never gonna understand why (healthy, non-elderly) people feel the need to guzzle water for no reason other than some imaginary daily quota. You're not going to forget about being thirsty, like you might about being hungry. Thirst is such a basic need that your body WILL constantly alert you to this. Drink when you're thirsty, if you're not thirsty, you don't need to drink.
I agree. But for many this would probably need some re-training of their body. Drink when you are thirsty, eat when you are hungry, rest when you are tired. And stop once you no longer are. **My** body at least even tells me exactly **what** it needs. Sometimes it wants cucumber salad, other times a piece of cake or whatever. Probably for a reason, so I eat what I'm told to eat. Same with drinks. Tap water? Peppermint tea? Apple juice? Coffee? My body will tell me.
I agree 100%. Good marketing. By the way, one can also drink too much! For Water, as for all substances, applies: too much of it is poison. Drinking too much water (at once), might unbalance the body's metabolism and mineral household. This can lead to water poisoning: The water greatly dilutes the blood and the salt balance is disrupted. As a result, more fluid is transported into the cells than out of them. This can lead to cardiac arrhythmias, hurt the kidneys and, in the worst case, leads to cerebral edema.
Right, thirst is usually enough. Exceptions are only when you are in the middle of a sports competition and the thirst signal comes too late, or you are a very old person who lost its sense of thirst.
@@PotsdamSenior My body is always telling me, it wants cake, and never that it needs cucumber salad. I think the only logical explanation is, that my body craves nutrients and vitamins contained in a cake. So it I obey it.
One exception: some healthy but non-neurotypical people have trouble telling how their body is doing, up to and including thirst or physical injury
Drinking more than 1.5-2l per day is totally unnecessary unless you are sweating it out (hot weather or exercise). These XXXL water barrels are ridicolous :D
At Uluru, I consumed around 7l of water per day, and that was in spring :).
That depends on your size, I'm a big guy and drink about 3 liters a day with meals alone. If I sweat and exercise, that's an additional 1-2 liters
Growing up in Europe I've also been told by educators to drink stupid amounts of water. And we too have our fair share of tap water absolutists, reusable bottle masochists, and bottled water connoisseurs. That depends way more on the class and country of the particular person than any broad cultural thing. One thing that is cultural though is that restaurants expect you to pay pretty much just to be there. They know that the true costs of their operations are the rent, wages, energy bill, etc., and whether you're drinking bottled water or soda makes no difference. In France, it is part of the culture that tap water is free but in most other countries asking for free water at a restaurant will be met with hostility. Btw, Leitungswasser really does just translate as tap water, I know it's not an exact translation but it also has that very neutral vibe to it.
Restaurants in the UK are legally required to provide tap water for free if you ask for it. It's always best to specifically ask for "tap water" otherwise they might choose to interpret "water" as "£20 bottle of Perrier".
@@nbartlett6538 In Spain it's also like that. It's really strange for someone to ask a bottle, here too you only get it if you forget to add "a glass of" or "sink"; otherwise, you'd rather ask any kind of drink other than just regular but non-free water
European here. When I was younger, I hardly drank any water at all. Despite being very physically active. I drank when I was thirsty, which was rare. The older I get, though, the more water I seem to need. Thankfully I have very nice tap water, might buy some bottled water with or without taste added now and then.
Might just be because adolescents eat more than adults, and you can satisfy a part of your water intake from food too.
@@Pystrono, it's because young people think they are Immortal and don't care about health
If you told me the first video i would start my day with was about the difference in the water intake between Americans and Europeans i wouldnt have believed it, but here we are. 😂
And I'm glad to have you watching. 😆😉
The Internet seems to show you things that you didn't think you needed, and, quite correctly, may not. Lol
It's amazing what we watch, my first video this morning was a 40 minute documentary about people addicted to Bingo in America. As a Brit who has never played Bingo I'm not even sure why I clicked on it but I'm glad I did I ended up watching the whole thing and now I am here watching another interesting video I never even thought about before today.
In most restaurants here in Norway you can get free tap water (and very good), but they don't actively promote it because they'd rather earn money on you drinking something else. In many countries unfortunately tap water could bring you in trouble if you have not adapted to the local water quality.
Just like in Germany
same in Slovakia.
She failed to mention that.
@@justbecause9645yeah, some of her videos need a lot more research, she can't just assume it's the same all over Europe as in Germany
@@sandralison7584 so you CAN get free tap water in German restaurants?
Another great video, Ashton! The last videos were amazing but very heavy topics, so this somewhat lighthearted one was a much appreciated breather. But still really informative, which I did NOT expect from a piece about water. XD Anyway I'm trying to say the pacing of your video topics - among many other things - is absolutely excellent. Thank you for the amazing content.
