Day by day in America, the importance of clean, pure water keeps increasing. Water manufacturers know that people are constantly looking for the best solution for their health and their families.
Navigating between bottled water and water treatment solutions can be pretty confusing. Usually, manufacturers throw around the words "pure" and "spring" a lot to create beautiful images of fresh and clear waterfalls, blue skies, and hydrating water in people's heads.
What do the words mean? Which water is best between purified and spring water? This post debunks the myths behind marketing and discusses everything you need to know.
Read on for more information!
What Is Spring Water
Spring water is a type of bottled water that is widely available in supermarkets. There are high chances that you must have taken spring water so many times, except you avoid bottled water completely.
Although spring water may come from a spring, the name can be quite deceiving. Usually, the water goes through numerous processes before bottling. Also, it's not like the water is collected from a spring waterfall in an empty water bottle before being sealed and sold to you.
As a matter of fact, spring water may not be from a spring source.
Usually, manufacturers label water from underground aquifers as spring water. However, the underground aquifers could be well water, groundwater, or artesian water. Therefore, spring water may not fit the picture you probably had in mind.
What Is the Process for Making Spring Water?
Natural water sources that do not contain man-made impurities and pollutants are sources of spring water. Usually, the water flows along mountain paths, hill and valley sides, and sometimes underground. Consequently, the water comes in contact with rocks that filter it to a certain extent. These rocks can affect water's mineral makeup.
Drinking spring water is unsafe because there are high chances of getting ill, primarily because of the manual filtration process. Fortunately, a man-made and man-powered treatment center treats the water to remove dangerous pathogens and preserve the water's mineral content.
What Is Purified Water?
Purified water contains ten parts per million of dissolved solids or even less after processing and treatment. Several viable water purification methods are employed in purifying water to this level—the water purification techniques include reverse osmosis, ion exchange, and distillation. Water purification strips the water of contaminants, including chemicals, sediment, bacteria, minerals, and metals. Furthermore, purification leaves water empty and bland because it loses some minerals that give it its flavor.
How Can You Purify Water?
There are several water purification methods. However, the two most popular and acceptable purification methods are distillation and reverse osmosis. An RO system performs reverse osmosis. Usually, the system is installed under a sink, and it delivers purified water through its dedicated faucet. An RO system has several filters, including reverse osmosis membranes that strip water of all impurities. Nevertheless, there's a special filter in the last stage of filtration that reinstates essential minerals.
When using a water distiller, the distiller boils the water and catches released steam to leave contaminants behind. A condenser captures the steam and cools it till it turns back to water. Afterward, the water passes through a carbon filter as the final filtration stage. The water is then collected as pure distilled water. The water distillation process produces a gallon of distilled water within four to six hours.
Which Is Better Between Purified Water and Spring Water?
Drinking clean, pure water gives some people confidence. Therefore, you're probably wondering the best water to drink between spring and purified water. Both water sources have tradeoffs that are good or bad for your health.
Purified water is completely stripped of contaminants and all substances. Therefore, there is no sickness-causing bacteria, chemicals that can poison you slowly, or sediments that you may feel in your mouth. There are no minerals as well. Although your diet should provide you with plenty of minerals, removing a mineral source will likely cause deficiencies. Fortunately, some water purification systems solve this problem. Reverse osmosis reintroduces essential minerals in the water, making it the healthiest choice for drinking water.
Spring water contains essential minerals vital for your health while giving the water its taste. Nevertheless, it may still contain contaminants like metals, chlorine, and nitrates. Although water transportation and processing may use some contaminants, some are present from the original spring source. Nevertheless, the water contains some unwanted contaminants and desirable minerals, and there is no way of separating them.
Conclusion:
Spring water and purified water sound similar, but they are different. Although spring water is processed and treated, it is not purified. Spring water still contains minerals that improve water taste and are essential to your health. However, impurities like nitrates and metals are still present.
On the other hand, purified water is processed and treated till it contains about ten parts per million dissolved solids or less. Therefore, although purified water is free of unwanted contaminants like chemicals, bacteria, and sediments, it has been stripped of essential minerals. Furthermore, purified water tastes flat because there are no minerals to give it taste. Fortunately, some water purification methods like reverse osmosis reintroduce essential minerals into the water. Therefore, the water purified using RO systems is the healthiest for drinking.
