# What kind of water and why?



## lovingkindness (Apr 1, 2008)

Hi mamas,

We are conflicted about what type of water to drink in our home. DP is convinced that we need a reverse osmosis filter. I'm not sure that this is a good idea because it removes everything from the water, including minerals. How do we get rid of the bad stuff and keep the good stuff? For now we are using the filter (carbon?) that goes in the fridge.

Do you use a water filtration system? What kind?

What kind of water? Tap? Bottled? Mineral? Spring?

Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us!


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## mamadelbosque (Feb 6, 2007)

I'd say that depends on what kind of water you have. My mom has a reverse osmosis filter at her house to get rid of the flouride/chlorine thats used in many/most/all city water. However, we just drink straight tap water at our house as we have very tasty well water. I try my best not to buy water when out and about by always taking a water bottle with me... its saved me a lot over time, no dobut!!


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## Pancakes (Jan 22, 2008)

We use the fridge filter. Not sure if that's the best, but it works for us.

We do have a reverse osmosis filter because we have a salt water fish tank. I know a bit about that, but nothing of the kinds for drinking water or if they are even different. We aren't supposed to drink the RO water for the fish tank because it removes everything to the point where it would be damaging to our bodies. It is my understanding that if we removed the third filter it wouldn't be harmful to humans, but we need the third filter for the tank water.


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## seap3 (Jan 24, 2006)

Oh, great, another thing to worry about.

We've just been taking our jugs to the grocery store and refilling them for 39 cents a gallon. I'm pretty sure it says they use reverse osmosis, plus some other things like carbon, UV, etc.

I really didn't like our brita pitcher before, but maybe we'll have to get one again. I thought it didn't hold enough (we drink alot of water), took along time for the water to get through the filter, and the replacement filters were pretty expensive here. It was cheaper to just buy a whole new pitcher (money wise, not environmentally







)


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## Dabble (Jun 14, 2007)

We're on city water and just drink it straight from the tap. We probably get a lovely dose of chlorine and who knows what else, but I'm not too concerned.


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## MacroMama (Mar 9, 2007)

We do spring water and I've been cautious about using city tap water since I heard that report about medicine residuals in all city water. Yuck!


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## Jojo F. (Apr 7, 2007)

I found this a while back- http://www.drlwilson.com/Articles/water.htm

We use a brita filter and make sure to change it often or buy spring water.


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## DashsMama (Dec 1, 2001)

Be careful with the Brita Pitchers. I recently read they are made from polycarbonate plastic and leach chemicals into the water. Kind of defeats the purpose.

We drink tap water at our house. We have excellent water in Portland. It tastes much better than bottled and is from a pristine, protected watershed, so I'm not worried about any weird chemicals in it.

Lovingkindness, where do you live? What are the problems with your tap water?


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## Jojo F. (Apr 7, 2007)

http://thesoftlanding.wordpress.com/...-safe-plastic/


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## jadekat (Jun 25, 2007)

We get jugs of water from the store. We are on rural water and it give us stomach aches if we drink it. We are renting so we can install any type of water system.


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## alysmommy2004 (Jun 23, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Pancakes* 
We use the fridge filter. Not sure if that's the best, but it works for us.

We do have a reverse osmosis filter because we have a salt water fish tank. I know a bit about that, but nothing of the kinds for drinking water or if they are even different. We aren't supposed to drink the RO water for the fish tank because it removes everything to the point where it would be damaging to our bodies. It is my understanding that if we removed the third filter it wouldn't be harmful to humans, but we need the third filter for the tank water.

OT, but do you have more info about that? We have two salt tanks and we use take 5 gallon jugs to the store and fill with R/O water that we get from WF or Earth Fare. So far we haven't had any problems with water quality.


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## Pancakes (Jan 22, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *alysmommy2004* 
OT, but do you have more info about that? We have two salt tanks and we use take 5 gallon jugs to the store and fill with R/O water that we get from WF or Earth Fare. So far we haven't had any problems with water quality.

I'm not really understanding your question.

We've had salt fish tanks for years and always used tap water. The system we have now is a reef set up and we took extra precaution by getting the RO filter because reef tanks can be pretty fickle.

What I know about our RO system is that it has a particle monitor on it for the water going in and out. It comes in at 300ish and out at zero. I can only assume taking water to zero is harmful in the same way that it is harmful on your body to drink salt water or to drink too much water. Your blood will equalize the minerals inside and outside of the cells. Which would eventually kill you by dehydration. Like I said before, I really don't know if there is a difference between a RO filter for drinking and what we use on the tank. All I know is that I was told not to drink it. LOL


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## mean_jeannie (Mar 3, 2007)

There is no scientific basis for ro/di water leaching minerals from humans. The minerals that water picks up as it naturally filters are inorganic. These are not very useful to people - we get our minerals from the food we eat and those are organic minerals.

