A Good Home Water Filter Will Protect You From Drinking Human Feces, Chlorine, Lead, Pesticides, and Prescription Drugs
The quality of our drinking water has been steadily declining. So far our government has turned a blind eye to the problem. They continue to dump chlorine into our drinking water, ignore corporate pollution, and fail to address the newest threat to the public health – prescription drugs seeping in to our water supplies.
weighted rolex replicaYou have the right to know what you and your family are drinking, and how you can keep your water safe by using a quality home water filter. Here’s what you’ll find on this web site:
- How poisons, feces, and toxic metals are found in tap water across the country
- The effectiveness of home water filtration systems
- Why the most expensive water filtration systems aren’t always the best (our top rated system was one of the least expensive)
- Which water filtration systems removed the most contaminants from your drinking water
- The underhanded tactics being used to sell certain brands of water systems
- Why most store bought water filters are ineffective, and cost you more in the long run
- The truth about bottled water (This industry has mislead Billions of people, we expose their lies)
The 5 Biggest Health Risks Found In Drinking Water
According to the Mayo Clinic the average person in made up of 60% water, and needs to consume 2 liters, or just over 8 glasses of water to stay healthy. Every system in your body is dependent on water – the problem is that most people are not nourishing their body with clean, safe drinking water. If you’re not using a quality home water filtration system here’s what could be lurking in your drinking water.
- Human Feces
- Chlorine
- Rust & Sediment
- Prescription Drugs
- Chemicals / Farm Run Off / Corporate Waste
Feces
Right now many areas are pushing to introduce “recycled water” into the public drinking supply. That might sound harmless until you learn that “recycled water” is the waste that gets flushed down the toilet. The methods in place to separate the water from the human excrement include the use of chemical disinfectants. In parts of Southern California alone around 5 million people drink from regional aquifers partly recharged with treated waste water.
By comparison, drinking water laced with human feces is a small health risk compared to the more serious chemicals, and toxic substances found in your public water supplies listed below.
Chlorine
Chlorine is used by municipal water systems to remove microorganisms from water. There’s only one problem, chlorine is poison! While it’s safer than having pathogenic organisms in the water, it isn’t truly a safe ingredient in your water. The National Cancer Institute believes that those of us who consume chlorinated water have a 93% increased risk of many cancers, in part because it combines naturally with organic matter in water to make trihalomethanes—molecules that contribute to the formation of cancer.
Rust & Sediment
Even if your local water treatment facility did manage to remove 100% of all contaminants from your drinking water (which is highly unlikely) you could still be at risk. If you were to go down into your basement, remove one of your water pipes, and look inside, you would likely find rust, lead, and other sediment built up on the inside of your water pipes. There’s also the potential for contamination coming from the pipes that bring the water from it’s source into your home, which you have no control over.
Prescription Drugs
Reported in the January 30, 2009 issue of the LA Times, there’s a new threat facing every water supply in the developed regions of the world. Prescription Drugs are now being detected in our water supplies. After being ingested, excreted, and flushed down the drain these drugs are not being filtered out by water treatment facilities. What that means is you could be getting a small dose of 1000’s of different drugs including, Prozac, Valium, uppers, downers, steroids, and all the other drugs you see stacked up behind the counter of your local pharmacy with every glass of water you drink.
The thought is frightening. What’s worse is that there are no government standards restricting any of these drugs from being in your drinking water!
“Some experts fear that even low levels of antibiotics fouling the nation’s water supply may help create superbugs: microorganisms that have evolved to survive an antibiotic’s lethal assault.
Public health experts already have noted the rise of infection after infection that cannot be stopped with the usual arsenal of antibiotics.
And the superbugs may be causing “tens of thousands” of deaths in the USA each year, says Abigail Salyers, an expert on antibiotic resistance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.“
~ Source: USA Today
Chemicals / Run Off / Corporate waste
It’s almost universally agreed upon that big corporations really don’t care much about anything except making a profit, and nothing hurts profits more than following environmental guide lines. The problem is that the fines these corporations face for not properly disposing of waste (assuming they get caught) are not enough of a deterrent to keep them from doing it.
In 1978 a massive oil spill leaked 17 million gallons of oil into the ground beneath a Brooklyn New York Neighborhood Despite residents reporting a disproportionate amount of people being diagnosed with cancer, and even filing a class action lawsuit against the Big oil companies responsible, the oil still has not been fully cleaned up.
What You Can Do To Make Sure Your Drinking Water Is Safe
It’s almost impossible to remove 100% of every possible type of contamination from city water, but by using a home water filtration system you can greatly improve upon the quality of the water you consume. You have to be careful when selecting a water filter for your home. Many of the water filters being sold are relatively ineffective, and overpriced. After researching www.WaterFilterResearch.com found that Aquasana water filters provide consumers with high quality drinking water, and cost much less than comparable units.
The Different Types of Technology Found In The Most Popular Home Water Filtration Systems
Reverse Osmosis
Reverse Osmosis is a technology from the 1950’s that was designed to separate the salt from sea water by passing water molecules through a membrane. While Reverse Osmosis seems to be good for making drinkable sea water there are some concerns with using this type of water filter. Beneficial minerals, like calcium and magnesium are stripped from your drinking water during Reverse Osmosis. This is especially bad for growing children.
