Water & Dehydration are mutually exclusive according to the EU

There’s a joke amongst travel professionals that if you want to spot an American overseas, just look for someone carrying a big water bottle. After all, we’re taught that you must drink at least eight glasses of water a day to prevent yourself from getting dehydrated. 

Right? Well, not necessarily. Not if you’re in the EU.

It all started when some water companies in Europe wanted the right to say on water bottles that drinking water helped to prevent dehydration. (Not just bottled water but water in general.) And with all things that make sense, the EU had to convene a panel of experts. Experts, who, I should tell you, said there is no correlation between water and dehydration. (I’m not kidding.)

And what does the EU do? Not only do they ban anyone from using the statement in advertising but if they do use it, it could mean jail time.

Now remember, in the past, the EU enacted laws banning curved bananas and cucumbers, both since rescinded, after much ridicule.

With all the problems the EU faces, think financial collapse, it makes me wonder why this non-elected body is given so much power.

Perhaps this Brussels based group has been sampling too much of the great Belgian beer? It would be better if they stuck to chocolate.

EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration

Comments

[Alan B]

Good...grief! Anyway, one fine point in day bag design would be whether or not it has a place for at least a half liter water bottle, something that can be quite welcome when touring in warmer weather. Suffice it to say that a good touring bike will have "cages" to hold not one, but two typically 750 ml water bottles.

[johanamsterdam]

Strange, such a remark about the EU, basically in the EU you are not allowed to claim something about health in relation to products you can not provide the evidence for.
The opposite has been proved about drinking water though that too much is dangerous:
Hyponatremia, also called water intoxication, is generally the result of drinking excessive amounts of plain water which causes a low concentration of sodium in the blood.

I still wonder how the USA proved that Pizza is a vegetable. As the US congress decided that it is.

[Gary Williams]

This implies that it would also be found illegal to advertise that oxygen helps prevent suffocation.

[Frank@OBOW]

Let's at least get the facts straight. The U.S. Congress did not declare pizza a vegetable. That's just the way the media decided to report it. What they did say was that the tomato paste on the pizza was a vegetable. It's still ridiculous but at least we're getting the facts straight. (Remember, Reagan declared ketchup a vegetable.)

[xtal]

If we are indeed disputing the facts, here is a link to the report on the EFSA website:

http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/1982.htm

There are many citations in the report to other publications, which I'll leave interested parties to investigate further.

[VDK]

The EU never banned curved bananas or cucumbers. This is a myth produced by British tabloids. Saying that water prevents dehydration is a health claim that is ADVISED not to be put on bottles of water. That's not the same as making it into a law. It's also a fairly stupid health claim to make since coca cola could just as well say that about their product.