Once one starts looking for water purification in their home it is easy to become overwhelmed with information on the growing variety of "water filtration and purification" systems. Additionally, there are many myths and tales told about each various water purification technology that is often written by the competition. Often with misleading "untruths". The purpose of this article is to take an unbiased look one of the most often misunderstood technologies - Reverse Osmosis. The first take a look at some of the most common questions then we'll discuss some of the top myths regarding Reverse Osmosis water and how it affects your health.
Is Reverse Osmosis Water Healthy and Safe to Drink even though some call it "dead water"?
Reverse osmosis has been called dead water because of its purity. Detractors say it is man-made, unnatural and unhealthy. They claim that RO water can 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. They forgot about a little thing called RAIN.
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. So then we are left with the question, "Is ultra clean water that is free of inorganic minerals good for human health?" Lets explore that issue next.
Reverse Osmosis is a revolutionary water treatment technology that was first developed in the late 1950's as a method of desalinating sea water U.S. Government funding and our military personnel still use it currently for drinking water throughout the world even after extensive and on-going testing by the military. Also known as hyper-filtration, 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.
Lets take a look at some undebatable facts.
1. Bottled Water = RO Water
When you drink many brands of bottled water, you are actually drinking RO treated tap water.
2. Soft Drinks = RO Water
When you drink soft-drinks and soda, you are drinking mineral-free treated RO water. Vitamin water, sports drinks & energy drinks are also made from RO purified water. (We don't endorse the consumption of these products because of their excessively high acid pH levels. We recommend Ionized Water as a healthy alternative for improved hydration and anti-oxidants.
Click here to learn more about the health benefits of Ionized Water.)
3. Tap Water = RO Water
Some US city and municipal water facilities (Orange County, CA) are already providing RO treated water to their communities. Los Angeles county is also considering RO systems as we speak. Even Beverly Hills 90210 is using RO water. Hey if reverse osmosis is good enough for the OC and the Hollywood elite that must tell you something!
4. GE & DOW water = RO Water
General Electric and DOW chemical are two of the largest and most respected companies in the scientific community and both sell and endorse reverse osmosis technology for drinking water.
5.
All of the Top Residential Home Water Filter Services offer and recommend RO Water Filtration.
6. Google Campus Water = RO Water
Google employees have on-site doctors, massage therapists, nutritionists, yoga classes and volleyball courts at their finger tips. They also have delicious reverse osmosis drinking water too. We think Google probably did a good bit of "googling" research before choosing this for their employees!
Now that your health concerns over drinking RO Water should be put to easy. Lets review the Top Five Myths concerning Reverse Osmosis Water.
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. Some people will have you believe that RO water is some high-tech, super, genetically altered water that could one day destroy the world. Nothing is further from the truth. 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. As we mentioned before this type of "unnatural" water does exist, it's called RAIN.
Non-RO water filters typically use a single activated carbon cartridge to treat water. They are much less effective, and the pore size on these filter media are much bigger, generally 0.5 - 10 micron. They can filter out coarse particles, sediments and elements only up to their micron rating. Anything finer and most dissolved substances cannot be filtered out. As a result, water is far less clean and safe compared to reverse osmosis filtration.
In short, Reverse Osmosis is the process by which water molecules are forced through a 0.0001 micron semi-permeable membrane by water pressure. Long sheets of the membrane are ingeniously sandwiched together and rolled up around a hollow central tube in a spiral fashion. This rolled-up configuration is commonly referred to as a spiral wound membrane or module. They are available in different sizes for processing different quantities of water.
The most amazing aspect of RO is that the substances left behind are automatically diverted to a waste drain so they don't build up in the system as with conventional filtering devices. This is accomplished by using a part of the unprocessed water (feed water) to carry away the rejected substances to the drain, thus keeping the membrane clean. This is the reason to why RO membranes can last so long and perform like new with minimum maintenance even after years of operation.
Reverse osmosis is used globally throughout the wine industry for many practices including wine and juice concentration, taint removal; such as acetic acid, smoke taint and brettanomyces taint; and alcohol removal. Known users include many of the elite classed growths (Kramer) such as Château Léoville-Las Cases in Bordeaux.
Myth #2 - Reverse osmosis filters remove healthy minerals from water.
Truth: Reverse osmosis filters remove inorganic minerals from water which are unhealthy.
Thankfully RO systems do remove minerals from tap water. Thankfully, 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" tap water, 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 making the collected purified water even more concentrated in those particular chemicals. Distilled water systems also require very high energy costs to operate and are very slow in producing water.
Reverse osmosis is also the only purification system that can remove the majority of dangerous Pharmaceuticals & 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 minerals potentially found in tap water should!
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 can reduce pH levels as it removes unhealthy inorganic minerals from tap water. Municipal tap water often has alkaline buffers added to maintain system pH and these are removed. Once stripped of buffers, pure water can be very sensitive to pH levels swings in either direction. Water pH is very complicated and pH levels vary constantly depending on a host of factors which can only be measured by water chemists. If you are concerned about this low pH of your RO water, this can be balanced with a re-mineralization filter for just a small extra or a water ionizer can be also added for even greater benefits!
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pecial Note: Our Fitzz Wellness Review Team strongly believes in the health benefits of drinking and eating "alkaline" water and diets. A great way to get plenty of alkaline water into your diet is to use the Tyent Water Ionizer which can be used in conjunction with Reverse Osmosis to provide true pure water along with all the benefits of alkaline water.
If you don't add a water ionizer to your RO System, we recommend eating a well balanced diet which includes vegetables and fruits and whole grains to keep your body well balanced.
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.
Now allow me to summarize. Extensive science has proven, tested and endorsed Reverse Osmosis Water Filters and has shown they 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 Contaminant Removal List
Algae, aluminum, ammonium, ameobic-cysts, arsenic, asbestos, bacteria, barium, benzene, bicarbonate, boron, bisphenol-a (BPA), cadmium, chloramines, chloride, chlorine, chloroform, chromate, chromium, coal sludge, coliform bacteria, copper, cryptosporidium, cyanide, E.coli, fecal bacteria, fluoride, formaldehyde, fungi, giardia, heavy metals, hepatitus virus, herbicides, hydrochloric acid, influenza virus, inorganic minerals, iron, lead, lindane, manganese, mercury, methane, microbes, methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), mold spores, nickel, nitrate, parasites, polio virus, polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), Tetrachloroethylene (PERC), perflurorchemicals (PFCs), pesticides, phosphate, pharmaceutical drugs, protozoa, radioactivity, radium, rust, salmonella typhi, salmonella typhosa sediment, selenium, shigella, silver, simazine, sludge, sodium, sodium cyanide, strontium, sulfate, sulphur, total dissolved solids (TDS), toxaphene, trihalomethanes (THM), turbidity, vibrio cholerae, viruses, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), yeasts, and many more.
Talk to our water quality experts at
Fitzz.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