Reverse Osmosis systems also waste approximately three gallons of water for every one gallon they purify.
Carbon Filters
Carbon filtration systems are the most common type of water filter. Many of the inexpensive pitcher type filters use this technology. The water is passed through specially treated carbon to remove contaminants. Carbon filters seem to do little more than improving the taste and smell of the water that passes through them – by itself carbon filters do not provide adequate filtration to remove the harmful chemicals found in today’s drinking water. Another negative aspect of carbon filter is that if you pure hot water through them it will actually cause the carbon to release all the waste that’s been trapt from previous uses.
While the initial cost of most of these units is small, you actually end up paying more per gallon because the filters have to be replaced so often. Carbon filter units are better than nothing at all, but they’re not going to provide you with the same clean, healthy water that you get from other water systems.
Ultra Violet Light
Ultra Violet Light is used to kill bacteria and viruses found in drinking water, but it’s not effective against non-living substances such as lead, asbestos, chlorine, and chemicals.
* Combination Filters
By combining two or more water filtration technologies, water systems that use combination filters are able to remove more contaminants then filters that rely on one type of technology. Aquasana water filters (described below) use a combination of carbon filtration‚ ion exchange and sub-micron filtration to filter out chlorine‚ lead‚ VOC’s, MTBE and Cysts (chlorine resistant parasites), and leaves in the natural trace minerals.
Consumer Guidelines For Purchasing a Home Water Filter
- Performance – Does the water system do an exceptional job at removing both living water contaminants (bacteria & viruses) and non-living water contaminants (toxic metals like lead & copper)
- Customer Service – A thorough back ground check should be done to access the companies business practices, and make sure they are a member in good standing with the Better Business Bureau (BBB)
- Affordability – What’s the up front cost of the unit – How much are replacement filters – What’s the total cost of ownership (price per gallon of filtered water)
- Quality – Is the unit durable, and is it backed by a 100% money back guarantee.
The Aquasana AQ-4000 was awarded the top performing home water filter. Below you can read the questions we asked when evaluating the Aquasana, and other water filters
The Hard Questions That Were Asked Before Making The Aquasana Our Top Rated Water Filter
Has the water system been endorsed by any consumer research firms?
The Aquasana AQ-4000 has been voted “Best Buy” by Consumers Digest Magazine 2003, 2004, 2005, 2009
Does the water system remove the waste and chemicals found in drinking water?
Below is a chart detailing the harmful contaminants, and the percentage removed by the Aquasana AQ-4000. You can find a side by side comparison of the Aquasana AQ-4000 and many other popular water systems on this web site www.aquasana.com
| Removes Chlorine | YES >99% | Removes Lindane | YES >99% |
| Removes Lead | YES >99% | Removes Alachlor | YES >98% |
| Removes Cysts | YES >99.99% | Removes Atrizine | YES >97% |
| Removes THMs | YES >99% | Removes Benzene | YES >99% |
| Removes VOCs | YES >99% | Removes TCE | YES >99% |
Does the Aquasana filter come with a Money Back guarantee?
The guarantee on the Aquasana web site says their water filtration systems are backed by a 100% Money Back Guarantee
Are there independent tests to verify the Aquasana’s effectiveness on their web site?
Aquasana published the performance data tests conducted by the Underwriters Laboratories Under NSF Standards 42 and 53 and certified by the California Department of Health Services Certificate #06-1792 you can view the test results by going to the Aquasana web site www.aquasana.com clicking the “About Aquasana” link at the top of the page then clicking the “Performance Data Sheet (PDF)” link on the right hand side of that page.
Is the water system sold through a Multi Level Marketing Scheme?
The legitimacy of the Multi Level Marketing business model is beyond the scope of this web site, but our findings were that the price of water systems sold through MLM were generally much higher than similar units sold through traditional means. Also, many MLM companies won’t allow you to buy their products unless you sign up with their company as a distributor.
Aquasana Water Systems are not sold through Multi Level Marketing (MLM)
Is the company a member of the Better Business Bureau (BBB)?
Aquasana Water Systems are manufactured by Sun Water Systems Inc of Fort Worth, Texas. They are a member in good standing with the Better Business Bureau (BBB)
Are you able to buy the Aquasana water system directly from the company to avoid paying a retail markup?
Water systems sold through traditional retail channels can carry a 50% or more price markup. Aquasana products are sold directly to consumers through their company web site www.aquasana.com
What is the cost of ownership?
By factoring in the price of the actual unit and replacement filters you can determine how much you’re paying per gallon of filtered water. The Aquasana has one of the lowest cost of ownership in the industry at 9¢ per gallon. Here’s a comparison of the Aquasana AQ-4000 and some other popular water filtration systems.
Is the system easy to install?