In Sweden, we drink tap water at home, it not something you ask for at restaurants , so water bought in store is fizzy and most often flavoured. We are told drinking too much can cause brain swelling and incontinence . We do use plastic bottles but we hand them back to the store and get a bit of money for it.
Just a little note on the money for bottles, whoever bought the bottle pays a deposit on it and that money gets paid back when the bottle is returned. The bottle can be returned at any place where they accept bottles, not just the one you bought it from.
Yes, drinking extremely much water can cause the brain to swell which in turn can lead to terrible headache and death.
In Finland, I do ask for tap water at a restaurant too. Finnish tap water is generally good or excellent quality, and bottled water costs an arm and a leg. It simply doesn’t make sense to go for bottled water, and I don’t think even waiters give you a funny look nowadays. It might have been different 20-30 years ago but restaurants have become much more casual places than they used to be, and nothing would ruin the casual atmosphere faster than a waiter giving you a condescending look. So if you want tap water, you get tap water, and if you are happy, then the waiter is happy and the restaurant thrives.
I always ask for just "water" In restaurants In Finland. In 30 years I have never been offered bottled water. I am always served great tasting tap water.
@@warcanon9546 Same in germany, even for plastic bottles
Hey Ashton, great video but I think you should have mentioned the bottled water in Europe is usually a mineral water with different amount of electrolytes (Magnesium, sodium, iron, calcium etc..) You can chose the water depending on what minerals you want more of and of course for the taste. Did you know there are Water Sommeliers?
"Did you know there are Water Sommeliers?" I bet your question made some Murican heads 'splode.
This. Drinking only mineral water is also a health hazard. A buddy of mine was drinking mineral water almost exclusively for 2 years and guess what, Kidney stones at 27 years old...
I don't know what specific circumstances led to the problems of your friend, but your claim that 'drinking only mineral water is a health hazard' is so generalising that it's outright misinformation.
@@AV-we6wo Its hazardous as in drinking too much water at the same time is hazardous. There was a dare on an Army base, two guys drank too much water too quickly and passed out. They had to be put on IV fluids. As with anything, do too much and literally everything is a health hazard... I never said drinking mineral water is a hazard, but if you are drinking ONLY mineral water, there could be nasty side effects, like kidney stones.
most people in germany drink mineral water exclusively all their lives. people should stop spreading bs. there is nothing wrong with it. it is not like doing anything excessively. it is normal.
*I HAVE PLUMBED IN MINERAL WATER* here in Bulgaria - the normal water is totally drinkable but my apartment block has an artesian well so I have 2 water meters. The strange thing is - the washing machine is plumbed into the mineral water supply!?!?!?!? I think this comes from the era not that long ago when people would wash their clothes in the village well. Every village here has a well in the centre where mineral water is free and people used to make use of the free water for water-intensive things like washing clothes before automatic machines were common. So people expected to wash their clothes in mineral water... This is my best guess.
For me the most interesting question is, why does everbody drink everything with straws. Most influencers online seem to no longer drink right from a glass or bottle but always sip everything through straws.
8:28 it's the norm in Germany, but not in France, where asking for a jar of tap water is quite common to accompany the wine bottle.
Cultural differences. Go to a French restaurant and you can get a carafe of cooled tap water and/or mineral water. Forgot all about, living in Switzerland since 1977. I tend to drink a lot of water, of course we have a Sodastream machine that infuses tap water with bubbles - makes it carbonated. What I generally don't drink is commercial carbonated drinks or fruit juices. Mainly because of the sugar - I've got diabetes Type 2, so sugar is poison for me.
I too have type 2 diabetes Sugar isn't poison to us. We need some. I keep some sugary sweets in my house in case I have an hypo. I do drink some fruits juices and carbonated drinks (no sugar or at least no added sugar).
Aprox. 2 months ago a US female (Ashley Summers) drunk herself to death. She was a bit dehydrated and drunk water like crazy to compensate it. This even affected the salt-water level in her blood and caused a sudden death. The human boddy needs a certain degree of salts (Electrolyts) to transport signals, if this level is fallen below a critical level, some vital informations are no longer transported.
Here in Poland, I usually have no problem with getting tap water in a restaurant. I typically don't even have to specify it, it's just the default when I ask for a glass of water. Also, we don't have glass bottles unfortunately, it's all plastic. But other than that, I agree that drinking water isn't treated in such a cult-ish manner. Me personally, I almost never drink pure water. It's all in the form of fruit or herbal tea, or sometimes juice or something.
I don't know where exactly you live, but there is water in glass bottles. Maybe not as popular as in Germany (not even talking about Getrankmarkt), but you can easily buy it in stores.
But in every restaurant I have been in Poland anytime I asked for water they would bring a small GLASS bottle of water. There was literally only one time I went to a restaurant recently in Warsaw where they gave us a glasses of I assume tap water or something, free of charge as an extra even tho we ordered other drinks too.
