I've had a water filter in my kitchen since last year. I got a high end model, not cheap, but if you compare it to bottled water, it pays for itself over time.
And I noticed something recently which tells about the performance of it: a few times recently I've happened to wash soap off my hands using the filtered water... and it takes a loooong time to wash off. Which means that there's no limestone in the water compared to my normal water.
The reason I'm so impressed with that is that my normal water already has very, very little limestone compared to what I was used to in Denmark. Denmark, being flatland, has lots of it. An electric kettle there needs to be de-limed every couple of months, and then it will have milimeters-thick layers of the stuff. If you leave it for many months, it will stop working.
In contrast I'd used an electric kettle here for years (before I got the filter), and I could still see the metal of the heating elements. So in other words, vanishingly small amounts it seemed to me, and still this filter makes a big difference. And that's apart from all the other things it removes, organic and mineral.
10 comments:
You won't be so happy with the soft water when you're old and suffer from osteoporosis.. Calcium is good for you!
The idea of water as the source is very debatable.
There is no evidence whatsoever that water filters do anything good for you, though. It's just clever marketing. Tap water, in almost any European country, is of very good quality.
I don't like that "slimy" feel that artificially softened water seems to give me when I'm trying to rinse soap. Why do people prefer it?
In the US, a kitchen-tap water filter can be quite useful. The tap water is different, and poorly regulated, in many municipalities, and the hand-in-glove relationship between dastardly industry polluters and government restriction agencies is much too close a relationship, to trust that the pipes' contents have been carefully cleaned for human use. I live in New Orleans. We're downriver from St. Louis, Memphis, Cincinnati, Baton Rouge, nearly all the American midwest's watershed of fertilizer and pesticide runoff, etc.. We drink bottled water.
Very handy after Katrina, too. No water pressure for six months? No problem! Just fill the sink with water-cooler water! :)
"There is no evidence whatsoever that water filters do anything good for you, though."
They do good for the water. The benefits of this depend on how 'poisonous' your unfiltered tap water is. In some parts of the world drinking tap water will instantly make you sick.
That's nonsense. Tap water doesn't make you sick anywhere. Just because your crappy immune system doesn't like the water in a certain location, does not mean that the water is bad. Water is never sterile (nor should it be!). In some locations you'll get moer fluoride or minute trace amounts of heavy metals. And maybe some bacteria that you haven't been exposed to will give you the runs in some countries, but that's just too bad. It'll pass.
Water filter people and OCD Dettol users are very much alike in my opinion. Crazy.
"Tap water doesn't make you sick anywhere. Just because your crappy immune system doesn't like the water in a certain location, does not mean that the water is bad."
The false presumption here is, that the only contaminants in tap water are localized bacteria and other "natural" things which might be taken care of by means of a more robust immune system.
That's not the case for all tap waters. Ours has phenol in it, for example. This wouldn't "naturally" occur in such a manner that a merely "better immune system" would be the only prophylactic necessary. It came from oil refineries up river. It's SUPPOSED to be removed by the authorities, but need we be reminded that they are the same authorities who are supposed to prevent the dumping of phenol at the refineries in the first place? Safer to understand that some government offices are not necessarily ideal in their medical care, than to insist that tap water is perfect the world over merely because it's supposed to be. Different locations have different standards.
To expect all the world to conform to your developed western ideal assumption ("They are looking after us, and it's paranoid to assume they aren't") is just as "crazy" as to expect the worst of conspiracies. The most common sensical attitude is one which actually applies evidence to reach a conclusion, not one which makes grand generalizations and then an ad-hominem fallacy: even if tap-filter users ARE crazy, they may STILL be right about the necessity for filters in their locations. :)
And you assume that your $15 will remove phenol? And female hormones while you're at it? Oh and why not mercury? Right.
Bangladesh have a very serious problem, without any human responsibility (for once!), with direct-from-nature water. Their soil is too rich with mineral arsenic. Makes the water toxic in long-term use.
"Tap water doesn't make you sick anywhere."
Well, it all depends on what you allow to be distributed to the taps, doesn't it? Various types of tap water poisoning are a very real and feared terrorist attack scenario in the USA.
You could also say that traveling by airplane is very safe. Relatively true, but a few madmen with blades in 2001 proved this wasn't absolute. :-(
And the enemy from within can be far worse than any given one from without. Compare the fatality count from 9/11 and Katrina. Or between 9/11 and UNSAFE airplanes that weren't kept in good condition by some companies.
I'll stop the argumentation there already, we've already been around the huge responsibility of corrupt political leaders. Trust your water exactly as much as you would trust those who provide it to you, period.
My father in an engineer, who's been involved in many national water installation projects. So he can tell you exactly, depending on where you live in Lebanon, whether your tap water is pristine or dubious. He often collected the water samples to be analyzed on the field himself! Very convenient for our peace of mind. Incidentally, we have very good water quality in our region. The advantages of drinking high mountain spring water. No chemical pollution arrives that high. further down, there is frequent sewer pollution of the phreatic waters.
As for filters, I have reliable medical knowledge. Filtering water might be excessive caution in some places and remove the benefits of mineral water, but it'll never be dangerous, and can be extremely efficient with a good apparatus. While poor quality water causes thousands of deaths in Africa.
Let's be serious here, people! Drinking water is a precious resource, that's becoming more and more scarce in the world. And the industrialized countries are also very concerned by the problem.
P.S.: anything bigger in size than a water molecule can be filtered, including sea salt (NaCl), which is sometimes done industrially in the Persian Gulf. Same for Calcium or limestone. This similarly applies to heavy metals, hormones, pesticides... all large atoms or molecules. Now, if you're facing cyanide pollution, your filter might not be enough. HCN (or CN-) is a quite small molecule. But with oil refinery byproducts like phenol, a top-quality filter can take care of it if it's designed for this. If you can trust your filter, you can equally trust your water.
Incidentally, chemical pollutants in the air, water and foods are very likely the original CAUSE for the decreased efficiency of our immune system in the 21st century. Causing sicknesses, auto-immune diseases, more and more cancers, and a marked drop in average fertility (especially in males). Maybe also increasing age-related entities like Alzheimer's and Parkinson.
Sounds like a genocide conspiracy? Alas, just the conspiracy of money's power and public corruption gone wild.
Completely off-topic now, but I wonder how much we can trust the expert opinion of a debater not brilliant enough to put some distinctive signature on their posts, so we can distinguish one Anonymous from another?
Just how many of you Anonymousses, Anonymice, Anymosites... whatever! are there out there anyway? I'm telling you, man, they're everywhere, watching our every move! Where's my tin foil hat? The one with a pair of antennae?
How can we know it's not once more the mischievous shenanigans of Knoll the Troll, escaped from his underground prison once the sun has set, to torment us humans? Show thyself, if thou art truly gallant!
"Anonymice"? LOL, love that.
Post a Comment