Many of us who buy bottled water do so in the belief that by avoiding municipal tap water, we are taking advantage of a healthier option that exposes us to many fewer chemical contaminants.

This is a Myth We Cherish that didn't make it into the current edition of The Hundred Year Lie but will someday!

Rather than being drawn from pristine springs and mountaintop glaciers, half of the bottled water sold in the U.S. comes directly from municipal tap water supplies.

Consider how severely we are being ripped off. When we buy a bottle of water that is nothing but tap water, we pay up to 10,000 times the price we would pay if we simply filled our bottle up from the tap in our own kitchen. Some people spend more on bottled water every week than they do on gasoline.

Here are some of the biggest tap water offenders in the bottled water industry:
--Aquafina is North America's best-selling brand, owned by the Pepsi company.
--Dasani is another big-seller and is owned by the Coca-Cola company.
--Alaska Premium Glacier water is drawn from the municipal water system of Juneau, Alaska.

Much of this information and much more, comes from two studies:
--"In The Bottle: An Expose of the Bottled Water Industry," by the Polaris Institute in Ottawa, Canada.
--"Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype." published by the Natural Resources Defense Council.