The Aquasana comes with easy to follow instructions, and takes just minutes to install
Why Bottled Water Is a Billion Dollar a Year Consumer Rip Off
US consumers spend more than $7 billion per year on bottled water. The makers of bottled water want you to believe that you’re choosing healthy and naturally-pure water. The majority of Americans believe that bottled water is safer and healthier for you than tap water when, in fact, the opposite is true.
How The People Who Make Bottled Water Get Away With Deceiving Consumers
Let’s start with the regulations. Bottled water, because it is classified as a “food”, falls under the standards of the US Food and Drug Administration. Regular tap water is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency. Believe it or not, the EPA guidelines are stricter than the FDA restrictions for bottled water. You could have bottled water acceptable by the FDA but not acceptable to be used as ordinary tap water. The amount of testing for the purity of tap water is much higher than the amount of testing done on bottled water. Even with loose FDA guidelines, not every corporation complies consistently with the recommendations. Tests for Cryptosporidium in the water (a parasite) aren’t even recommended for bottled water. This is in spite of a 1999 study by the NRDC which showed that about 20% of bottled water testing contained higher than acceptable bacterial counts.
It’s Not Just The Water You Have To Worry About – The Plastic Bottle Could Be Toxic Too
Bottled water comes in—of course—a bottle made of plastic. Bottles usually have a number stamped on the bottom of them that is inside of a triangle. Most bottled water comes numbered as #1, which means it’s made from polyethylene terephthalate. This leaches out of the plastic in the bottle and becomes dissolved into your bottled water. Phthalates are what are called “xenoestrogens”—chemicals that mimic estrogen in the system and cause the body to become dominant in estrogen. Conditions like endometriosis, uterine fibroids, and infertility are the result of estrogen dominance. After long term use, the phthalates are cancer-causing, particularly with reproductive organs. As an aside, the harder the plastic, the higher is the number on the bottom and the safer the plastic is. The plastic in bottled water is the least safe of all plastic containers.
Bottled Water Destroys The Environment
Bottled water is basically an ecological nightmare.
- It takes huge amounts of fossil fuels to manufacture, transport, and store bottled water.
- Once you drink the water, you throw the plastic away (if you don’t recycle plastic). Of the 89 billion liters of bottled water produced annually, about 1.5 million tons (or three billion pounds) of plastic end up in a landfill.
- If burned, the byproducts of plastics filter through the air and land on cropland and grazing areas where animals consume the waste product and pass the xenoestrogens to us.
- If stored in a land fill, the plastic just sits there and degrades very little into anything biodegradable. Rather, the plastic leaches phthalates into the groundwater, which finally ends up in your tap water.
- The vast majority of bottles are stored in landfills, polluting the environment and adding to ground water contamination. This means that you drink water from bottles that contain phthalates in the water and eventually, if you drink tap water, you ingest phthalates then, too.
The Dirty Secret Behind Bottled Water
Do you think it’s possible that a company would actually sell tap water in a bottle and call it bottled water?
What about the glacier-fed spring water you’re supposed to be drinking? Did you know that a NRDC study showed that around 25% of bottled water was really only tap water, often not treated further in any way? The good news is that tap water, minus the phthalate content, is generally healthier than bottled water from other sources. People seem to prefer drinking tap water, too. In one study in New York City, subjects preferred the tap water over the bottled water 75% of the time. One Massachusetts-based water company had a brand of “spring water” associated with a picture of mountains on the bottle when, in fact, the water was taken out of a well situated in the parking lot of an industrial plant. Now, it may have come from a “bottle” but is that the kind of bottled water you would actually want to drink?
“The vast bulk of bottled water sold is simply re-processed municipal water. Both Aquafina from Pepsi-Cola Company and Dasani from The Coca-Cola Company are reprocessed municipal water systems. Some bottled waters, such as Penta Water claim special health benefits, though these claims are considered pseudoscience and rarely backed up with any verifiable evidence.”
~ Source: wikipedia.org
Concluding Remarks on Bottled Water
- Bottled water is not cheap. It costs as much as $2 or more for a single bottle.
- Bottled water is inconvenient, you need to go to the store and buy it, carry it home and store it.
- If you store it for long periods of time, the plastic leaches into the water, causing phthalate contamination, which can lead to cancer and hormonal problems.
- If you open a bottle, you need to drink it right away because it contains bacteria that proliferate during storage after you open it. The bacteria can cause diarrhea illnesses or other similar infectious disease.
- The bottled water also may or may not actually contain the right amount of fluoride which makes it dangerous for children, in particular, as there is less cavity protection.
- Finally, unless everyone recycles their plastic containers, the plastic bottle goes into a landfill where it worsens the environment by leaching carcinogenic phthalates into the ground water, which affects tap water purity.
How Bottled Water Compares To Filtered Water
Bottled water, which as you’ve read above is usually no better then plain tap water, and does not provide the same level of quality water that a home water filtration system can deliver. In addition to providing inferior water, bottled water is very expensive, costing an average of $10.00 per gallon. Compare this to the top rated Aquasana that provides safe, pure water for only 9¢ a gallon.
Another important note: Homes that use water filtration systems are also more likely to use the filtered water for cooking, pets, and even watering plants. Bottled water consumers tend to only use the water for drinking.
