Why Drinking Filtered Water is so Important

Most nutritional therapists agree that drinking plenty of water is essential to good health and well being.  And, when you consider the facts, it’s hardly surprising why.  60-70% of the body is water, yet through our busy everyday lives – a heady mix of work, leisure and being generally on the go – we are not only constantly dehydrating ourselves, but also failing to quench our body’s thirst for water.

As a result, our skin suffers, our eyes are dry, we can’t seem to shake off colds, we complain of headaches, lack energy, often feel bloated or constipated and our concentration levels are poor.  And, as much as a cup of coffee or can of fizzy drink might seem appealing, it will do nothing to restore your body’s liquid levels – in fact, caffeine has quite the opposite effect – leaving your body arid, dry and in desperate need of water.

The answer is to ensure a plentiful supply of fresh, filtered drinking water wherever you are.  Not so long ago, that meant stocking up at the supermarket on expensive, not to mention bulky bottled water.  But it doesn’t have to be the case anymore – a new generation of filter taps and filter systems for the home from companies such as The USA Filtration Company means perfectly pure water is more accessible than ever, whatever your budget.  And it’s just as well – because the quality of bottled water, to say nothing of the waste that bottled water packaging and plastic generates – has never been under such scrutiny.

The Benefits of Filtered Water

Filtered water can be installed in a home either in a whole house filter system, which makes filtered water available from every tap in your home, or from point sources like sink and shower head filters. This filtered water is good for general uses like drinking water and showering, but also for uses like cooking and health purposes, especially removing toxins from the water. Some of the general results of filtered water are:

• Aesthetics � Filtered water from the tap is frequently better tasting and better smelling than unfiltered water. Many people don�t drink enough water because they just don�t like the taste and/or smell of it.

• Chlorine and chlorine byproducts � Filters remove chlorine and chlorine byproducts from the water, both of which have been shown to be harmful to human health over long periods of time.

• Toxins � Having a water filter on sources like a few taps or using whole house filters can be a last line of defense against over 2,100 toxins that can get into your water after it is filtered by your water provider.

• Lead � Water filters also remove lead in the water right before you receive it, reducing the risk that it will regain any of that lead before you drink it.

• Cost � Having filtered water come directly from the tap is much cheaper over time than buying bottle after bottle of water, where you�re paying for the plastic as well as the water inside.

Benefits of Using a Water Filter

1. Clean, Healthy Water

The number of synthetic chemicals used in our society keeps increasing, and trace amounts of many of these chemicals are ending up in our drinking water because U.S. water treatment facilities don’t have the capability to remove them. So far, over 2,100 chemicals have been detected in U.S. water systems.

Bottled water is not the solution to the problem of contaminated drinking water. There are no government standards that require bottled water to be any better, purer or safer than tap water. Companies that sell bottled water do not have to divulge to consumers the water’s source, how the water has been purified, and what chemical pollutants the water may contain. Bottled water companies are also not required to demonstrate their water’s quality.

A water filter is the only way to ensure that your drinking water is contaminant free. The home water filtration industry is heavily regulated, and companies that manufacture and sell water filtration products must supply documentation that lists which contaminants a product is certified to remove and to what degree.

2. Great Tasting Water

The contaminants in tap water often give it a bad taste. When these contaminants are filtered out, you’re left with clean, healthy water that tastes great.

3. Low Cost Water

Bottled water can cost as much as $4 a gallon, while a water filter provides you with clean, healthy water at a cost of only pennies a gallon.

Study: Bottled Water as Polluted as Tap Water

The study’s lab tests on 10 brands of bottled water detected 38 chemicals including bacteria, caffeine, the pain reliever acetaminophen, fertilizer, solvents, plastic-making chemicals and the radioactive element strontium. Though some probably came from tap water that some companies use for their bottled water, other contaminants probably leached from plastic bottles, the researchers said. In the Wal-Mart and Giant Food bottled water, the highest concentration of chlorine byproducts, known as trihalomethanes, was over 35 parts per billion. California’s limit is 10 parts per billion or less, and the industry’s International Bottled Water Association makes 10 its voluntary guideline. The federal limit is 80. The researchers recommend that people worried about water contaminants drink tap water with a carbon filter. http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/10/15/study-bottled-water-as-polluted-as-tap-water/

Bottled Water vs Filtered Tap Water – Making a Clear Choice

The cost of just one case of bottled water could supply a person in Africa with clean, safe drinking water for a year! Your choice matters… It will make a difference… How will you change the world today? We all have choices to make in how we spend our hard earned money. We can choose tap water, a quality point of use water filter system, or much more expensive bottled water. But for nearly 1 billion people…there is no choice. All they have is dirty, diseased water that is miles away from home. With a simple choice, you can change that. So…we’re asking you to consider skipping bottled water, even if just for a few weeks, and consider donating the money you save to help build wells in Africa.

