During a conversation with one of my crew, water purification came up. We got on the subj of chemical purification and the taste of it. I mentioned that GI's put frozen strawberries in the Lister bags to hide the chemical taste in the field. He mentioned that he carried the individual packets of Koolaid and Crystal Light packets to do the same thing. D'uh, so simple , like the Jitterbug, it plumb evaded me until then. Anybody else doing this?

I like the mild flavor of Nuun electrolite tablets. I imagine they would mask purifying chemicals.

Just make sure that you do not add Kool-Aid, powdered Gatorade, Nuun (yum) or anything else to the water until after treatment is complete. You can negate the disinfectant by adding things to the water before disinfection is complete.

Long years ago, when I was a starving student, I used iodine tablets for water purification. Effective but disgusting. Adding a small amount of instant iced tea crystals masked the flavour enough that I could stay hydrated.

My favorite method involves bringing the water to a boil and throwing in a tea bag or two. When you are seriously thirsty, however, the taste of the water doesn't matter...

Amen bro, Amen!

Tea is eminently more civilized than iodine. (Haven't used iodine tabs in two decades and don't miss them one bit.)

The iced tea did let me push more water, though, and for me that's important. By the time I'm seriously thirsty, I'm already significantly dehydrated. YMMV

Any thing with ascorbic acid (vitamin C)will neutralize the iodine flavor.I believe Aqua Pure is the brand name but it comes in a two bottle package.Use the first pill to purify and the second pill to neutralize.On the bottle it says active ingredient:ascorbic acid.Now I use a Sawyer filter or chlorine dioxide.Also carry a means to boil if I need to.

BOATMAN
John

Sometimes use lemon juice, comes in small (55ml) squeezy lemon shaped bottles here in the UK.

Also rather good on pancakes.

Who in this day and age still uses Iodine to treat water? I have not seen anyone in at least 15 years carry Iodine. There are much better modern alternatives out there such as Aquatabs, Kataydn Micropur and Pristine CLO2 to name a few. Of these, I have personally used Aquatab to treat untold numbers of bottles of water.

If anyone insists on still using Iodine, consider getting some Nuun electrolyte replacement tablets to mask the Iodine taste. These tablets are usually packaged in a vial of 12 and in different fruit flavors.