Do You Need to Filter Tap Water For Taste & Safety

There Are Three Different Kinds Of Water

When you are looking for drinking water, your choices are typically:

It may surprise you to know that there is not a lot of difference between these choices, other than the price. Although bottled water is often advertised as being sparkling clear spring water, it is actually usually just filtered tap water put into plastic bottles, which leach carcinogens into it.

Tap Water vs. Bottled Water

People in the United States buy about fifty-million bottles of water a year, but the fact is that in most places in the US, tap water is perfectly safe to drink. Filtering it makes it of higher quality than most bottled water. Bottled water is not a very regulated commodity, but tap water is highly regulated, clean, affordable water, fresh from the tap has a lot of advantages over stale, costly water in a plastic bottle. If your tap water is good tasting and you like it, keep drinking it.

People with health complications may be better off drinking bottled water or tap water that has been both filtered and boiled. If you test HIV positive, if you have been diagnosed with cancer and are receiving chemotherapy or if you are pregnant, you should discuss your drinking water options with your doctor.

In terms of general health, bottled water really does not offer any advantages and may be detrimental because of the carcinogens found in plastics. Depending upon where you stand on the fluoride controversy, you may believe bottled water is better or worse than tap water. Most bottled water has less fluoride in it than tap water.

In some rare instances, tap water may be contaminated and can be hazardous to your health. One infamous example is the tap water in Flynn Michigan, which became contaminated with lead after city officials made unwise decisions regarding where water should be sourced.

For the most part, tap water is safe to drink and choosing to support your local public water utility is a smart, thrifty choice. Filtering tap water will remove any chemicals that are used to kill bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungus.

How Can You Improve The Taste Of Tap Water?

Filtration is a good way to improve the taste of tap water. Removing the chemicals, such as chlorine, along with pesticide residues improves the flavor greatly. The type of filtration system you choose will impact the taste of your water. Not all filtration systems are created equal, but most are quite good. A simple, inexpensive activated carbon pitcher filtration system will remove over 95% of chemicals, heavy metals and impurities.

Many people really like reverse osmosis filters, and these do filter out the greatest amount of impurities. You may initially balk at the cost of the unit, but when you compare the price per gallon of reverse osmosis filtered water with the cost of bottled water, it's easy to see that these filters are a thrifty choice. Furthermore, the quality of fresh, filtered tap water you'll enjoy greatly exceeds the quality of stale bottled water.

Carbon activated and reverse osmosis systems are not designed to remove bacteria, viruses and parasites, but these should be absent from treated tap water for the most part. If you are filtering well water or spring water, you must boil it for at least five minutes to deal with this kind of contamination. Boiled water tastes flat, so if you must boil your water to kill of these contaminants, allow it to cool thoroughly, filter it and then pour it from one clean container to another from a height of a couple of feet to aerate it and refresh the taste.