Okay, you’ve got to admit, I must be in a strange mood as I’m going to review what used to be the best tasting water anywhere – Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water. In fact, I only bought Arrowhead for decades because it was (past tense) so good. Sadly, a few years ago, Nestlé bought out Arrowhead (if you use a magnifying glass, you might be able to see the word “brand” in extremely small print under to the company’s name) and ever since then it has tasted like something that has been filtered through a cat litter box. Their bottles also state (a bit more prominently than the word “brand”) that Arrowhead has been in business “since 1894” – of course, that water came from the Arrowhead spring located near the base of the San Bernardino Mountains – the water now bottled by Nestlé (they don’t disclose the “source” of their springs) tastes so bad that I suspect it could be the final “product” from sewage refuse plants. Also, in looking at their web site (no, I’m not going to provide the URL), they now refer to their “product” as “Arrowhead® Brand Mountain Spring Water.” You should love custom water bottles.

So, why am I ranting about this? Well, I went to the grocery story to pick up a few things and, once again, they only had Arrowhead on the self and I wasn’t happy. The last time I went to the store, the same thing happened and I was forced to buy a bottle of it as I was out of water. This time, I still had some left so I refused to buy more. Further, I only buy distilled water as I also use it for my CPAP machine: even Arrowhead’s distilled water tastes gross.

That led me to read some of the fine print on other bottles. I typically buy a couple of bottles of orange juice and I always look for brands that are not made from concentrate but that are squeezed right at the orchards. As a brand that I normally don’t buy was on sale, I took a look at the label only to learn that the juice comes from oranges grown in the United States and Brazil! So. . .I looked at the brand I usually buy and it said the same thing! Ugh! Doesn’t anything come entirely from local sources anymore? First, we’ve got “Arrowhead® Brand” water that comes from only God knows where (and tastes awful) and even though I live in California – Orange County, no less – we have to get our Orange juice from Brazil?! Okay, okay, so navel oranges originally came from there (and as navel oranges are seedless, they can only be grown from trees that have been grafted) but heck, we’ve grown oranges in great quantities in this country since 1873! Oh yeah, I wouldn’t want to forget to mention that California oranges are generally used for eating as a fruit (because they are not only seedless, but look “nice”) whereas most orange juice that comes from Florida, as their varieties may not look as good but make great juice. Even so, why do we have to import orange juice from Brazil?

Heck, I’m surprised that we’re not importing oranges and orange juice from China (who knows, maybe we are?) as they originated in southeastern Asia. Just about everything else comes from there – which is going to be the downfall of this country yet – so why not all of our food? Oh well, I guess I’m done with my rant for now.