Let's Ditch Bottled Water
Do you shrink from tap water? If you do, you’re not alone! We all suspect tap water of containing contaminants. In many cases it tastes, smells or even looks strange.
The obvious alternative is bottled water, which over the past 15 years has become increasingly popular. Plenty of us are solving the problem this way.
One big drawback concerns the plastic bottles used to hold the water. Sixty million water bottles PER DAY are used in America, and many of them end up in landfills. Actually, this huge number shouldn’t really surprise us. Each of us should drink gallons of water per day, right? Drinking it from plastic bottles will quickly mean a lot of discarded bottles.
The second big drawback is the health issue. Clear plastic water bottles are very likely to contain BPA, a controversial chemical that leaches out of the plastic, contaminating the water. (Read more about a critical BPA issue: feminizing our boys with synthetic estrogens.)
Not only that, but studies are finding that bottled water is often just mildly filtered or even unfiltered tap water, containing the same level of chemical contaminants as tap water. In fact, if you look at my articles blog, you'll see articles on significant levels of unregulated toxins found in our tap water, and the fact that the tolerated amounts for regulated toxins are based on test results from adults, not children, who are far more susceptible because their bodies are smaller.
Now, let’s remember that we were drinking bottled water because we wanted pure water, free of contaminants. Well, bottled water is NOT going to do that for us. Nor is unfiltered tap water.
A Filter At The Kitchen Sink
What you need is a robust filter at your kitchen sink, one that takes out a wide range of contaminants, yet leaves in trace minerals that your body needs.
Reverse-osmosis filters and distillation systems provide very pure water–so pure, in fact that it doesn’t contain the trace minerals your body needs. So don’t let someone talk you into a solution where the water is too pure for life!
The best alternative available is a triple-stage carbon filter, one with a triple trap: filtering out some contaminants, bonding chemically with others, and eliminating microbes as well. You should be able to look at a test sheet from the NSF (National Sanitation Foundation) that shows you exactly what the filter removes. That should be a long list. One of the things to look for is elimination of cryptosporidium, a cyst that causes disease and isn’t removed by chlorine.
A key element in usefulness for kitchen filters is the amount of flow. Can the system provide the pure water you need quickly, or do you have to wait? If your family is of any size, using a pitcher or countertop reservoir is pretty difficult, I found. In fact, it didn’t seem to be worth the bother. The filters were expensive, the water reservoir needed cleaning, and it didn’t hold enough water to last very long for my family of six. (A pitcher filter is made of carbon, and it gets rid of chlorine, DPB’s and lead.) So I ditched my low-flow pitcher/reservoir after using it for just a few months.
Whole House Filters? Shower Filters?
You might be considering a whole-house water filter. Just do the job in a big way, why not? Well, you need to understand that a whole-house filter doesn’t offer the triple-filter protection available from a lower-flow filter installed at your kitchen sink.
The whole-house filter removes chlorine, which is the single biggest pollutant of our tap water. But because the water must be able to move through the filter quickly, the effective three-stage carbon filtration can’t be done at this point in your drinking water supply.
Of course, a whole-house filter has to be installed by a plumber. If you want to install a great protective system yourself, you can go with a triple-carbon filter at your kitchen sink and a shower filter that removes the chlorine in your shower.
Inexpensive Healthy Water -- Choose It!
Want inexpensive, healthy water?
You want to choose a system that:
- is easy to use and durable
- provides water at relatively high flow
- costs 8 cents per gallon for replacement filters, lower than all competitors and in contrast to bottled water at more than $3 per gallon.
- takes out chlorine, lead, mercury, volatile organic compounds and cysts including cryptosporidium, while leaving in natural trace minerals.
I embarked on a search for such a water system and found two companies recommended by Consumer’s Digest Magazine: Aquasana and Multi-Pure. Both provide carbon filtration to high standards, as tested by the NSF. Aquasana’s systems cost less, so I took a good look at them.
I found that many reviewers around the Internet weren’t too happy with Aquasana. For example, Marjorie R. wrote: “The housing is so sensitive that you can only run water through it at an incredibly low pressure to keep it from bursting.” This had caused her family to break the unit and buy another one, only to break that one, she wrote.
Another unhappy Aquasana owner wrote that she soon bought a Multi-Pure system instead.
So I looked into Multi-Pure. I found reviewers to be happy with this higher-end system, with its larger filters (with higher flow) and more durable filter housing. This is what I am choosing. It may cost a bit more at first, but the larger filters last a whole year under normal use (as opposed to six to eight months for Aquasana filters). The result is cleaner water at your kitchen sink for just 8 cents per gallon. Can’t beat that! (Note: if you have well water, you'll need a different solution.)
Multi-Pure filters are 100% made in America. The Multi-Pure company was started in California in 1970, and now manufacture its products in Las Vegas. Multi-Pure consistently has led its industry in developing filters that take out more and more contaminants, including PCB's and cysts, for example.
I'm so excited to find this great solution that I decided to share it with you. In addition, I've secured a great price break for you.
Choose Multi-Pure today! Protect your kids. Don’t let your family get by with anything less than clean, safe water, for just 8 cents per gallon. Put it in a stainless steel bottle, the safe container to take with you.
More than three million satisfied customers are using Multi-Pure filtration around the world. Shouldn’t you join us?