I think one reason Americans habitually drink more is the AC. In air-conditioned rooms, the humidity is often extremely low, turning you into dried fruit. I notice this in my car in the summer. We used to take at least two breaks on the way to our vacation place to pee. Today no one has to anymore. Then there is the food. If I eat your soggy sandwich bread or pancakes, I'll need either gallons of syrup or three cups of coffee. My standard German breakfast includes fruits like apples, pears, kiwi berrys, melon... or tomatoes or dairy products such as yoghurt and Quark in the morning, lettuce for lunch and raw vegetables for Abendbrot. I eat significantly less salt and sugar and protein, things that put a lot of strain on the kidneys. Another reason might be, that Gwyneth Paltrow isn't that popular here, as are all the Hollywood ladies who talk about stay hydrated here and avoid to feel hungry with water there. Most people I know who run around with a tap water filled bottle are people on a diet.
I agree with your comment on home AC dehumidifying the room air.
Try living in the southern US without AC and see how long that lasts.
They use poor AC units, real AC is not only about making temperature lower, it should be also able to change humidity (increase or decrease as you need), but most of today AC units are fake AC without all features which AC should have.
@@norwegianblue2017 Temperature is a factor for water consumption.
German tap water isn't just safe to drink. It has quality control that is better than some bottled waters. The german infrastructure for Trinkwasser is crazy sophisticated, because there is a heavy distinction between Brauchwasser(water safe for use in flushing toilets, showering and the likes) and Trinkwasser Even crazier, most people don't have a separate line for Brauchwasser to their house, so we're flushing our toilets with a waterquality some places in the world kill for. That all for a prize of about 2€ per cubic meter.
When I read the first sentence I was quite sceptical because it soundet like: Deutsches Leitungswasser zu trinken ist einfach nicht sicher. But in the context of the rest of your post it is clear what you want to say, to which I totally agree.
@@ReisskIaue Das wäre eher "German tap water just isn't safe to drink" d.h. andere Reihenfolge. Das, was im OP steht, wäre eher mit "Deutsches Leitungswasser ist nicht nur zum Trinken sicher" zu übersetzen
@@ReisskIaue Well then you have misunderstood the sentence completely...because he wrote "German tab water isn´t just save to drink" which does not mean "Deutsches Leitungswasser zu trinken ist einfach nicht sicher" but it means literally the opposite "Deutsches Leitungswasser ist nicht nur sicher zu trinken" when literally translated into German but keeping English word order = in German word order "Deutsches Leitungswasser zu trinken ist nicht nur sicher" (Gefolgt mit der Begründung, weil die Qualitätskontrolle besser ist als für in Flaschen abgefülltes Wasser) Wobei man das sowieso nicht miteinander vergleichen kann, weil Flaschenwasser wird ja direkt aus der Quelle abgefüllt und Leitungswasser wird aus mehreren Quellen kilometerweit durch Leitungen gepumpt und in Zisternen zwischengelagert, bevor es in die Haushalte weitergepumpt wird, da wird natürlich dann Leitungswasser - mehrmals - geprüft, weil das Wasser auf ihren weiten Weg verunreinigt werden könnte weil es mehrere Stationen durchläuft und weil man es zwischenlagert und wel mehrerer Quellen im Spiel sind = hat viele Faktoren die zu Verunreinigungen führen können, was bei einer Direktabfüllung aus einer Quelle nicht notwendig ist. Das heißt aber nicht, dass weil man Leitungswasser öfter prüfen MUSS, dass es deswegen "besser geprüft" ist.. "Quantität" ist nun mal nicht das gleiche wie "Qualität" Quellen für die Flaschenabfüllung werden nämlich auch regelmäßig geprüft und zwar genauso oft wie die Quellen für das Leitungswasser.
And still there are people in Germany who filter all their tap water before drinking it. I knew someone who filtered her water and then added magnesium. When I googled, I found that filtering mainly removed the magnesium that was in the tap water originally.
@@ronald3836 I actually filter my tap water for my kettle There's varying amounts of lime in the water. It's not in any way dangerous, it actually adds to the subtle taste, but it can build up in the kettle over time, and cleaning it is annoying
The more "bottled water" is very German though, Ashton. I'm a Dane and went to München and my whole family were confused when we asked for water and they brought out a steel capped glass bottle of "premium water" (whatever tf that is). Also, Germany will charge for water at restaurants which is wild.. In Danish grocery stores you will find one, maybe two, brands of bottled water costing 15 DKK (€2) per half liter - and you will never find larger bottles unless you want sparkling water
Belgium is no stranger to it either. Even though we have perfectly drinkable tap-water, we still used to buy bottled water in the supermarket by the m³. Free water at restaurants is unheard of, in some cases they might bring you a single glass of it out of goodwill on hot days. But they're not legally expected to do so. Further more, bottled water is sold at the same price as soda and other beverages which I always considered the most outrageous thing of all. If you ask for a sparking or flat water at restaurants and none of the other people at your table drink it, they'll bring out the small overpriced 22cl.Bottled water is big business in BE and it took Covid and a consecutive energy crisis to finally made us rethink this weird habbit.
