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Unless you live in Switzerland, New Zealand, or Norway, it’s time to pay attention to the water you drink. Why? Because those countries have high-quality tap water (rated by entities such as the World Health Organization). Switzerland, for example, has strict standards for water treatment and their drinking water tends to come from natural springs or groundwater. New Zealand has focused on meeting chemical and bacterial standards in its water. Since the early aughts, Norway has been working on its disintegrating, aging water infrastructure (a problem the US shares).
So, why are we talking about this today? Well, everyone is told to drink plenty of water, to stay hydrated. We would be remiss not to mention the importance of the quality of water alongside any recommendation to increase its consumption.
Having experienced tap water from both coasts, many states and countries too, we’re just glad to be alive. Kidding. Kind of. As you may remember from our other article Is your Water Safe? there are many issues with water, including: fluoride (especially when it comes to endocrine issues such as hypothyroidism), chlorination byproducts, agricultural runoff, lead, pharmaceutical compounds, chemicals and bacteria. Oh and ‘forever’ chemicals. This other article deals with the control certain companies have over our water and waterborne illness. And this one, Water: A Human Right or a (Paid) Privilege? is important as water is both a global and home-country issue (also, get to know the parent company of your bottled water!).
During our teenage years, our household had a reverse osmosis filter installed and the water, when we did drink it, was of better quality. But then came college and post-college years of way more tap, bottled water, or the carbon filter types (e.g. Brita and PUR). After many years of buying water by the gallons or carbon filters, we looked into systems that we didn’t have to install and found a couple of countertop options, including the RKIN Zero Installation Purifiers (we compared the AlcaPure and OnliPure versions here).
These have been great, but we as a household apparently drink a lot of water and were filling up the containers multiple times a day. When we moved into our more permanent dwelling, the fridge had a built-in, carbon filtration system (which we use now to water some of our non-edible plants) and so we still needed a reverse osmosis solution. The undersink reverse osmosis system made more sense as it provided quality water at the kitchen sink, on demand (and it refills itself). Another bonus was saving some countertop space. If you are a student or are renting, the countertop version might be best whereas the undersink version might serve you better if you’re in a long-term situation.
So we had the reverse osmosis system set up at our sink and everything was hunky dory for awhile, but we noticed mineral deposits around our bathroom faucets and other symptoms of hard water. Since our water comes from a well, we weren’t entirely surprised when the data we received from our water suppliers showed that yes, we do have hard water.
In comes the softener system. The set-up was a bit complicated but the result is worth it. You can see the difference between our tap water and filtered water, softened and unsoftened in this video (near the end).
As you might now see, this article builds on, and is complementary to the others we’ve written about water quality. We suggest you test your water and ask for the annual report. If you’re not feeling like tap is your best option, consider a carbon filter at the very minimum and a reverse osmosis system as one of the best options all of us currently have. A softener might come in handy too; again, learn about your water supply. Bottled water is fraught with issues – including plastics and our environment, supporting certain companies unwittingly, bottled ‘spring’ water containing tap or carbon filtered water, and more.
Unless you plan to move to Vienna, Austria (where tap water flows from water protection zones in the mountains into the city) or one of the other top tap water countries, we need to take personal action on our tap water here in the United States.
Bottom line: the human body is mostly water and we need plenty of it for proper hydration. It makes sense to put some time, attention, and effort into making sure yours is the best it can be. We may not be able to control our municipal water, but we can exert some control within our homes by further filtering our own water.
If you like what you see on the RKIN website, click here and get 10% off your order.
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