Reverse Osmosis Water Filter Guide - Truth, Lies, Minerals & Your Health
Is Reverse Osmosis Treated Low Mineral Water Healthy and Safe to Drink?
Reverse osmosis water
filters remove 90-99% of all contaminants from water, including inorganic
minerals. In water filter comparison tests, reverse osmosis systems
always beat standard carbon filters in the removal of harmful contaminants
in both tap and well water. However, some critics say that this water
is unnatural and is not good for human consumption. Is ultra clean water
that is free of inorganic minerals good for human health? Keep reading
this article to find out.
Reverse Osmosis is a revolutionary water treatment technology that was first developed in the late 1950's as a method of desalinating sea water. Also known as hyperfiltration, reverse osmosis is the process by which water molecules are forced through a 0.0001 micron semi-permeable membrane through the use of water pressure. This membrane allows only microscopic water molecules to pass through, filtering out almost everything else including 90-99% of all contaminants in the water.
Today this technology has earned its rightful
status as the most convenient and thorough method to produce contaminant
free clean water. It is used by many water and soda bottling plants and
by many industries that require ultra-refined water in manufacturing. Reverse
osmosis has also made its way into the residential sector and has become
a popular under-the-counter water filtration system for many families.
However there are some competitors in the water filtration market that argue
against the use of reverse osmosis for drinking water and have spread
many outrageous rumors against it online in the hopes of discrediting
the technology. This article will cover some of the issues and claims brought up
against reverse osmosis technology by those critics.
Myth #1 - Reverse osmosis purified water is unhealthy to drink.
Truth: Reverse
osmosis water is very clean and healthy to drink.
Reverse osmosis (RO) has been called unnatural
water because of its purity. Detractors claim it is man-made and unhealthy
and should only be used for industrial applications and not for human
consumption. They say that RO water is too pure and clean to be good
because such perfectly clean mineral-free water does not exist naturally
on earth. However this type of water does exist, it's called RAIN.
Rainwater is water that has been stripped
of all minerals and is often one of the purest and cleanest water on earth. People
have been drinking rainwater for thousands of years without any negative
health effects. Only recently has rainwater been polluted by the industrial
age and man's pollution of the skies. In the absence of heavy natural
or man-made air pollution, rainwater can be very pure and safe to drink. While
rain water may absorb and pick-up some substances as it falls through the
atmosphere, minerals are not one of them. Thus people have been drinking
mineral-free water for thousands of years, which is very normal when
you consider that nothing is more natural than mother nature's life giving
rain.
With the scientific research that has been done over the past 60 years
on reverse osmosis water, none has ever documented any negative health
effects from people drinking RO water. In fact, RO technology has also
been extensively tested in the past by the US military and is approved
for and highly used throughout
the military as drinking water by
the men and women in our armed forces.
Myth #2 - Reverse osmosis filters remove healthy minerals from water.
Truth: Reverse
osmosis filters remove inorganic, unhealthy minerals from water.
RO systems do remove minerals from tap water. However, we humans get the vast majority of our minerals from the foods we eat, not from drinking water. For example, 1 glass of orange juice has the same amount of minerals as 30 gallons of tap water. You would also get more minerals from 1 vitamin tablet than you will from drinking a month's supply of tap water.
Tap water contains only inorganic minerals which cannot be properly
absorbed by our bodies. Human beings need organic minerals which are
only available from living organisms like plants and vegetables and
are easily absorbed by our systems. According to the WQA & WHO (Water
Quality Association - World Health Organization) we get the vast majority of our minerals
from food not from drinking
water. The inorganic minerals found in water has little to no benefits
to people and in fact can be very bad to our health.
It is estimated that over a 70-year lifespan, a person drinking tap
or mineral water will be ingesting about 200 to 300 pounds of rock that
their body cannot use. While most of these microscopic rock minerals will
be eliminated from our bodies regularly, some will be stored in our
tissues becoming toxic. The primary culprits are calcium salts and over
time they can cause gallstones, kidney
stones, bone & joint calcification, arthritis, and hardening
and blocking our arteries.
The presence of other hard metal minerals (some are radioactive!) is suspected
to cause other degenerative diseases as well including eye glaucoma,
cataracts, hearing loss, emphysema, diabetes, obesity and cancer. These
minerals available, especially in "hard" tapwater, are poorly
absorbed, or rejected by cellular tissue sites, and, if not evacuated,
their presence may cause arterial obstruction, and internal damage.(Dennison
1993, Muehling 1994, Banik 1989)
Reverse osmosis water purification simply
delivers the cleanest, purest drinking water on the market. What about
distilled water you say? Distillation systems are comparable in contaminant
removal, however since many synthetic chemicals such as herbicides, pesticides
and chlorine solutions have boiling points lower than water, these chemicals will
vaporize and can be carried over into the product water container actually
Reverse osmosis is also the only purification
system that can remove the majority of dangerousPharmaceuticals &
Drugs from our drinking water. According to AP news reports provided
by this USA
Today article & Fox News report - "Reverse Osmosis removes virtually all
pharmaceutical contaminants".
Reverse osmosis removes many contaminants
that countertop and faucet carbon filters cannot including viruses,
bacteria, pesticides, arsenic, fluoride, drugs, cryptosporidium, mercury,
nitrates, microbes, heavy metals, all radioactive materials, and many
more.
The lack of minerals in your water should
not keep you up at night. (Just take a vitamin) The increasing amounts
of chemicals, drugs and carcinogenic/radioactive
Myth #3 - Reverse osmosis leaches minerals from the body.