@@saladspinner3200as a Swede this is outrageous to hear. I always drink free tap water at restaurants. I wanted to travel more in places like Germany and Belgium but this puts me off. I am very stubborn however and not afraid of "making a fool of myself". So I would probably bring my own tap water from home then. Do you think they would throw you out of the restaurant for doing that?
@@leob4403 bringing your own beverages to a restaurant Will get you very weird looks. They Will ask you to buy something.
@@saladspinner3200 I don't care about weird looks though. That's why I wonder if they would actually throw me out of the restaurant. I guess I will have to try sometime
Growing up, my German mother would tell us not to drink anything until after the meal was over. I still do this and think this habit carried over for us as children and still as adults. I remember as a kid, when we would play outside, we would take a break and go drink water out of the hose, and then go back to playing. I still drink only a little water when I’m thirsty. My wife and kids, however, drink lots of water from their water bottles each day. I just don’t get it - or see a difference between drinking a little or a lot of water.
I am a German who has been told by her doctor to be careful not to drink TOO MUCH water per day. I‘ve always had a rather high water intake, even as a child. This is good for a lot of things, for example the kidneys. BUT it also flushes out minerals from the body, so I have to keep taking supplements for several of them.
My mum has been hospitalised for both hypo-natremia and hyper-natremia in the past. It is not funny. She was unconscious and I thought she had a stroke. Definitely do not drink stupid amounts of water or then after being hospitalised go the other way and end up in hospital again.
Hi Ashton, Germany is rather unique with their Getrankemarkt and everyone buying crates of sparkling water in glass. Here in the UK it's almost impossible to find glass bottles, with an expression of the premium water brands being sold in glass or cans. Also, sparkling water is not popular here, majority prefer still and a lot of people just go for tap water. Again, I don't think the UK can represent more typical European water consumption just like Germany can't. Originally I'm from Poland and if I drink water it will be either sparkling or still but always with lemon juice
Greetings from Vienna: For me its tap water all day. The last time I ordered bottled water was approx. in 2022, not only is it cheaper but better for sure. Because our water comes from the alps over the Hochquellleitung. And it gets a monthly test and the results are printed on the Vienese Waterworks Homepage. And for Bubbles I have a Soda Stream machine.
Same here for me as a fellow Viennese
The big amount of "hard water" in Europe should have been mentioned, it's a pretty big factor on all of this.
I'd have thought that a bonus to tap water. We have mineral water in the damn pipes (so long as you live in an area with good geology), why do people pay out the nose for it?
I live in Switzerland and we call our tap water "Hahnenwasser" which is the literal translation of tap water. I drink plenty of it during the day but it´s nothing I´d order in a restaurant. It would feel weird to visit a restaurant and order something I could just get from the tap at home as well. Besides that I know that a lot of restaurants need to sell drinks as well to survive. So having a glass of wine or a beer (instead of tap water) with dinner not only enhances the culinary experience, it´s also a way of supporting my favourite restaurants.
Hi Aston! Interesting observations. I was born in Germany in 1958. During my school days, we would drink a glass or cup of hot or cold chocolate for breakfast and occasionally we would buy another small pack of milk or cold chocolate at school later in the morning. When I came home for lunch, the rule was "No drinks to go with your food, otherwise it will dilute your gastric acid and you won't be able to digest your food well." We NEVER drank tap water, let alone offer it to a guest, although its quality was tightly monitored by the water utilities. If you happened to live in a house which still had lead pipes, it would have been a different story, but awareness of that only grew much later. I think after all the deprivations of WW2, Germans were heavily talked into indulging on consumption of bottled water as an indication of abundance and luxory. And it was always carbonated water ("classic"). I learnt that I liked flat water much better when I started traveling a lot. And I could relate to Americans going "Yuck, this tastes sooo salty"! when they tried carbonated water even up to the 1980ies or 1990ies. But now most Americans I know prefer carbonated drinks, and so do my somewhat older relatives and friends in Germany. The younger ones, though, and the women un particular, prefer flat water. And as for the quantities of water I consume nowadays, I learnt to drink much more while staying in the US. Up to the age of around 25, the amount of water I consumed per day was shockingly low.
You should look at the story of Dasani the UK. A summary was that they tried to sell Dasani in the UK but it ultimately failed once it was ousted that they were just bottling tap water from the main supply whilst charging more than actual bottled mineral water from spring sources which made the public very unhappy.
