Does the type of water you drink really affect your health?

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   jpcmcposted 10 years ago

   Does the type of water you drink really affect your health?
   
   Even drinking water has evolved.  I see distilled, purified, deionized and alkaline water.  Do they really make a difference in one's health or are they just another ploy to get consumers to buy?

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   Blond Logicposted 10 years ago

   This is a good question. I use to think that it was just a ploy to get people to buy more, but now I am not so sure. I would question the quality of mains water. I have had some in various countries that is questionable. Just because your council or government says it is safe, do you trust them?
   At our home here in Brazil, we drink water from our well which I pass through a charcoal filter.

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      jpcmcposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I'm pretty sure our water here is clean.  But the problem is the pipes that they run through.  Some are too old and some may have cracks.  That's A risk I won't take.

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   chef-de-jourposted 10 years ago

   There's no doubt in my mind that bottled water is a con. For starters there's no way of telling the true quality of water in a bottle unless you have it tested privately and that's too costly. How do we know each sample is from 'The Pure Crystal Streams of The Idyllic Mountains in Unadulterated Heaven County'?
   The label list of 'ingredients' of bottled water remains the same for each bottle yet surely natural water quality changes from time to time?
   How can a company be 100% certain their water has x% minerals on a consistent basis?
   People say mains water is all fouled up. There's too much chemical input- fluoride for example - the pipes are old and full of lead, leakage means pollutants get into the system and so on. Yet the majority of folks still drink it and as far as I can see water poisoning isn't high on the list of potential killers over the last few decades.
   I drink ordinary tap water, have done for over fifty years, and seem to be ok health-wise. My family were brought up on tap water. Here in the UK I'm always fascinated by the different tastes of the water when I travel around. Sometimes sweet, sometimes a little harsh - a reflection of the natural state in which it lies - in sandstone, limestone, from a spring and so on.
   I think I've purchased 2 bottles of water in my time. I just can't bring myself to pay for H2O !! I think there's far too much scaremongering.
   
   I think bottled water is a gimmick that's now gone too far. The plastics industry must be loving it!!
   People love to be fashionable but please, plastic water bottles all over the planet - most of them forming a huge island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is it?

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      barbat79posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I agree.  The only time I buy bottled water is for emergency purposes..like a natural disaster : hurricane which may affect the ability to get water from the tap.  I use a filter for tap water and don't need to change as the manufacturer claims!

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   peachpurpleposted 10 years ago

   i usually drink cooled off boiled water. Avoid drinking strilize or purified water. Those stuff can't be trusted.

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   barbat79posted 10 years ago

   I know what true spring water is!  The real thing is so wonderful. It ran down out of a pipe from the mountain.  We only went to fill jugs on a farm since the water had the smell of rotten eggs. Sulfur in that water is what made it so, but it was enough to get us to drive to the mountain and fill so many jugs.
   Today, I wonder if the same spring is healthy...contaminants may have made it undrinkable without getting ill.
   If a person drinks certain contaminates, they can become very ill and not know it.  There could be many types of worm eggs in the water which find their way into a human organ or digestive track or worse.  "River blindness" is actually from ingesting the larvae and those larvae of the worm find host in a humans eye, causing blindness. The host's eyes turn a whitish color from the worms growing  (mostly found in Africa)  I don't recall the species, but water must be considered as well as food
   What is in the bottled water cant be spring water.  It must be treated water filtered or distilled.
   Distilling water isn't difficult...just boil and catch the steam, and yes, that doesn't have the chlorine and other microbes.  I do it for fish in tanks..but even they need the right kind of microbes to survive.  I actually add them after the distillation process
   
   For me, filtering some of the chlorine out for drinking is the best.  Some cities have a really high content of chlorine and it is awful to taste, so for me it is just as good to filter and fill and go!  Drinking "real"water is the best! And when that isn't the "best" why pay for water sold in a bottle? 
   
   most of the companies that distribute these water product I feel are just using a ploy as you said earlier.  They prey on fear of bad water.  Fear is a great motivator and will always sell the "good water" for "health" which can be achieved in much less expensive ways

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      jpcmcposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Yup fear is a great motivator.  Water quality is very important.

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