Chris Garrick knows what our international public health agency and other experts have known for more than a decade: Drinking water without essential minerals can be detrimental to our health. So since the World Health Organization released its startling 22-page report on the health risks associated with drinking demineralized water, the well-informed owner of Jackson Springs Natural Spring Water has been providing Winnipeggers with a healthy alternative to municipal tap water.
“There’s a lot of deception that goes on in the water business,” says Garrick, a former competitive bodybuilder who opened his 9,000-square-foot water bottling facility on Keewatin Street nine years ago. “In essence, many of us are spending thousands of dollars every year on nothing more than tap water that has been filtered by reverse osmosis or steamed distillation to remove chemicals and additives such as chlorine, fluoride, orthophosphate, trihalomethanes, cryptosporidia and Guardia. And as a result, we’re ingesting little or no essential minerals, whatsoever, and the water in most cases, is acidic. I feel that people are being misled and need to be told the truth. An educated consumer is our best customer,” says Garrick, 55. “If you demineralize water, you will demineralize the body.”
Indeed, The World Health Organization recommends in its Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality report that all drinking water should contain a minimum level of certain essential minerals. In other words, we should all be enjoying a fresh-tasting H2O that has a “moderate mineral profile” of about 250 parts per million. Garrick says his sodium-free, fluoride-free natural spring water, which flows freely from a company-owned source in the Sandilands Provincial Forrest near Buffalo Point, has an impressive mineral profile of 238 parts per million. “We’re only 12 points shy of being perfect,” he says, adding his tasty, prize-winning natural spring water also contains four times more calcium and five times more magnesium than any bottled water in North America, and has an alkaline pH of 8.1. Moreover, it represents less than two per cent of the world’s water supply that can be ingested right from the source with no form of treatment whatsoever.
“Although our water is ideal right from the source, it is lab tested to ensure that it is safe, and all of our refillable containers are properly sterilized between fills. There is nothing added, nothing removed,” says Garrick. “Our water doesn’t need to be cleaned up. It’s good to begin with. If you speak to any regular Jackson Springs customer, they will tell you that it’s the best water they have ever tasted and that they wouldn’t drink anything else. ”
