MN Tap Water

What’s the sitch with the why the tap water in St. Paul, Minnesota is so darn tasty?

Scientifically, it probably has something to do with pure glacial runoff coming down from our clean neighbor to the north, Canadia. Also, being way up here in the tundra, we don’t have other peoples’/animals’/factories’ crap running downstream toward us and ending up in our faucets. Additionally, bacteria and pollution and gunk can’t survive our super cold winters?? I dunno, I’m just spit-ballin’ here. 

But I would like to offer up an alternative possibility. Perhaps it’s more than just the quality of the water. Perhaps it’s the quality of the people.

Now, I don’t necessarily mean our intelligence or devilishly good looks. Or our positive moral resolve that keeps our neighborhoods warm even in a frigid climate. Or our highly evolved hand-to-hand combat skills. I don’t necessarily mean all of those things. 

What I mean is, what if we just have different taste buds? Yes our water is clean. Yes our city is great. But what if we also had genetically distinct taste buds that made anything coming from the Minnesotan earth taste better to us? This would encourage us all to stay put, preserving the impeccable breeding stock and consolidating our resources, so we can continue to grow as a beacon of light and hope in an ever-darkening world. 

These Minnesota-specific taste buds would drive us to buy local foods, as they would simply taste better to us. We wouldn’t want to import bacon from Nebraska, or Evian from some tap in France, because our shit just tastes better. It would also encourage us to protect our environment in order preserve the natural qualities of our food and water that taste so good to those of us with the MN-taste bud allele.

It is also possible, perhaps likely, that this trait is actually common to all humans, but lies dormant in those that have not been adequately exposed to the purist of northern waters. Thus, as our vibrant immigrant communities have found, people can learn to love Minnesota and call it their home, even if this unique gustatory perception was not passed down to them by parents born in the state.

We might just have better filters on our aqueducts and whatnot… but we may also be developing into a race of super-humans, one taste bud at a time. Both are equally possible in my book. 

(Sitch suggested by J.D.)