One important thing is that sugar consumption may also increase water consumption in other ways. Glucose is osmotic and so has to be polymerized for storage in the form of glycogen. Glycogen requires about 3-4 grams of water to store per gram of glycogen. I think there is a lot we still don't understand about it yet.
I live in sweden, we have fantastic tap water. I may buy some sparkling water with flavour a few times a month. But I would never buy flat water here.
As you mentioned in the first chapter, water consumption is highly influenced by the ambient climate that surrounds us. Before coming to Germany I lived in Paraguay in a mediterranean semi-tropical climate where the summer temperatures routinely are over 40℃ (and relative humidity at 20-40%) in the summer, and rarely below 15℃ (with relative humidity at 50-80%) in the winter. And I would consume an average of 3-5 Liters of “water” per day (mainly in the form of “Tereré”, a custom that encourages socialization through rounds of turn based small servings). With physical activity the consumption could go as high as 7 Liters in one day. Here in Germany my average consumption has dropped to around 2-2,5 Liters, because the temperature rarely reaches 30℃ in the summer. Though if I neglect hydration (less than 1 Liter) my body reacts with a raging headache, which takes almost 10 hours to calm with abundant hydration.
Yes, I already mentioned headache in other comment, when you don't drink enough water, you can get terrible headache which can't be killed by some pills, you day is destroyed by that. It happens when you sleep too long and you haven't drink any water for many hours. When you feel that headache is slowly comming to you, you should immediately drink some water as fast help. Some people not that sensitive to that and they walk all the day around without drinking anything, but some people need to drink more. And I absolutely hate ice in water, super cold water just gives me headache instantly, even when it's 30+°C, I prefer room temperature water or just slightly cold water, not iced cold.
Leitungswasser aka tap water have zero negative connotations here in Europe. Literally it translated to pipe water. It have high quality controls and is perfectly safe to drink. The reason you don't get tap water in restaurants is because it's free and thus not fancy. In Europe going to a restaurant is a form of entertainment, it's about being fancy.
Dutchman here. All our tapwater is drinkable, so we only really drink bottled when on the road or when we are 'fancy', aka when we go out. That's why Dutchmen will almost always take bottled water in restaurants.
Thanks for clearing that up! The salt/ sugar in all food in the US was definitely a reason to drink more... I was also really shocked in the US about all the plastic plates, cups and even cutlery f.i. in hotels even during breakfast. It actually made me upset to be so wasteful. I've not had that feeling anywhere I've travelled...
She means German culture. She is exploring German culture with drinking water, and nowhere else. Costal places in Spain/Italy and I'm sure others drink bottled water because most of their water comes from desalination plants. Some central European nations drink bottled water because it tastes different and there is cultural importance placed on that. Like wow I've tried some Dutch bottled mineral water (blue bottle with like a baby on it?) and it tasted like my body had received all its daily minerals. I'm from UK and we drink bottled water when we forgot to bring a bottle with us. In a restaurant if you want water they will by default give you tap - unless it's a posh restaurant and you'll get a glass bottle of water. There is a similar attitude with drinking water to America (it makes you healthier) but minus the rampant consumerism and wearing your personality in your products - you're unlikely to see these crazy big water bottles outside of a university campus, or Facebook mums posting how much water they drank. Europe is a very large area with cultures and languages that have evolved separately over thousands of years. Polish culture is in no way related to Portuguese culture. It's like saying Mexico is part of America (it is part of the continent), and lumping them in with USA citizens. Like what are you talking about pls. Don't even speak the same language.
That blue bottle was probably Spa, which is from the eponymous town in Belgium that the English word “spa” also comes from.
I can't imagine Spanish and Italian drinking just a little of water, after all half of Spain is a desert.
I wanted to come back to this video to say I enjoyed the lighter fare and a bit shorter length video this time (but still well researched). I hope you do more like this in between the more complex topics.
Thanks! That was my thought exactly!
Thank you for your well researched content and your sound videos as always. And by the way you looking great. The colour is becoming to you!
I live in England and often ask for tap water in restaurants but not as my only drink. I’ll also be having wine or coffee so the restaurant doesn’t miss out. I never buy still bottled water, even though it’s usually spring water or mineral water, I do buy sparkling water though which I drink instead of sweet,fizzy drinks which I don’t like. The taste of tap water varies around the country but it’s always safe to drink and fortunately tastes pretty good where I live.
Same here, i have friends who live relatively close to me who refuse to drink tap water ATALL, as in they live off bottled water. They claim that the government is putting too much fluoride in it. Could be true, might not be, i haven't really looked into it to be truthful. I like the taste of our tap water and drink it all the time.
