Is sparkling water healthy?
The most healthy drink is water. This means pure water, not flavoured water which can as bad as fruit drinks for tooth erosion! There really is no need for flavours or sweeteners or isotonic salts for the regular person. Avoid the marketing hype.
My personal preference is for Evian water because I like the taste. Tap water is fine too. Tap water quality is in many ways more closely regulated than bottled water and often tastes as good.
I’ve got bit of a love for sparkling water. Again, just water and carbon dioxide, not flavoured waters. I really like the naturally sparkling waters. They come out of the ground in the sparkling state. My favourite is Badoit which has no added carbonation. San Pellegrino is a close second though it has some extra carbonation at the bottling plant. I find the artificially carbonated waters a bit sharp and harsh compared with Badoit.
Is sparkling water healthy? Well, it’s water and carbon dioxide which forms a weak solution of carbonic acid and makes the water slightly acidic but nowhere near as acidic as flavoured drinks. Claims have been made that sparkling water causes decalcification of bones and promotes tooth decay. Neither claims are bourne out by any research. This article by business insider summarises it all and comes to the same conclusions as livestrong.com.
The following links discuss the risks to dental health:
- Oral answers – is sparkling water bad for your teeth?
- Solag dental – drinks that dissolve teeth
- Alcademics.com – measuring the pH of mineral waters
- Buckinghamshire county council – bottled water surveys table of results on page 24
On the pH scale then 7 is neutral, lower numbers are acidic and higher numbers are alkaline. The measured pH valuyes for sparkling water are between 5 and 7 compared to values as low as 2 and 3 for fruit juices and drinks. This means that the sparkling waters are not as acidic as the sugary drinks.
pH values of mineral waters: 5.2