There's more to water than you might think

Water is the single most important factor for good health. Life depends on water for virtually every process but particularly for its ability to dissolve and transport many other substances through the body.

How water is meant to be
A Japanese researcher, Masaru Emoto took water samples from around the world, slowly froze them, then photographed them with a dark field microscope with photographic capability. Clean healthy water creates beautifully formed geometrical crystals, similar to those on the left, while polluted water is too sick to form any crystals at all. Filtered, distilled and reverse osmosis water generally does not return to its natural crystalline form, but is more attractive than tap water.

What’s wrong with tap water?
Our tap water does not form crystals. This should be a warning to us. Left are images of tap water taken by Emoto.

Unfortunately the water available to us through our taps is contaminated. In addition to natural ground water contaminants, there is the added chlorine, fluoride and aluminium, all of which are toxic in their own right and all of which reduce the capacity of tap water to do what water has to do in our bodies.

As a result, a huge bottled water and water filter industry has built up. Unfortunately, every form of supposedly clean water has its down side, so compromise for most of us is necessary.

What’s wrong with bottled water? 
Many of the options available to us other than tap water use bottles. Glass bottles are fine, but plastic bottles are not. Most contain Bisphenol A (BPA) which leeches into the water and confuses the body’s hormonal system. (You will find BPA in canned foods also.) However, manufacturers don’t have to put BPA into their plastics, so find brands that specifically advertise that their water is BPA free.

This article tells you how to work out how safe your plastic bottles are.
http://www.naturalnews.com/031346_food_containers_plastics.html

Spring water and mineral water

One of the best types of water to drink is spring or mineral water from a good spring. This kind of water has lots of good dissolved minerals and a minimum amount of harmful elements. However, by the time it has been bottled in plastic and those bottles have been degraded by heat and time, there are new contaminants and potentially very dangerous ones added to the water. Spring and mineral water bottled in glass with no additives is good if you can get it. Always check the manufacturer and see if they add anything to their bottled spring water. Many do.

Flat water is normally referred to as spring water. Carbonated water is normally referred to as mineral water. Both can contain high levels of minerals, so check the bottle labels to see what salts they are high in.

Carbontated water can be bubbly because carbon dioxide has been added or because it is naturally high in bicarbonate.

Rain water
Rainwater should also be a good source of clean water, but unfortunately there are many contaminants both washed out of the air and washed off a degrading roof. You will need a water filter, but as there is no fluoride in rainwater, a good water filter should remove all the likely contaminants.

Distilled water 
Distilled water is water that has been heated and the steam collected and cooled back into water. This water is very pure and contains no additional elements. It is a good idea to supplement it with a tiny amount of sea salt to add some minerals back into it. All the normal provisos apply regarding plastic bottles. Distilled water is fluoride free.

Reverse osmosis water
The reverse osmosis process is also able to remove almost all contaminants. Much bottled water, such as the water in those big 11 or 15 litre blue bottles, is reverse osmosis water. As with distilled water, add a little sea salt and pay attention to what plastic bottles the water is stored in. It should be a BPA free plastic. Revers osmosis water is fluoride free.

Water filters
There are many forms of water filter on the market and roughly speaking, you get what you pay for. Many leave particles behind and almost all leave fluoride behind.

...for rain water
You can use water filters to remove most contaminants, including biological agents, from rain water. Check with your water filter vendor to find the correct filter for your needs.

...for tap water
There is really no satisfactory way of removing fluoride from tap water. Standard water filters are able to remove chlorine, aluminium and other contaminants from your tap water, but they are unable to remove the fluoride, arguably the most dangerous contaminant of the lot.

There is one process now on the market to filter out fluoride, but it uses aluminium in its filtering process. As aluminium in its own right is extremely dangerous, the process seems risky to me.

Revitalised water
There are many processes out there that apparently render contaminated water less harmful. One such process is the Grander process which you can read about at http://www.grander.com.au. There are also processes that claim to revitalise water and return it to the natural crystalline form identified by Emoto.