We have been drinking ro water almost exclusively for 6 years. Sometimes it is ro/di water because we too have a reef tank. By now I would be suffering from mineral deficiencies if the hungry water myth was true.

So would the entire city of Vancouver which has the lowest TDS in their municipal drinking water than any other city. Less than 2ppm.


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## joybird (Feb 2, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DashsMama* 
Be careful with the Brita Pitchers. I recently read they are made from polycarbonate plastic and leach chemicals into the water. Kind of defeats the purpose.

Brita filters do not contain any BPA. Yeah, they're still plastic but they do not have the nasty chemicals that 5 gallon jugs have. They do not filter out fluoride though.


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## alysmommy2004 (Jun 23, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Pancakes* 
I'm not really understanding your question.

We've had salt fish tanks for years and always used tap water. The system we have now is a reef set up and we took extra precaution by getting the RO filter because reef tanks can be pretty fickle.

What I know about our RO system is that it has a particle monitor on it for the water going in and out. It comes in at 300ish and out at zero. I can only assume taking water to zero is harmful in the same way that it is harmful on your body to drink salt water or to drink too much water. Your blood will equalize the minerals inside and outside of the cells. Which would eventually kill you by dehydration. Like I said before, I really don't know if there is a difference between a RO filter for drinking and what we use on the tank. All I know is that I was told not to drink it. LOL


I was just curious, because it sounded like from your initial post that the water for the tank(s) needs to be filtered more than drinking water. Perhaps I'm not understanding it correctly.









We use the same R/O water for our tanks that we drink. It's the water we get at WF or another store out of the machines. We have one salt tank and one reef, but use the same water for everything.


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## Arduinna (May 30, 2002)

RO and distilled are not healthy if you use them as your primary source of water.

We drink regular filtered from our fridges filter but I'm mostly concerned with taste because we have high mineral content. I do drink bottled sparkling mineral water sometimes.


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## treemom2 (Oct 1, 2003)

We actually drive 40 minutes away to a natural spring where we collect our water for the week. It is supposed to be very healthy and we don't even have to boil it unless we don't want to keep it in the fridge. We do store it in plastic containers though, which sucks, but we don't know what else to store it in and it's only in there for a week so I'm not sure how much nasty leaches in a week. We used to have a filter that fit on our tap in the kitchen that made the water taste much better. Maybe that's an option as well?


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## Pancakes (Jan 22, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mean_jeannie* 
There is no scientific basis for ro/di water leaching minerals from humans. The minerals that water picks up as it naturally filters are inorganic. These are not very useful to people - we get our minerals from the food we eat and those are organic minerals.

We have been drinking ro water almost exclusively for 6 years. Sometimes it is ro/di water because we too have a reef tank. By now I would be suffering from mineral deficiencies if the hungry water myth was true.

So would the entire city of Vancouver which has the lowest TDS in their municipal drinking water than any other city. Less than 2ppm.

I'm not saying RO water leaches minerals from humans. What I did say was that your body will use osmosis. As an example.. If you drink salt water, the fluid in your cells will have less sodium content and will try to equalize itself with the surroundings. Water will be sent across the cell walls from the cell to the outer fluid in an effort to equalize the mineral concentration, in essence dehydrating the cell. The opposite can also be true. If you drink too much water, the fluid will pass into the cell in an effort to equalize itself and cause the cells to explode.

This is scientifically proven and is what I used to base my opinion...and it was just my opinion.

Quote:

I can only assume taking water to zero is harmful in the same way that it is harmful on your body to drink salt water or to drink too much water. Your blood will equalize the minerals inside and outside of the cells. Which would eventually kill you by dehydration.


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## carfreemama (Jun 13, 2007)

We use tap water. We live in Nova Scotia, in the city; I've heard our water supply is decent.

I looked into getting us a reverse-osmosis water filtration system when we bought our house. When we bought it, there was a lead pipe connecting the city water supply to our house (no lead in the pipes elsewhere, thankfully). It sounded like it might be cheaper to install r/o than have the pipe replaced; plus, we'd end up with entirely filtered water.

THEN I read that 80% of the water filtered would be wasted. I couldn't believe it. I checked back with the company and they reluctantly confirmed this. I don't remember all the details, but it really does seem like it would have been an absolutely enormous waste of water. Environmentally, I could not justify that. It's for that reason I don't buy bottled water, either; I believe the worries that we're in a water crisis and my long, hot showers contribute enough to that!









