Good Eats: Water Works I

Alton tackles the most common ingredient in every recipe. Proper management of this ingredient is essential for every cooking method, yet it has until now received only the occasional sidelong glance from Good Eats. That changes with this episode that takes a look at how water gets from nature to your tap. Alton discusses the hazards of water found in nature, how municipal processing plants prepare and distribute it, the important of a 104.45 degree angle, and perhaps the largest number ever mentioned on Good Eats: 11 quintillion. Finally, he reveals something about one bottle of water in every three that folks might not realize.

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Episode Info

Episode number: 10x5
Production Number: EA1005
Airdate: Wednesday July 12th, 2006

Writer: Alton Brown

Guest Stars

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Recap

Alton begins near a small monitor, noting that over time Good Eats has dealt with many ingredients. Dry pasta, steak, potatoes, salt, biscuits and peas have all featured in at least one episode. But in all that time the show has never offered more than a sideways glance at one of the fundamental ingredients of every recipe – a simple lopsided arrangement of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms known as water. Essential for life but also the source of much death, destruction and disease, water covers most of the planet. Despite that the steadily increasing populations raise fears of shortages...

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Episode Notes

Cards

There are over 55,000 community water systems in the United States.
The Federal government started regulating water in 1914.
Some water treatment plants use ultraviolet light in place of chlorine.
According to the world Health Organization over 3 million people die each year from waterborne illnesses.
19th century doctors prescribed spring waters to cure hundreds of diseases they didn’t even know existed.

This episode is one of the very few that presents no recipes.

Episode Quotes

Alton: This program has long made a mission of exploring the plain, ordinary ingredients of everyday life. Dry pasta. Steak. Potatoes. Salt. Biscuits. Peas. That sort of thing. And yet, we’ve never taken more than a sideways glance at the most basic and universal ingredient of them all. An ingredient that plays a role in every edible on Earth. Say hello to dihydrogen monoxide - H2O.

Alton: Look! Over there! It’s a rare pair of corporatus corrupti! And we caught them in the middle of their ancient dumping ritual! (A pair of dark-suited figures pours the contents of a plastic drum into the river.) Hey guys! How ya doing? Oh, don’t run away! C’mon, I just wanna...

Alton: When the mercury rises, all of a sudden the parasites and viruses and algae and what not come out to play. And breed. Add a little bit of mud and some decomposing vegetation and you've got yourself a potentially damaging gastronomical soup of doom, so to speak.

Alton: A hundred and four point four five. This may be the most significant number in human existence, because it is the angle at which one oxygen atom bonds with two hydrogen atoms – like this. Now that is not, in fact, the mascot from a famous amusement park. It is, in fact, a water molecule. Now, this particular arrangement means that we have a molecule that is polar in nature. That means it has a negative charge on one end, and a positive charge on the other.

Alton: Now here’s the potentially surprising part. About 30% of the bottles behind me, including the top national brands: harvested from municipal sources – tap water.

Alton: But, my fellow Americans, there is a catch. Despite what many of you have apparently been led to believe, PET bottles are incapable of rolling themselves to the recycling center, okay?

Episode Goofs

Alton cites a 1999 cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee to show how even excellent water purification equipment can allow pathogens to pass occasionally. This outbreak actually occurred in 1993, and led about $90 million dollars of improvements that were completed in 1999. Alton also states that the outbreak claimed fifty lives, but the actual total was closer to one hundred, with a total of 403,000 believed sickened. Most fatalities were immunocompromised patients.

Alton refers to PET bottles as polytetrafluroethylene (PTFE). PTFE is actually the chemical name for Teflon. The acronym PET stands for polyethylene terepthalate, a variety of polyester film used in many applications across a wide array of industries.

Cultural References

The FDA “Men in Black” appear again, this time to explain their responsibilities in regards to bottled water. The sinister looking government men call to mind the functionaries of Men in Black, Men in Black II, The Matrix and other films and stories. Generally, the term “men in black” refers to stereotypical government agents in dark suits (like the suits that agents of the Secret Service Protective Detail wear), whose affiliation may be unclear or to a classified organization. When the details aren’t obvious, people sometimes fill them in speculatively, giving rise to urban legends and conspiracy theories.

Episode References

This is part one of a two part series. The following episode, "Water Works II", continues the discussion of water.

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