Water For Health

Posts Tagged ‘Mineral Content’

The best drinking water filters provide us with the best quality water we can get. The best drinking water filter can improve our life, enhance our performance and increase our energy levels by providing what our bodies crave…99.99% pure drinking water.

70% of our body weight is water. We have to replace and replenish that water on a regular basis or face illness. Each person should consume gallons of water every day, but many do not, because their water doesn’t taste fresh or it smells like chlorine. Good drinking water filters will put the joy back into drinking water.

Pure drinking water is important in more ways than one, the water that we take in may contain bacteria that can cause diarrhea, which can be life threatening to small children, the elderly and anyone with a compromised immune system. Chlorine is added to the water at the treatment facility to remove bacteria…to disinfect the water.

But, some bacteria are resistant to chlorine. Cryptosporidium cysts, for example, are not killed by chlorine. Only a drinking water filter with a micron particle stage can stop cryptosporidium at the cyst stage and protect your family’s health.

The average drinking water filter is carbon based. Carbon activated drinking water filters remove chlorine and chemicals, but other stages are needed to remove different things. It all really depends on what’s in your water and without laboratory testing, the only safe thing to do is buy a drinking water filter that can address all of the problems that “could” be in your water.

Some drinking water filters (like reverse osmosis and distillation) remove trace minerals that are good for your health. The best drinking water filters “balance” the mineral content, instead. So, in areas where high mineral content or “hard” water is a problem, hard minerals are replaced with “softer minerals”. A drinking water filter that has a ion exchange stage is the right choice for well balanced mineral content.

Drinking water filters have been around for a long time. In India they had a crude drinking water filter that was used for ages. It consisted of a big round clay pot. The impurities would be absorbed by the clay and the remaining water tasted sweet and refreshing. With modern science we have perfected the technology and now can filter a number of things that are not good for us, but some drinking water filters are stuck in the dark ages.

Chlorine removal is just one thing that a drinking water filter can do to improve our water. Some companies stop there. Other drinking water filters go the extra mile by reducing harmful pollutants like pesticides and herbicides. Remember, anything that goes down the drain or on the ground eventually ends up in the ground water and our drinking water reservoirs

We use thousands of chemicals every day, thoughtlessly. Industries have spills, as do gas stations and repair shops. We have our grass treated with pesticides. We use herbicides to kill weeds. We wash medicines down the drain. All of this stuff ends up in the drinking water.

It is important to be careful about what you flush down the drain or pour on the ground, but you have to realize that other people may not be so careful. The only way to protect your family is by investing in good drinking water filters for every tap in the house.

If live in a rural area and your water supply comes from a well, you might think that you’re protected from pollutants, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, well water pollution is one of the major reasons for illness, because the water can be contaminated from nearby farms through such things as animal excrement or fertilizer runoff. Therefore, it’s likely that you need well water filtration systems to make sure that you have the cleanest and vast drinking water possible.

Here are three things you should know about well water filtration systems:

They’re not all the same

Some water filtration systems are meant to filter out relatively large particulates. This is probably okay if you live in the city where your own city has its own filtration system in place, so that you may just need to refine drinking water for chlorine taste or to make it more palatable.

However, if you live in the country, you’ll likely need something a little more involved. First, get your water tested to see what contaminants it has in it.

Reverse osmosis can be done if the water is particularly bad or if it has cysts, which are parasites that cause problems especially in people with fragile immune systems. In addition, lead content will be reduced by 99% or better. This may be what you need if you live near farms where fertilizer or animal waste runoff is a problem. In addition, to further purify water, you may want to consider ion exchange filtration to balance mineral content and normalize the pH level.

Whole house, or point of use filtration?

If your water is very bad, you may want to consider whole house filtration. This is especially useful if, for example, your water has a high iron or rust content in addition to other difficulties. Having high iron or rust in the water can make hair and clothes take on an unpleasant color, and these things can also be absorbed through the skin in the shower.

However, if your situation is such that your water only needs to be filtered for drinking and cooking, you can install “point of use” filters at your kitchen sink and in your refrigerators water and ice dispensers, as applicable. Whole house filtration will be much more expensive, but it can be considered to offset the expense of having clothes and hair ruined with rust or iron laden water, or the illness that might happen if you are absorbing contaminants through your skin.

Should you rent, or should you own your water filtration system?

This is a good question, since many companies will simply charge you a monthly service fee to come out and replace filters for free and to service your unit when it needs to be. Depending on where you live, this may be more cost-effective than owning your unit and having to pay for repairs and filter replacement yourself. Check online to see which companies offer the best price and service — but don’t assume that buying is always better than renting. In fact, renting may be the better deal overall.

We did some research on the prices of drinking water filters for you.  At first glance, you might think that the really high priced units are the best quality or that a really low priced drinking water filter is the best value.  We thought that too, until we got a little education.

Reverse osmosis is the most expensive choice in drinking water filters    for home use.  They use them in large industries and public treatment facilities.  In certain situations, they are the right choice for the home, but most of us can do without them.

There best application is desalination, but without additional steps, the water is still not safe to drink.

The more reasonably priced drinking water filter    systems reach a top price of around $420.00.  They are typically some form of carbon filtration, combined with a micron filter and some sort of stage to balance mineral content and pH levels.

 

Practically the same drinking water filters can be purchased for less than $150.  The difference is mark-up.  Buying directly from the factory that manufactures the drinking water filter will save you hundreds of dollars.

 

For less than $150 and a dime a day, you can get one of the top ten rated drinking water filters, in the world.  These units are designed to sit on your counter, next to your sink.  They are more effective and less likely to leak than the units that screw directly onto the faucet.

There is typically an option to switch from filtered to unfiltered, in case you want to extend the filter life by doing dishes or washing vegetables in unfiltered water.  For cooking though, you will enjoy better tasting healthier foods, if you turn the drinking water filter to the “on” position.

You may be tempted by the really low priced drinking water filters that retail around $40.  We thought they might be a good reasonably priced alternative for a family on a budget.  We found that there were several problems.

Most are really chlorine filters, not purifiers.  Many harmful contaminants, such as THMs and VOCs, which have been linked to cancer, will not be blocked by the cheap models.  In some, the toxic metal lead is not removed.  Lead contamination is a big problem in many cities.  Not because the treatment facility isn’t doing their job, but because the pipes that run into the house are old.

Bacterial cysts are another type of contaminant that a cheaper drinking water filter cannot remove.  They can cause parasitic infections in the gastrointestinal tract and have been know to cause death in children, the elderly and people with a compromised immune system.

If that’s not enough, cheap drinking water filters cost more to use.  On average more than 20 cents per day, as opposed to the 10 cents per day that is available.  You see, they get you by charging a lower price initially, but then charging more for replacement filtration cartridges.  Or, the cartridge has a very short lifespan.  Either way, you end up spending more in the long run.