How good is the water you drink?

These days water is being purchased in bottles and consumed without taking into consideration the consequences thereof. The market is flooded with such bottled waters that are worthless for the body.

The companies are fooling the public with impunity and playing with the health of millions. Despite having no minerals in them, these waters are being sold as ‘mineral waters’. Companies are promoting their Reverse Osmosis (R. O.) water purifiers in the houses of middle class and rich people alike. These have the power to rob the drinking water of all its mineral content, thus turning it a dead water, that is unfit for human consumption. For example, the popular Indian film actress Hema Malini and her daughter are motivating Indians to buy such dangerous water purifiers for their homes. If Hema Malini herself drinks such an R. O. water for some years, osteoporosis, diabetes etc will be installed in her.

If you are consuming a good quality water having sufficient natural minerals you will sure live a healthy life. Bottled water has now taken the shape of a big business in every country, as it usually tastes better than what comes out of your tap. But is every bottled water "healthy water?” Not always! "Is the water you are drinking hard? Is it moderately high in TDS (total dissolved solids)?" “Does it have a good degree of alkalinity?” “Does it contain good amounts of calcium, magnesium, and silica?” Most bottled water labels do not give the information you need to know the answers to these questions. Every bottling company must print the complete water analysis Test Report on the label, but hardly any one does that.

Keep in mind that many bottled waters are simply processed waters mostly using reverse osmosis (R. O.), or simply filtration. If you must, purchase only natural spring waters that come closest to the "healthy water" criteria, which says that:

Hardness should be around 170 mg / litre, and
TDS around 300 mg / litre

De-mineralised water has little or no minerals. This is the result if you use a distiller, a reverse osmosis unit (RO), or de-ionization (ion exchange resins). However, the research on heart diseases and cancer shows healthy water is hard and moderately high in TDS. Then why do people purchase these de-mineralized or water softening systems? Usually their thinking goes something like this: "I know I must drink water to keep myself alive, but often it is so polluted with chlorine, chemicals, toxic metals, etc., that it is not safe to drink it as such. So in order to get rid of these harmful moieties I am buying bottled water, and I have also installed an R.O. water purifier in my house”.

Creating a "healthy water" means removing the harmful agents but keeping the beneficial minerals. Minerals in drinking water are more easily and better absorbed than minerals from food. But devices like R.O. purifiers remove everything from the water, harmful bacteria as well as beneficial minerals. This stripped water cannot sustain life even in a fish bowl. Like humans all fish require minerals to prosper, and if allowed to live in R. O. types of waters they will all perish. If this type of water is ingested for long periods of time, it will certainly result in leaching out of the valuable body minerals such as calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, and silica. Mineralized water is needed for all cellular functions and if there are no minerals in your drinking water your body will try to rob the minerals from some other parts of your body system to satisfy its needs. Mostly the bones and teeth are the worst victims to lose calcium, magnesium, etc. Although one can take mineral supplements to replace them, but it is not easy to replace the minerals in our body with the same speed with which we have lost them