I just read a few articles about the hazards of long term storage. I used to drink Pepsi exclusively. 1-2 two liter bottles per day. Now I drink Kool-Aid. I hate water because it has no flavor. I hate it. I HATE IT. I can barely tolerate it if it is very cold, but I will drink it. I want to stock up on water in the event of a long term need. If you store it in plastic bottles or jugs the plastic can leech chemical and it will eventually kill you or screw you up. Get this filter, geet that filter because this filter sucks. Use Polypropelene jugs not plastic. Use plastic number 4 not number 7. 867-5309, Jenny what do I drink. Holy crap. WTF do I do?

*sigh* No it won't. Go ahead and store the water in well-cleaned (to remove any sugar that would feed bacteria) pop bottles. Refill once a year or so and key an eye out for leaks. You'll be fine.

-Blast

I can't drink water unless its really cold and don't care for the taste of it out of bottles as I can taste the bottle in it, it just doesn't taste good to me. I've stocked quite a bit of those single size lemonaid and gatoraid packets to add flaver, that might help some.

Are those 5 gallon water cooler jugs safe for long term storage?

Your consumption of 1-2 litres/day of high fructose concentration water solution should be your main concern rather than any issues with regard to water storage in a plastic PET bottle. The Diabetes Mellitus type 2 will get you way before the BPA exposure will.

If plastic bottles concern you then just use 1 Gallon glass demijohns to store your water.

http://www.wilkinsonplus.com/invt/0022556

I no longer drink soda but I do drink 2-3 quarts of koolaid. I am concerned about the amount of sugar content but it's sooooooooooooooo good!

There are a lot of past threads that deal exclusively with water storage. A general search should provide great kernels of information.

If your in an city area and your plan is for an extended stay at home without clean potable water I'd suggest investing in the 5 gallon water bottles and a spigot jug to sit on. If its to much to buy the bottles you can buy 5 or 6 gallon water carriers for about half price. I'd suggest 1 gallon per day per person. I usually keep 20 gallons for the three people in my house. Every six months I exchange the water in the carriers for use.

If your at home during or for an emergency, fill up your bath tubs with water right away. The water in the pipes won't be contaminated. One tub should provided at least 40 gallons of water that can be used for a number of other functions like flushing the toilet a couple times a day and hygiene.

For flavor, you can certainly invest in flavor packets. For true emergency, I keep powders like gatorade or kool aid or tea in large quantity. You don't need a whole single serving packet to mask the 'taste' of chemicals in water and it will stretch a long time.

I will hasten to add this and its not an admonishment, please don't take it as such. It's important to plan for emergency's and its great to plan for comfort but clean water in critical situations is a commodity and taste is a preference. If you have a choice to buy a $6 five gallon water container or $6 in flavored powder, buy the container.

BTW, if there is a Big Lots store near you, its a great place to find powdered drinks cheap.

Got any idea about the safety of drinking the various Crystal Lite drinks???

Everything gives you cancer.
There is no cure,
There is no answer.

Yup. And give me cancer any day over alzheimer's...