Today's family encounters a wide variety of products in the supermarket. Housewives who are concerned about better health and nutrition for their families usually select "natural" products versus those which have "artificial" flavors, coloring or "synthetic" fibers, nutrients, and so forth.
On the other hand, shoppers looking for a bargain, usually select the "synthetic" or "artificial" brands, without too much concern regarding qualitative or quantitative nutrient characteristics.
Because naturally-occurring ingredients are more difficult to obtain, and many times more expensive because of their scarcity, store shelves tend to be dominated by the "artificial" and "synthetic" varieties---thus catering to the bargain shopper, rather than the shopper intent on better nutrition.
Turning down the supermarket aisle where bottled water is stacked in neat rows, we see a similar situation. In the bottled water section we see all types of "additives" in small bottled water containers, so-called "nutrient" waters, de-ionized waters, reverse osmosis-treated waters, filtered waters, spring water and steam distilled water.
Only the last two types of waters---spring and steam distilled are natural products. Spring water is bottled as it occurs naturally in nature---usually directly from a ground source, and un-touched by other human, synthetic processes.
Steam distilled water is produced by a completely natural process, simple heating and cooling, exactly like earth's natural rain process, resulting in a product with completely natural qualities.
Tap water is being shunned by nearly half of California's population---either because of poor taste or because of fears of chemical contamination of various sorts. The rush to alternatives, namely the supermarket, vending machines, delivered water and water stores has produced much confusion regarding the benefits one may or may not obtain from these various alternatives to tap water.
The public is unaware that even well-known organizations such as the American Medical Association have correctly pointed out that "...the body's need for minerals is largely met through food, not drinking water".
Even the National Water Quality Association, not usually known for it's excursions into areas concerned with nutrition, has stated "...the amounts of minerals found in water are insignificant when compared to those found in the foods we eat".
True, these artificial waters might taste better than tap water when spiked with carbon dioxide, salts, sugars and other additives, but there is no proof whatsoever that any of these synthetic or artificial waters provide any nutrient benefits other than making one increasingly thirsty because of the sugar and salt additives.
We harp on our children because of their near-continual consumption of various types of sugary colas---while we grownups fill our own shopping carts with "designer" waters, simply an adult version of sugary colas.
The smart alternative in purchasing pure drinking water is simply to obtain pure, unadulterated H2O, uncontaminated with salts, metals, chemicals and additives that our body cannot use and most certainly must expel because of their undigestibility.
This alternative reduces to either steam distilled water or a top-quality spring water.
It is not uncommon to find warning signs in industrial and manufacturing environments which warn against the use of de-ionized water for drinking.
Even though millions of gallons of this clean, synthetic, artificial water are readily available in the workplace, bottled spring or distilled water will be found in those manufacturing and industrial workplaces for employee drinking needs.
To be more specific, there are no processes in nature which duplicate either reverse osmosis or de-ionization. In fact, reverse osmosis is the exact opposite(or reverse) of a natural process, osmosis. In attempting to create pure, industrial-grade water many years ago, scientists found that by reversing a natural process(osmosis) they were able to produce a fairly good quality of water. It was not a natural product, but it did meet their industrial requirements.
Today, this inexpensive industrial process has spilled over into the drinking water business where some bottlers, water stores and vending machines use the reverse osmosis technology to produce an inexpensive, moderately clean grade of artificial or synthetic drinking water.
On the other hand, steam distilled water is used in virtually every pharmaceutical where pure, natural absorption of nutrients or medication is required, in all naval vessels where pure, uncontaminated drinking water is produced from incredibly impure seawater and hundreds of other applications where pure, natural water is necessary.
Because of it's natural structure, the taste of distilled water is also much cleaner and smoother than de-ionized or reverse osmosis water.
The production of distilled water is with stainless-steel components while various types of synthetic rubber and plastic components are used to produce reverse osmosis water. It is therefore easy to understand why steam distilled water has no aftertaste while one with a sensitive palate can still taste the residue of the plastics and rubber components in the reverse osmosis water.
The only thing that reverse osmosis water seems to have going for it is it's lower cost---and that again is because of it's lesser purity than steam distilled water.
Remember, there are two pump at every gas station---one with regular gas, the other premium. These two pumps provide widely different qualities of gas---at two quite different prices.
I guess the most interesting thing about observing these pumps at a station is that the "premium" pump fits every gas tank---while the "regular" or leaded pump fits only a smaller portion of gas tanks.
The same can be said about naturally pure water such as distilled water. While it might costs a few cents more per gallon, it will meet everyone's needs because of it's higher purity.
Reverse osmosis water(although it is still "water") fits a much smaller percentage of needs because of it still contains small amounts of a wide variety of impurities and is not a natural water product.
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