Best Drinking Water for Health & Taste?

Lara

Lara

Friend of the Arts
Location
Mid-Atlantic Coast
I've tried a few water sources like tap, well, reverse-osmosis (must add minerals*), mountain spring (my favorite), and various brands. Supposedly, I have great city water but I won't drink it because I just never know what's really in it.

I've read that the purest, most beneficial drinking water for our health is Spring Water. It's an approved source free of bacteria and other contaminants. It also has an unprecedented amount of oxygen and minerals in a highly "bioavailable format" (I don't really know what that is lol). But when buying it in plastic containers make sure you read the source of the mountain Spring(s) it comes from. I buy Deer Park. Plastic is controversial, especially if the bottle sits in a hot car for awhile.

About 10 years ago I saw suds in my tap water and it smelled like chlorine...over-treating? I haven't touched it since except for washing dishes and boiling foods in it.

And what do you think of fluoride? I've read fluoride is now considered a big no-no. Btw, Prozac is fluoride I read. I don't use it but many do.

I've heard well water is good but must be tested periodically? I don't know much about that.

*double zapped reverse osmosis can be re-mineralized by a pinch of Himalayan or sea salt may be the easiest solution.
 

"Btw, Prozac is fluoride I read."

I remember all the controversy when higher powers decided it was a good idea to put fluoride in our "city" water; people protested, saying the government was trying to sedate us all into submission. Now I know where they were coming from.

I've lived in as many big cities as remote little burgs, so have lived on equal parts "city" water and well water. Wells have to be maintained and have to be checked now and then for dead animals. Even with a metal grid over it, or a little hutch built around it, little animals occasionally manage to get in there somehow. Aside from that, well water generally tastes better than city water. My grandparents lived in a tiny town in the Sierra Nevada Mts and got their water from a natural spring. Every month one of them would drive to the spring, probably about 20-25 miles from their house, and fill up 3 big steel milk-cans with that wonderful crystal clear Sierra Mountain watershed. I lived in Magalia, California, for a while about 6 years ago, and found that spring. It's opening had been cemented over.

My water here in Sacramento is so heavy with minerals, it ruins my pots and pans. I have to use CLR on them once in a while. I've had to replace my teakettle three times...been here for a little over 2 yrs. Plus it tastes crappy. I need to attach a filter to the kitchen tap; just keep forgetting to get one.
 
Cap'nSacto said:
"Btw, Prozac is fluoride I read."

I remember all the controversy when higher powers decided it was a good idea to put fluoride in our "city" water; people protested, saying the government was trying to sedate us all into submission. Now I know where they were coming from.

I've lived in as many big cities as remote little burgs, so have lived on equal parts "city" water and well water. Wells have to be maintained and have to be checked now and then for dead animals. Even with a metal grid over it, or a little hutch built around it, little animals occasionally manage to get in there somehow. Aside from that, well water generally tastes better than city water. My grandparents lived in a tiny town in the Sierra Nevada Mts and got their water from a natural spring. Every month one of them would drive to the spring, probably about 20-25 miles from their house, and fill up 3 big steel milk-cans with that wonderful crystal clear Sierra Mountain watershed. I lived in Magalia, California, for a while about 6 years ago, and found that spring. It's opening had been cemented over.

My water here in Sacramento is so heavy with minerals, it ruins my pots and pans. I have to use CLR on them once in a while. I've had to replace my teakettle three times...been here for a little over 2 yrs. Plus it tastes crappy. I need to attach a filter to the kitchen tap; just keep forgetting to get one.
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Dead animals??? I have not ever seen an open well in my life time..No dead animals upstream??
 

Ken N Tx said:
Dead animals??? I have not ever seen an open well in my life time..No dead animals upstream??
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They're all over the place in Susanville, Chester, Johnstonville... Most of the folks around there have an "old well" and "the new well', and indeed they look quite different. I was just up at my uncle's place last spring while his new well was being dug/installed after he discovered a dead possum in the old one.
 
I drink our city tap water, it is piped from a local lake.

The water is untreated but it is filtered and chlorinated.

I grew up drinking water from a well and in the hottest part of the summer when the well went dry we drank untreated spring water.

I don't put much faith in bottled water, IMO it is more about marketing than health.

Years ago I had a friend that was a bartender and he used to laugh when people ordered Perrier on the rocks, imported French water served over ice made from chlorinated city water.
 
We have water that smells of the chlorine added to it, and who knows what else is put in there; so we only use regular tap water for other things than drinking or making coffee. We use a filter pitcher for making coffee, and also have one of the large filtration systems that adds minerals back into the water, and this is what we use as drinking water most of the time.
I had also read that most of what is bottled and sold as spring water is still chlorinated and treated; so the only time I buy bottled water is when I need some water to drink and am away from home or traveling.
I usually add ice and a little lemon to my water when I drink it, and I like the taste better with the lemon.
When we lived in Idaho, we had our own well, and the water from that was cold and delicious, and totally untreated. Some of the neighbors used to come and get water from our well because it was so good.
 