Truth: Reverse
osmosis water cannot leach minerals from the human body.
Water is called the universal solvent
as it always "wants" to have substances dissolved in it. The
purer the water, the more aggressive it becomes in attacking things
that can dissolve. This doesn't hurt the human body, because our physiology
quickly obtains homeostasis using saliva, stomach fluids, etc. to equilibrate all bodily fluids.
Reverse Osmosis technology was created in the 1950s and has been scientifically
tested in every conceivable way since then. There has never been any
documented evidence to prove that reverse osmosis treated water can
leach minerals from the human body.The US Navy has used water with
less than 3 parts per million total dissolved solids (TDS) for more
than 40 years, according to a 1993 Water Quality Association (WQA) report,
which also said the Army's field personnel drinks RO water.
In early July, 2008, the Brighton Standard Blade, a Colorado newspaper
contacted the EPA at their readers request to find out if RO water leaches
minerals. The EPA spokeswoman said that their organization does
not support this idea. The WQA also rejects the idea that RO water can
leach minerals in a 1993 report titled,'Consumption of Low TDS Water'.
Their extensive research presented evidence that suggests water with
low amounts of total dissolved solids (TDS), such as distilled water
and reverse osmosis treated water has
no ill effects on humans.
Water Technology Magazine also disagrees with this myth giving
a list
of sources that dispels the
false water propaganda.
Reverse osmosis water is very clean, and its purity will actually help
improve the absorption of all nutrients including good organic minerals.
No more ingesting of bad inorganic minerals (rocks) means the body will
no longer be stressed and taxed with trying to absorb something that
wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. Drinking water heavy
in inorganic minerals is like putting random rocks from your back yard into
your chicken soup. Considering the fact that some inorganic minerals
are radioactive and others are toxic, you are literally playing Russian
roulette with your health!
Use common sense. Drink the cleanest
and purest water you can find!
Myth #4 - Reverse osmosis filtration produces very acidic water with low pH
Truth: Reverse osmosis
has little affect on water pH values.
Reverse osmosis purification may or may
not reduce pH levels as it removes unhealthy inorganic minerals from
tap water. Water pH is very complicated and pH levels vary constantly
depending on a host of factors which can only be measured by water chemists
and PhDs. The truth is, water pH levels will automatically change when
it is ingested and comes into contact with the food in your stomach.
Even on an empty stomach, your stomach acid alone is already several
times more acidic than RO water (pH 6-8) with a pH level of 2.
The human body regulates pH levels constantly to find balance and equilibrium.
Therefore under normal conditions it will always maintain a neutral
7.4 pH balance. Even eating very acidic foods (very low pH) only alters
the body's pH by a very tiny amount and only for a short time. The healthy
body is very robust and it will restore homeostatic pH fairly quickly
and easily. Soft drinks and sports drinks typically have a pH level
of 2.5, orange juice has a 3 pH and coffee has a 4 pH level and we drink
these beverages all the time without problems.
As long as you eat a well balanced diet which includes vegetables and fruits, you can pretty much drink whatever you want without ever worrying about your pH balance.
Myth #5 - Reverse osmosis wastes a lot of water.
Truth: Reverse osmosis uses some water to deliver quality and longevity.
For every gallon of clean water produced by a RO system, an average
of 4 gallons of brine water is used and discarded. This brine (waste)
water is constantly used by the system to clean the membrane and allows
the filter to work effectively and last for many years. Remember, RO
systems clean your water and remove thousands of unhealthy contaminants
from tap water that countertop and faucet filters cannot.
Reverse osmosis brine water is the equivalent of an extra 3 to 4 toilet
flushes a day. You actually waste more water each day when you wash
your dishes or clothes than from a RO system. You will probably pay
a extra 25 to 50 cents a month from RO waste water.Waste water from
RO systems is actually pretty clean and similar to tap water in purity
levels. It can be channeled for use in gardens watering plants or stored
and used for other household applications.
Water that flows down the sink is not wasted and can be recycled into
clean water. Orange County, California already recycles their waste
water, turning it back into their city tap water.
The truth is, there is no "new" water on this planet. All
water is old water that has been recycled continuously for millions
of years. We are actually drinking the same water that the dinosaurs
drank, recycled obviously by Mother Nature.
Conclusion
Reverse osmosis water filters can remove
thousands of organic, inorganic and chemical pollutants from tap water.
The water is very clean and pure, protecting our health from chlorine,
fluoride, arsenic and even pharmaceutical drugs. Reverse Osmosis systems
are typically 4 to 5 stage systems that in addition to the RO membrane,
also include a sediment filter and several carbon filter stages. This
makes them much better at removing contaminants when compared to countertop,
faucet and pitcher filters which use only 1 simple carbon filter. Reverse
osmosis systems remove the heavy metals, radioactive materials, bacteria,
viruses, fluoride, mercury, arsenic, nitrates, chemicals and drugs that
standard countertop carbon filters cannot remove.
Reverse osmosis produces cleaner water
which allows for the superior absorption of all nutrients by our bodies, including
good organic minerals. No more ingesting of bad inorganic minerals (rocks)
means the body will no longer be stressed and taxed with trying to absorb
something that wasn't
supposed to be there in the
first place. Cleaner water will also improve the elimination of wastes
at the cellular level and increase our body's metabolic activity.
Contact Us or schedule an Installation!
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Phone:
Tom Atkinson: (602) 377-4761 (cell)
Tom Knapp: (602) 339-1427 (cell)
Office: (602) 993-0083
22047 North Black Canyon Highway
Phoenix, Arizona 85027
We answer our phones 7 days a week well into the evening.
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