Great video. Weird you did not mention the SodaStream that is a German household item that is used by many and that uses tab water to make their own sparkling water and lemonade. As a European I drink tab water at home. At the restaurant I drink sparkling, because I do not want to pay for flat water I could get for free. I also understand that they ask for money for the service they provide, so not complaining. I remember when everybody just drank water from the tab in Europe. The reason people buy non-sparkling water is marketing. Ask people why they buy it and they say that it is "better" than tab water, without knowing what the difference actually is from and do not know that many of the things they want are already in the tab water and are filtered out for bottled water. There is also the famous case of Coca Cola who stopped selling bottled water when it came to light that what they were selling was basically tab water. And many of the water sold in Europe is just that: Bottled tab water or tab water that went through a filter, removing non of the dangerous stuff (as that is not in it to begin with) yet remove some of the items that are the reason people buy bottled water in the first place. When I am at the office, I also just drink tab water and not the bottled water available. Just bought a cheap 1L bottle and use that. At home I often make sugar free infusions. I have always 5 different tastes at home. I drink 2-4 liters per day, depending on the situation. Also because I like the taste of the infusion. So this time I side with the Mericans, but for different reasons. Just drink tab water if you want non-sparking water. It is fine.
Sometimes bottled water can be better than tap water. I live in a city that takes half of it's water from wells in karst and despite all filtration we still get flakes of limescale (or something like that) and due to this in some parts the water is not ideal for drinking, unless you brew a tea or coffee. So I get why people would buy water for other reasons than commercials.
It's tap water, not tab.
In Portugal it is illegal to charge for tap water. Restaurants, coffee shops, bars, hotels, are mandatory to have tap water and sanitized non-disposable cups available to customers.
i know nobody using a sodastream. for most people it is not about sparkling or not, it is about tap or not.
Does that SodaStream create carbon emissions? When I (American) looked into a machine to make sparkling water at home, they all required a canister of pressurized carbon dioxide, which would then be released to the atmosphere, and the canister was probably disposable. I think it would be possible to have a machine that injects air into the water to make it bubbly short-term, but none of the machines I saw did that.
Europeans do drink tap water. Directly from the tap, with bubbles from the tap, cooled from the tap or as coffee and tea. However, Service in Europe sucks and therefore we don't get free tap water in restaurants. But then again, we don't play 50% tip (or whatever is the current rate in the US). Edit: I don't care about recommendations, those don't take into account the circumstances. I can guestimate quite good how much water I need. It's easily visible in the urine. Also "glasses of water" are not an official unit. We measure in Volume (liters). A glass can typically range from 4cl (shotglass) to 1l (Masskrug).
In northern Europe you get tap water for free at restaurants, I live in Sweden and get it for free all the time
I'm scottish, growing up in the highlands where the tap water is basically mineral water and is the norm. Also with the climate most of the year you seldom drank large amounts of water (mainly hotter summer days and during/after physical exercise/labour). When I started working in restaurants I couldn't believe how much water USA tourists consumed (to cater to them we had jugs of iced tap water on every table). We often noted they must have spent a great deal of their time in Scotland in the toilet getting rid of it again. I moved south and do not like the flavour of the tap water (highland water has a very clean taste) so I filter it and/or get bottled waters but that's a preference rather than the norm. I used to holiday in Northern Italy and since it is much warmer there I used to almost double my usual water intake, and yes most of it was bottled but that was due to convenience. The only time I feel the need to drink more water is when I have a blood test coming up and some extra water makes it easier for them to extract the sample and any time I'm checked (which in itself is infrequent) I am fine for hydration levels.
If you live in a country with safe piped/tap water then the need to buy bottled should be pretty limited. The bottled water market is a testament to marketing and capitalism. Getting people to buy something they don't need to buy.
As Iceland is still part of Europe I'd like to chime in, most of what you talk about as European things is mostly mainland Europe (or at least not as much Northern Europe). I honestly didn't see bottled water for sale in Iceland until the tourist boom after the 2010 eruption, but always remember buying water as a kid when travelling in Spain and how I thought that was so strange to not drink it from the tap. Just don't drink the hot water, take cold water and heat it or it will taste sulfur-y
We are Americans and vacationed in Germany and were desperate for tap water, mostly because we are frugal and the water was delicious. We live in Maine and our tap water comes from the same aquifer as Poland Spring so we love our tap water. We also make our own seltzer with a Soda Stream. What bugged me in Germany was even though they reuse glass bottles, the environmental impact has to be far greater than just using tap water. Just the transport impact of driving around the water and the fuel and water to clean the bottles has to be intense. So, if you compare tap to glass, tap must be far more sound, right?
poland isn't in maine. that's false advertising there.
Glas bottles are particularly bad because they are heavy - burning even more energy during transport. And then they are forbidden in many places, so you often have to throw away full bottles.
@@RAFMnBgaming check a map. Poland is a town in Maine with a famous spring aka Poland Springs which got bought by Nestle. They have destroyed the biggest aquifer in the state, run many wells dry, so it's nice to hear that @gregwiessner6470 still enjoys his.