My water in Fresno tastes fine and I used to just drink that but I used a water infuser bottle and would put a slice of lemon or lime, some mint leaves, a cucumber slice, or a strawberry or some other fruit slices like orange...just depended on what I had.

Latey Ive been drinking bottled water though...no reason really.
 
I don't like City water either, so I have a Pur Water Filter. I don't use my icemaker and use ice trays filled with the purified water. I buy Deer Park Sparkling Water...love it!
 
Our village water system in northern NH is tested and ruled safe, but we simply don't like the taste. Used bottled water for years, but that became expensive and a recycling nuisance. Switched to the Pur faucet filters and found that to be a good solution, switching it on only for drinking water. Use the regular water for cooking, washing dishes.
 
That sounds good Dana. That's funny Hook. I thought your dog in your avatar looked "extra chilled out" there in the sunlight :)

A short while back I had bought two BPA-Free 2-Gallon containers with spouts from Whole Foods and filled them with Reverse Osmosis which tasted great and I thought was so healthy until my daughter Julie (at healthyjulie.com) told me that there were no minerals in it and you should add expensive mineral drops in it, that WFs sells. Well, I just read yesterday that a little pink Himilayan Salt or Sea Salt sprinkled in the water adds the minerals you need. I would just sprinkle the salt on or in my food instead I think.

But for now I'll stick with Deer Park because I read it was the best of all the brands and truly from fresh mountain springs.My daughters say Aquafina is better because it doesn't have fluoride. I haven't checked out Deer Park's fluoride content.....Water is soooooo complicated lol.
 
SeaBreeze said:
We use the Pur water filters too, not perfect but not too expensive to use.
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Our water is fairly decent, comes from the local aquifer, system run by the county. A little on the hard side, so I run a water softener:

softner.jpg




To "polish up" the taste a bit, we run an R.O. unit:


RO-unit.jpg



The R.O. water is mainly for drinking and cooking. No need to add minerals for health reasons, eating food is good way to get all the minerals a body needs.
 
Aunt Bea said:
I drink our city tap water, it is piped from a local lake.

The water is untreated but it is filtered and chlorinated.

I grew up drinking water from a well and in the hottest part of the summer when the well went dry we drank untreated spring water.

I don't put much faith in bottled water, IMO it is more about marketing than health.

Years ago I had a friend that was a bartender and he used to laugh when people ordered Perrier on the rocks, imported French water served over ice made from chlorinated city water.
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What Perrier water has is the bubbles. You can add the bubbles using CO2 pellets. I had one of those units. It does make the water from the tap taste better especially if it is cold. Basically what it becomes is soda water. It's great in an alcoholic drink.
 
We have a well, and it is the best water I've ever had. The well is 240' deep, with water filtered through limestone at a depth of 160'. It has a fairly high mineral content, such that we need to use a water softener to keep the sink aerators from clogging up every few months. I take a sample to the state Health Dept. every 2 or 3 years, and they usually say something like " I wish our city water was this clean and good". I keep a jug of the well water...pre-softener...in the fridge, and drink that...and when outdoors, I drink straight from the hose. I can sure taste the difference when we go to the city, or a store, and I take a drink from their water fountains....loaded with chlorine, etc. I can understand why some people spend a bunch for bottled water in some of these cities and towns.
 
Don M. said:
We have a well, and it is the best water I've ever had. The well is 240' deep, with water filtered through limestone at a depth of 160'. It has a fairly high mineral content, such that we need to use a water softener to keep the sink aerators from clogging up every few months. I take a sample to the state Health Dept. every 2 or 3 years, and they usually say something like " I wish our city water was this clean and good". I keep a jug of the well water...pre-softener...in the fridge, and drink that...and when outdoors, I drink straight from the hose. I can sure taste the difference when we go to the city, or a store, and I take a drink from their water fountains....loaded with chlorine, etc. I can understand why some people spend a bunch for bottled water in some of these cities and towns.
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That hard water is supposed to be better for the heart than soft water.

They did a study on our cities which were twinned later but were separate to start with. One city had water from Lake Superior, quite hard. Another had water from a mountain lake which was quite soft.

The cities amalgamated and all of it comes from Lake Superior now.

The soft water would attack iron. Changing the hot water heater after a couple of years was common. In those days they were galvanized iron.
 
Back in the mid '70s when I lived in Long Beach, Ca. I'd fill a glass 2 qt. jar with tap water, and put it in the fridg. After the water chilled the crud would precipitate out and fall to the bottom of the jar. The layer of whitish sludge would be a half inch deep.
 
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