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Good water, bad water: How do you know if your water is good quality? Myths and deceptions.
Apart from the taste, brands, equipment... People who want to go a step further wonder about the answer to such a fundamental questions as: Is the water I drink good? Is it clean and free of toxins? How can I know whether my water is good or not?
In the next post we will discuss how to find out and also how not to find out, and how we are often deceived by it.
Natural mineral water
The first thing to bear in mind when choosing good water is to know what good water is.
Natural mineral water is water that comes from a spring that gushes from underground. This determines its composition and will include minerals and salts - these are the two concepts we will focus on.
Therefore, natural mineral water is water that contains salts, sulphide minerals or gases. These components will be present in the traditional H2O formula itself and these minerals provide both flavour and therapeutic properties to the liquid.
What are my options?
Nowadays, it is not common to have access to a spring next to our house, so we have to adapt to the times in which we live and the options available to us.
The most basic and essential thing is to have purified water with as little or no toxins as possible. Tap water is clearly not an option as it contains chlorine, heavy metals, nitrites, trihalomethanes, among other components. We can therefore make two generic groups: bottled water and filtered water.
Bottled water: plastic and minerals
Bottled water is free of chlorine, heavy metals, etc. It tastes mostly neutral and is even quite acceptable. However, the packaging is not a guarantee. At least in our country, most mineral waters are packaged in plastic - with the exception of some brands or, if we choose sparkling waters. The plastics in their packaging are not safe containers and microplastics migrate into the water, which makes them toxic plastics.
All bottles contain hormone contaminants (endocrine disruptors), and this is demonstrated in the analysis of bottled water published in Environment International, carried out by the Institute of Biosanitary Research of Granada in 2015. The lab analysed the hormone activity of 29 samples of bottled water marketed in Spain. They all came from different source springs and were impeccably marketed as "natural mineral water". The results demonstrated that they all showed hormonal action. You can read more about the study published by the IBS in Granada by clicking here.
As far as mineralisation is concerned, most of the water we have in the supermarket, especially here in Spain, is weakly mineralised, meaning that it is neutral or even acidic. Why is that? Because minerals are expensive. They cost money, and water that is poor in minerals reduces costs.
And let's not even mention the ecological impact that this option entails.
Filtered water: jugs, filtration equipment, osmosis...
No matter what equipment we have, what we want or what we can afford, the important thing is to be clear about one thing: we must choose equipment that is environmentally friendly, free of toxins and does not remove the good from the water.
Many systems on the market, especially osmosis systems, remove the harmful but also the good from the water. They massively purify the components of the water, without distinguishing the toxins from the natural minerals. By filtering its entire composition, the resulting water is practically distilled, dead and acidic, and watch out! They pass it off as the cleanest water by putting a little device in it to show us how "clean" it is. And we will talk about this in the next point.
Dry residue and electrolysis
What is dry residue?
The dry residue is the amount of dissolved salts and minerals contained in the natural mineral water. This dry residue will of course vary and depend on the specific characteristics of each spring.
In short, the dry residue measures the amount of mineralisation of the liquid.
And electrolysis?
Electrolysis, according to the Royal Spanish Academy, is: using electric currents to breakdown the substances in a solution.
A definition that is too technical and impractical for everyday life. Electrolysis is a test which, using an apparatus that measures the conductivity of water, gives different parameters. This conductivity reacts with the liquid and stains it.
It is a trick test used by many osmosis sellers to "show" (fraudulently) the dirtiness of tap water.
Water containing minerals will always have a (false) dirty effect, not because it contains impurities, but because the machine reacts to any substance in the water, whether it is toxic or not. In other words, it will react to chlorine as well as calcium, or lead as well as magnesium, so it is not a conclusive test.
Many osmosis machines on the market, as already mentioned in the previous point, demineralise the water completely. Therefore, the device that measures the dry residue of the water will not react to this dead water that has no natural mineral composition.
It is important to bear in mind that minerals are necessary in our diet. They are used for many bodily functions: from the maintenance of our bones, heart and brain to our hormones. Therefore, it is essential that they are also present in water. Minerals in water help to regulate the correct pH level and are also more bioavailable.
Distilled waters are acidic, dead waters and their consumption can have serious consequences for our bodies and their correct functioning.
Below is an explanatory video where we dismantle the hoax about these tests:
Myth: the dry residue represents impurities in the water.
Water from an underground spring is free of impurities. It is a pure, natural mineral water, free of toxins and contaminations.
The dry residue (or mineralisation) is a characteristic or virtue of the water, not a sign of its toxicity.
We illustrate this with 3 samples of 3 different waters:
Sample 1: living, purified, alkaline water.
Sample 2: weakly mineralised bottled water (a common brand on the market).
Sample 3: distilled water.
With electrolysis, the results that we will observe will be:
The first sample will have a lot of dry residue, as it is a water with an alkaline pH, in other words, a high pH because it is a water rich in minerals. Therefore, it will react strongly to the electrolysis apparatus.
The second sample will also react, although less than the first, as it has a poorer mineral composition.
The third sample will not react to the test, as it is a totally dead water containing no minerals at all.
So how do I know if my water is clean?
The only reliable way to know the exact composition of your water is with an analysis.
There are some superficial tests that can help us to know if the water has any substances or characteristics. For example, chlorine or pH can be measured very easily with a specific reagent for each function. These tests can help us to know when to change the filter of our filtration equipment or to know if our water is rich or poor in minerals, but it will not provide us with information beyond that.
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(*) WARNING
This information is based on available scientific information. These statements have not been evaluated by EFSA. Our water is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Alkanatur recommends a balanced and varied diet.