@@aliciachamplin2000 Being a european I was talking about the country.
@@RAFMnBgamingbeing from Maine, and a longtime resident of Europe, and knowing that Poland is in fact a European country despite my American birthright to ignorance, the ambiguity was not lost on me. 😂 That’s why I took the opportunity to clarify.
Fun fact, your body can actually get water from completely dry food, like a cracker or granola bar. Burning carbohydrates, fat or protein produces CO2, which we breathe out, but also water. And it's not insignificant, around 300ml per day for the average person. There are animals that can live off of this water alone, so they can eat only dry foods for their entire lives and still get by just fine.
My physician warned me for drinking to much water. I have medication that makes me feel thirsty and I struggle to stay below 4 liters of fluid a day. In the Netherlands the medical advice is 1,5 to 2 liters of fluid a day, that includes meals and fruit. 5-6 liters of fluid or more results in major medical issues, are US citizens aware of that? Those are huge bottles in your video. Anyway, nice topic!
This water drinking has become a fashion thing, even here in Sweden. I work at a medium sized office, and you see people (predominantly female) who cant leave their room for a meeting without their water bottle! We are totally confident in our body to decide when we are hungry, but not when we need water! If the weather is hot or if you are exercising of course you drink more water, but this constant water intake is just weird!
That's because they are articles claiming that if you wait to drink until you are thirsty, you aren't drinking enough. Yeah, I know, weird notion.
There is a TikTok trend called "water tok", where people get those stupidly large jugs with straws, and then add loads of different flavouring powders and syrups. It really annoys me, because when you add those flavourings, it's not water. It's basically what the UK calls "squash", a drink made by diluting a concentrate of some sort.
2:05 "Cups" and "oz" are both fantasy units...
Is this why visitors from the US keep going on about paying to use toilets? I don't think I have ever paid to use a toilet; I go no more often that I go to places which have toilets (cates, pubs, museums) and have never needed one at other times.
Trust Ashton to make drinking water interesting! Loved it!
Thank you!! Glad you found it fun and interesting.
@@TypeAshton Dear Ashton, I also liked the video, but i was a bit annoyed when you used the image of greens when you said 'agriculture'. It's animal agriculture, factory farming, that guzzles up all the water.
It is annoying how many establishments do not understand and are unprepared to respond to a customer's desire for a serving of pure tap water when purchasing a meal.
Thankfully, where I live (a Prairie Province in Canada), I can drink tap water. I do drink a fair amount but I also LOVE salt! I think it pretty well equals out.
Honestly, when I hear the recommendated water amount, I always translated that as fluids. Of course juices, tea, soup and even stuff like watermelons count! I did struggle with drinking "enough" for a while, enough that my mom teased me about being a camel or a prune. I admit I used a cute free app where you watered a plant daily as you drank your fluids and making sure the plant kept growing was enough motivation to no longer need it. But overall, unless it's all coffee or energy drinks, fluid is fluid in the end. I am just sitting down with a 0,5 liter cup of tea as I watch this.
Tea (at least from the tea plant) might not be as useful for that; caffeine is a diuretic. I say this even as a big fan of drinking tea. But I don't count it as helping keep me hydrated. "Herbal teas" (or more properly, tisanes) would in most cases.
@@craigcook9715 Tea or coffee isn't anywhere near strongly diueretic enough to actually dehydrate you. This is a myth from a crappy study in the early 1900's. It needs to go away. Americans are hysterical about caffeine anyway.
@@craigcook9715 I only drink those diuretics for months at the time (very rarely water) and I still haven't managed to die from dehydration. I seriously doubt the diuretic effect is strong enough to be worth considering. Maybe it is a bit less hydrating than water, then sure, it might make me drink one cup of tea more than the number of cups of water I'd have to drink in a day, but I still drink less than USA citizens seem to. So, maybe it's the American water that is less hydrating if you guys have to drink 3 liters of it per day. (Nothing against you, I just find it funny when I see outlandish myths like this one being propagated with full confidence; it of course comes from culture, here everyone drinks tea at least from time to time, plenty of people drink it all the time, we'd all be dead if it wasn't hydrating, so we know it's not true and don't panic about it; there are probably equivalent beliefs or myths Europeans have that Americans find outlandish, utterly untrue and therefore also funny).
Thing is: Your water consumption varies a lot by circumstance. Your body can also store water internally together with carbs.
I have an issue with digesting food without drinking water constantly so I really do appreciate more and more restaurants here in Poland offering tap water or at least not looking at you funny when you ask for it.
I think the opposite is true. A lot of water will dilute all those acids that help breakdown the food.