I don't know why, but I have heard the PUR water filtration system does a better job than Brita for not much more money. I've heard people say they've had better luck with the pitcher-type than the faucet-mount. I'm planning to look into that. But if you're worried about chlorine, as I am, I've heard the most low-tech way to deal with that it to leave your water sitting out overnight to let of of the chlorine evaporate. That's what I'm trying to remember to do, for now.

I have absolutely no scientific back-up for any of these statements, BTW!


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## SuperSarah11 (Mar 12, 2008)

Right now we use a Brita fridge filter but it is hard to get everyone's Klean Kanteens filled each day and the dang thing already takes up a big part of our top shelf!
We were planning on going to a water cooler style but we are concerned about the plastic bottles. I did find a suggestion to use glass carboys designed for home brewing, but they are heavier than the regular bottles so the person suggested getting the 3 gallon bottles to save you from having to lug them around. Then I found these: http://www.better-bottle.com/ Does anyone know anything about these? It seems like a pretty good solution...


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## mean_jeannie (Mar 3, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Pancakes* 
I'm not saying RO water leaches minerals from humans. What I did say was that your body will use osmosis. As an example.. If you drink salt water, the fluid in your cells will have less sodium content and will try to equalize itself with the surroundings. Water will be sent across the cell walls from the cell to the outer fluid in an effort to equalize the mineral concentration, in essence dehydrating the cell. The opposite can also be true. If you drink too much water, the fluid will pass into the cell in an effort to equalize itself and cause the cells to explode.

This is scientifically proven and is what I used to base my opinion...and it was just my opinion.

10-4. Thank you for the clarity.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *carfreemama* 
THEN I read that 80% of the water filtered would be wasted. I couldn't believe it. I checked back with the company and they reluctantly confirmed this. I don't remember all the details, but it really does seem like it would have been an absolutely enormous waste of water. Environmentally, I could not justify that. It's for that reason I don't buy bottled water, either; I believe the worries that we're in a water crisis and my long, hot showers contribute enough to that!









It really is super-wasteful. We use the castoff as our grey water. I'm not sure how acceptable that is, but it seems like at least we're putting it to use and not just outright dumping it. At any rate, the castoff water would wind up in the ground or in the sewer, it may as well go down my toilet, first!


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## AngelBee (Sep 8, 2004)

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## Cekimon (Feb 3, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *jadekat* 
We get jugs of water from the store. We are on rural water and it give us stomach aches if we drink it. We are renting so we can install any type of water system.

really??? What kind of stomach problems? Diarrhea? I've been having lots of issues lately and I've been drinking a lot more water lately. It goes through Brita pitcher, but I'm going to replace my fridge filter and switch to that because brita takes forever to keep refilling all day long for as much water as i'm drinking....


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## Cekimon (Feb 3, 2008)

I wanted to add something about a bad water experience. We used to have Alhambra delivery. We have those interlock laminate floors... well... (do you see where this is going??) The cooler leaked and ruined a ton of our floor. We had to search a ton of home depots to find planks to replace our floor and that was how we spent Memorial Day weekend this year ... I was nine months pregnant and not happy. I'll never had a cooler again unless my flooring changes!!!

I just wish the filters for the fridge weren't so expensive!!


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## 99lauren (Sep 1, 2006)

"Water Filters: Reverse osmosis system that restructures and remineralizes the
water and the Doulton ceramic filter with additional fluoride filter both available
from Radiant Life (888) 593-8333, radiantlifecatalog.com."

I copied this from Sally Fallons website. Its supposed to be the best. I don't have this, but it is what I would get. She really does her homework.
For us the r/o system is PROHIBITIVELY EXPENSIVE!!!
The Doulton one maybe do-able...


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## jenniet (Apr 1, 2004)

We just bought a new refrigerator and it uses a Pur filter for ice and water through the door. My only concern was the water/ice sitting in a plastic bin awaiting usage but I couldn't find anything out about it so this is what we are using. Hopefully it's not leaching BPA.


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## llamalluv (Aug 24, 2007)

What kind of minerals in your water do you need?


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## MadameXCupcake (Dec 14, 2007)

We buy Distilled water usually as its easier to find than RO.

I dont even want to give our dog our tap water. ICK.
Sam's club bottled water is bottled tap water from where I live, these were the EWG's finding of their bottled water[Our tap water!!!]

Quote:

polluted with disinfection byproducts called trihalomethanes at levels that violate the state's legal limit for bottled water
Thats California's legal limit where the water was bought.

Quote:

cancer-causing chemical called bromodichloromethane at levels that exceed safety standards under California's Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act
http://www.ewg.org/node/27021
Of course we also have fluoride, chlorine, a ton of different medicines, assorted chemicals.

The EWG does water quality tests and of the 260 contaminants they found in more than 22 million tap water quality tests, 141 lack safety standards. So no one says how much of these chemicals are "safe"
http://www.ewg.org/node/18345


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