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water--best type

xrayspex

Senior Member
Messages
1,111
Location
u.s.a.
Hi--say i was told years ago that reverse osmosis was best type of water for me to drink for my health. I have RO installed for drinking water on my tap at home. However some are now saying that spring water is best to get the minerals etc and that RO water actually depletes us of minerals ie can worsen nutrition .

Does anyone know if that is factually true? Where I live there was fair amount of pollution in past in ground water and issues come up with our city wells from time to time so I don't want to frequently drink a lot of tap water.

thoughts appreciated!
 

PatJ

Forum Support Assistant
Messages
5,288
Location
Canada
I drink distilled water. Before getting a distiller I did a lot of research, and like almost everything health related I found a lot of debate.

Here is some of the info I gathered that is related to minerals:
Opinion:
Because D water doesn't contain minerals the body will draw minerals from the bones for what it needs.

Counter opinions:
* D water will remove "inorganic" minerals that the body doesn't need and have built up in the same way that a water filter collects deposits of undesirable things.
* D water will _help_ with mineral absorption.
* “Now as to the argument that distilled water leaches out minerals. This is true, and this is exactly what we want it to do. The minerals it leaches out are of the unusable, ionic form and we want these to leave the body rather than be deposited and cause disease. Distilled water does not leach out significant amounts of biologically available minerals because these are quickly taken up by the body on an as needed basis. If they are present in excess then they are filtered through the kidneys and this is exactly what needs to happen with all things which are in excess in the circulation. Distilled water cleanses the body through promoting healthy kidney function.” —Ron Kennedy, M.D.

Opinion:
You'll be missing out on vital minerals!

Counter opinions:
* Only ~5% of minerals come from water, the rest is from food.
* The minerals removed from the water are "inorganic" and can't be used by the body. (This is a whole other debate.)

From: http://www.drdavidwilliams.com/distilled-water/
This assertion is made because distilled water doesn’t have any minerals of its own. However, most of the minerals we take in come from food, not water. And the fact is that your kidneys do a fine job of keeping your minerals in proper balance. As long as your kidneys are functioning normally, you’ll have no problems drinking distilled water.
 

xrayspex

Senior Member
Messages
1,111
Location
u.s.a.
@PatJ thank you! I hope you are correct. I bought distilled water for many years before I had RO installed at my house--I believe they are similar-both believed by some to leech out minerals--hope this Dr Williams is correct because i do not like idea of lugging jugs of water from grocery plus plus there are the environmental concerns with plastic. I also wonder how every grocery store supposedly has good spring bottled water and every Water Cooler business has choices now of spring water to buy.....is that all sustainable and is it all reliable
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,665
Location
Alberta
The 'leaching out minerals' sounds like a marketing ploy to get more market share for 'non-leaching water'. I drink rainwater (I live in a cabin in the woods), and don't even bother filtering it anymore.
 

PatJ

Forum Support Assistant
Messages
5,288
Location
Canada
You could re-mineralized your RO water with a few drops of ConcenTrace.

Some people also use sea-salt or Himalayan salt.

I also wonder how every grocery store supposedly has good spring bottled water and every Water Cooler business has choices now of spring water to buy.....is that all sustainable and is it all reliable

Some are just tap water, at least in North America, and probably in many places around the world that don't have strict regulations or oversight about labeling. Here is an article from Forbes about Nestlé being sued, again, for selling tap water as "Spring water". A couple of excerpts:
The Chicago Faucet Shoppe had been buying Ice Mountain Water since 2008 believing it to be true spring water containing naturally occurring minerals. It wasn't until July 2012 that an executive at the company was tipped off to the water's true origins by an employee.
...

Nine years ago Nestlé Waters was sued over allegation of false labeling. On that occasion, the Connecticut class action lawsuit took issue with the fact that Nestlé purported the water in bottles of Poland Spring came from an underground spring source deep in the woods in Maine when in fact it came from a well encircled not by nature but by parking lots. In 2003, Nestlé settled the suit for $10 million in charitable contributions and discounts.

And this article has an interesting quote:
“Most of Nestle’s waters are pumped from the ground, but the bigger issue that the regulatory definition of what really counts as spring water is really weak,” said Peter Gleick, a scientist and president emeritus of the Pacific Institute, a nonprofit policy research center in Oakland, Calif. “No one is really looking over the shoulders of the bottled water companies.”

And as far as sustainability, this article (again about Nestlé; they're obviously big in the bottled water world) talks about sustainability problems.
 

Chris

Senior Member
Messages
845
Location
Victoria, BC
Santevia make a water filter that remineralizes the water you feed it, after filtering it; I have checked it out, and it does considerably raise the PH of our water--I live in Victoria, BC, and our tap water is close to neutral ( PH 6); after passing through the filter, the PH is more like 7.5. They claim that this is more like fresh spring water, and that we need the minerals--there is some research suggesting heart disease may be rarer in areas with higher PH water sources. They have refused to tell me just what the filter adds--"proprietary information." Anyone have any knowledge of, or opinions about, these filters?
 

IThinkImTurningJapanese

Senior Member
Messages
3,492
Location
Japan
Some people also use sea-salt or Himalayan salt.

Now I'm curious, I'm 'gonna have to try that. :D

ConcenTrace has most of the sodium chloride removed,
ConcenTrace® contains naturally occurring ionic trace minerals from the Great Salt Lake with 99% sodium removed.

They recommend,
Improve the flavor of distilled, reverse osmosis or purified water. Adding 20-40 drops per gallon or to taste (2-4 drops per glass) compares to expensive mineral waters and adds a complete, balanced spectrum of low sodium minerals and trace minerals.

I preferred the taste of the minimum amount. Although not salty, the higher dose just didn't taste good to me.