@@electrodacusWhat I meant in particular is the first step
One of the main reasons people who are healthy tend to drink a lot of water, because exercise makes you thirsty. If I've been exercising I drink a lot of water, but not because I'm prescribing it to myself. Simply because I become thirsty more quickly
I am from Barcelona, but I live in Iceland. Before that, I lived in France, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, and work a lot in Holland and Germany. I normally never drink bottled water, except when I really feel for sparkling water when it's too hot in the city while I'm walking around (BTW, my favorite is Vichy Catalan). At my parents home, we always had tap water, until my father had a kidney problem and the doctor recommended him to get an osmosis device. Now, in Iceland I am amazed because they have the best tap water I have ever drank. If you ever visit Iceland, never ever buy bottled water, as it's simple tap water bottled for the tourists. I don't fancy sodas, or juices, and most of times even in restaurants I order water (I think my last Coke was about 10 years ago). In Spain, people drink tap water at home, that's why most of people order something different when they go out, that's why you'll rarely see Spaniards drinking water in restaurants, bars, or terraces (I am one of the few, as I LOVE water). Vittel and Evian, are, for me, the worst brands I've tasted, but in Germany and Holland I loved Blue SPA. ☺
I aspire to have this level of editing 😭 (I am literally typing this as I drink from my 1.5 L bottle that I try to drink 2-3 times a day 🤣🤣)
You drink 4L of water of day? Jesus Christ, I drink that much in a week lol.
@@vladutzuliLOL I know it’s a lot.I got into the habit when I was breastfeeding my twins and water amount was crucial to success
I switched to (German) tap water over ten years ago, drinking about 1.5 to 2 liter per day. Going a bit beyond 2.5 liter is not dangerous. But there is a dangerous level of drinking too much since it flushes mineral nutrients out of your body. There are many known cases where people ended up in hospital due to drinking too much normal water during a marathon.
The thing that pisses me off is people who take baths every day. That's like 200 liters of literal spring water, it'd cost a fortune if it was Evian or whatever (..it is Evian).
And as always the comment section under your videos is almost as entertaining as the video itself. 😊
In France, it is absolutely normal to drink tap water, and i'd say half of the time, you'd get a bottle of tap water with your meal or single coffee. Sprakling water is on the rise here but still far awar from regular.... wich indeed is very common in Germany or the Netherlands.
I love carbonated water, but even I use tap water and make it at home lol... Here tap water is the same quality as anything you can buy in a shop, so buying it just make no sense to be honest.
The simple and obvious gauge for your liquid intake is the color of your urine. As long as it is relatively bright, you are good. If the color darkens, you are dehydrated. So unless you are a robot and do the same thing every day, there is no specific right amount of how much you should drink. It all depends on temperature, physical activity, the amount of liquids in your food that day, and so on.
@ipadista And that's where our European style toilets with only little water in the bowl come in handy: Before flushing we can always "analyze" the colour of our urine and as mentioned a dark urine usually tells you to drink more. American style toilet bowls with lots of water don't let you see the colour of your urine. Plus, judging by a number of videos (and comments) I have watched about German "shelf toilets", it seems almost like a taboo in the US to look at your pee/urine, let alone stool/faeces before flushing the toilet. Even the words seem a taboo, or why call it number one resp. number two? And no, toilets/WCs/loos ... are not bathrooms or restrooms. 😏
That's not necessarily the case. For example if you drink something caffeinated, you need to drink more water in order to make up for the fluid lost from higher heart rate. Just that the water passed through your system doesn't mean it stayed *in* your system for long enough to fulfill its purpose.
@@karinwenzel6361 The yank toilets are ludicrous - just a huge swamp of water to shit and piss in, and my dick and balls will inevitably be dipped in that huge swamp of waste water. Bleurgh! However that bizarre Kraut shelf inspection toilet is absolutely disgusting. What on earth are you expecting to see? How does it work with a proper toilet with a bidet seat or bum gun?
When I was young and ran track, I was taught what you've explained to measure if I were hydrated. In this way, I learned about dehydration and the correct amount to drink. If I didn't run 10 miles (16km) that day, I didn't drink much water. If I ran more the next day, I drank more. Additionally, the first clue to dehydration, is thirst! American marketers run insistent, psychologically-developed, advertising campaigns. I grew up in the 70's before bottled-water advertising, so I never bought bottled and fizzy mineral water. The promotions sounded too good to be true, and like heaven, they weren't.
@@seeibe I'm not a nutrition professional, but in my experience, days I drink a lot of coffee without drinking extra water, my urine would darken, so it would remind me to drink more to keep the balance. So I dont really understand why you would think this would still be a valid approach, regardless of coffee intake.
I like how, scrolling down to the comments, 9/10 of them are incredulous "the fuck do you mean we prefer bottled???"
There are many American cities that have toxic water coming out of their taps. No wonder bottled water is so popular there. And drinking too much water can be really bad for you, even if not taken to the excesses that cause brain injury. Drinking too much water can cause someone with low sodium levels to start having blackouts.