Pepsi admits Aquafina comes from tap water

In reality, Aquafina comes from tap water. Yes, the same water you get when you turn on your kitchen faucet. Of course, Aquafina is filtered, purified and perhaps even enhanced with trace amounts of added minerals, but it’s certainly not mountain spring water. It’s just processed tap water — the same stuff that fills your toilet bowl when you flush. Both the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) and the FDA believe there’s really no need to require bottled water manufacturers to admit their products come from tap water. No surprise there — both these organizations routinely act to protect the interests of powerful corporations, and when it comes to bottled water, the biggest companies are often those sourcing the lowest quality water (such as tap water). Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/021962_bottled_water_aquafina.html#ixzz3H3P98QYj

What’s wrong with tap water?

Did you know that the average adult human body is 55-60% water? (Babies’ bodies are closer to 75%.) The brain is made up of about 70% water, and the lungs, closer to 90%! This means that the quality of the water you drink has an enormous impact on the quality of your health. Unfortunately, high quality drinking water is increasingly difficult to come by in this day and age. Most health conscious Americans know that, while we are lucky in this country to have access to water that is largely free of disease-causing microorganisms, drinking plain old, unfiltered tap water is generally not a great idea. In fact, these water treatment facilities often actually contribute to the problem by adding dangerous chemicals like chlorine to water as part of the treatment process. The water regulations and treatment methods used in the U.S. are old and outdated and do little to address the assortment of toxic chemicals that are currently present in our environment. The Safe Drinking Water Act only regulates 91 potential water contaminants. Yet there are more than 60,000 chemicals used within the U.S., many of which have been identified as probable carcinogens. According to some estimates, there are now more than 2,100 known chemical toxins present in U.S. tap water. Additionally, many municipalities transport their water in antiquated, corroded pipes, which may leach toxic heavy metals into the water after it has been treated. http://www.liveinthenow.com/article/the-dirty-truth-about-tap-water

Does the Chlorine in Tap Water Raise Your Health Risks?

“Chlorine, added as an inexpensive and effective drinking water disinfectant, is also a known poison to the body,” says Vanessa Lausch of filter manufacturer Aquasana. “It is certainly no coincidence that chlorine gas was used with deadly effectiveness as a weapon in the First World War.” The gas would severely burn the lungs and other body tissues when inhaled, and is no less powerful when ingested by mouth. Lausch adds that researchers have now linked chlorine in drinking water to higher incidences of bladder, rectal and breast cancers. Reportedly chlorine, once in water, interacts with organic compounds to create trihalomethanes (THMs) — which when ingested encourage the growth of free radicals that can destroy or damage vital cells in the body. Here are some ways to get rid of the chlorine from your tap water on your own: Install a carbon-based drinking water filter, which absorbs chlorine and other contaminants before they get into your glass or body. Tap-based filters remove most if not all of the chlorine in tap water, and are relatively inexpensive to boot. Some swear by the method of letting their water sit for 24 hours so that the chlorine in the glass or pitcher will off-gas. But letting the tap run for a while is not likely to remove any sizable portion of chlorine, unless one were to then let the water sit overnight before consuming it. Another option is a product called WaterYouWant, which looks like sugar but actually is composed of tasteless antioxidants and plant extracts. The manufacturer claims that a quick shake of the stuff removes 100 percent of the chlorine (and its odor) from a glass a tap water.

How Much Less Does Filtered Water Cost Than Bottled Water?

Let’s say that a 20 ounce bottle of water costs about $1.50. One gallon contains 128 ounces, or 6.4 bottles of water. 6.4 multiplied by $1.50 equals $9.60. For comparison, cost for a gallon of gasoline is about half that amount. As you do the math in your head to make sure that I’m right, here’s one more fact that is sure to bug you if you’re unaware: most bottled water is just from the tap. Does this mean that the water you are drinking from a plastic bottle is of subpar quality? Not necessarily. Most tap water in this country is very drinkable, though there are some contaminants – from chlorine to lead – that we would recommend filtering out to avoid long-term health issues. Does this mean you are getting ripped off? Well, remember, that plastic bottle is yours for keeps after you buy it. As long as you use that bottle to its full potential, using and reusing it dozens of times, you’re getting a great deal. If you are still reading, you must be one of the millions that just throw away a plastic water bottle when you’re done with it. This means that yes, depending on how much bottled water you buy, you are probably getting ripped off.