[another_poster]

A good analogy is ice. We all use “freezer-grown crystalline water,” but prior to the invention of refrigeration, we harvested natural ice from frozen lakes and stored them in ice houses for use throughout the summer.

Sure, there’s some romance from hand-harvested ice, but you can’t beat the price and purity of ice from a freezer.

[thaumasiotes]

Ice from a freezer is extremely impure. If it was pure, you could see right through it, the same way you can with a pure diamond.

(The freezer, of course, has nothing to do with this - it's the water you're putting into it that's impure.)

[deeg]

It has little, if anything, to do with the water. Ice made in a freezer is cloudy because of air bubbles. There are techniques for making clear ice using directional freezing. Here's one way: https://altonbrown.com/recipes/cocktail-ice-cubes/

[satvikpendem]

No, being able to see through it has nothing to do with water purity (unless your water is so muddy that it's not clear even as a liquid), it's to do with the formation of the ice and the incorporation of air bubbles. You can make clear ice pretty easily with molds.

[pickingdinner]

You can make clear ice. Has nothing to do with the water, and everything to do with how you freeze the water. Just google "clear ice".

[sva_]

So are you saying you're only getting artisanal ice from the lake?