First let me start this article by telling you that there are right and wrong ways of marketing products. We have always taken the high road in our industry, and we are still around while many “flash in the pan” people are long gone. Our industry is one that is highly susceptible to twisting of facts, stating of opinions as fact, and the classic “Magic Water”. Through it all there is one thing that doesn’t change – water.
Water is one of the most unique compounds in existence. The entire reason that we have a water treatment industry is that it is the universal solvent. Basically, water will take other chemicals and compounds and absorb them. That includes inorganic compounds (rock form that plants convert to organic compounds), organic compounds (organics in water are typically manmade petrochemicals), gases, and can also contain biological organisms (bacteria, cysts, etc…). There are processes that can take these out either selectively or collectively.
We are purists. We believe that when we want to drink water, we just want water. If you have a filter or reverse osmosis they are a good first step, but in the end you should only be drinking the cleanest water, and that is distilled water.
Selective vs. Collective Treatment Methods
There are selective treatment methods and collective treatment methods. Selective methods target specific chemicals or classes of chemicals. Collective methods use processes or combinations of processes to remove as many of the chemicals as possible. Let’s look at a few of these:
Filtration
Sediment filtration: Removes physical particulate matter from the water. It does well for removing large chunks of matter in the water. Does very little for the gases or organics, and does not remove much dissolved inorganic matter.
Carbon Filtration: Either Bituminous Coal or Organic Coal is used. Water runs through a bed of charcoal, gases and volatile inorganic molecules are trapped by the holes in the carbon structure. These filters specifically target gases and organics.
Reverse Osmosis: A semi-permeable membrane that when water is forced against it, allows the smaller water molecules to pass through, and most of the other chemicals are left behind. The higher the pressure, the smaller or more compressed the membrane, and hence the smaller the holes for the water to pass through and the higher the purity. Reverse Osmosis is pretty good at removing organics and inorganics but not effective against biological organisms. Reverse Osmosis units waste a large amount of water, have filter membranes that must be replaced, and generally require higher pressures than are available in a household unless they add a pump.
Non-Filters
Ultraviolet: Ultraviolet Sterilization is used on clear water to kill bacteria and other organisms. A specific frequency must be used, and the amount of contact time is critical to sterilization. UV only works on biological organisms.
Distillation: Distillation mimics the hydrologic cycle. So these are machines that in a sense make rain. Water is boiled; the steam is condensed and stored for use. If you analyze the contaminants you can readily determine how they will react when distilled. Chemicals with a lower boiling point than water (212°F) will turn to gas and travel with the steam. Chemicals with a higher boiling point than water will stay behind when the steam exits. Biological organisms will be killed by boiling temperature, and will stay behind when the steam exits. This is just distillation, but most systems on the market and all of our systems combine distillation and carbon post-filtration to remove the broadest spectrum of contaminants.
Professionally designed distillation systems use distillation as the main purification method because it is the most effective and has the broadest spectrum of contaminant removal. In nature ocean water at 35,000 parts per million of contaminants is converted to rain water with 1-2 ppm at most. This the process distillation mimics however no filter in the world could do this!
So now we have steam that might, or might not, have organics with it. We first remove the majority of organics by having volatile escape vents between the boiling tank and the condenser for the steam. 90+% of organics are removed here. Finally, we run the distilled water through a carbon filter before the consumer drinks it.
We have had third-party labs analyze our water, first by introducing extremely high levels of specific contaminants into the raw water, and then testing the resulting distilled water. Our distillation systems are highly efficient in removing contaminants.
Boiling Water: Many people confuse boiling water with distillation, but they are not close to being the same. Boil Alerts are put out when water in towns is found to have biological contamination. At this point, there is an immediate safety concern and the citizens are told to boil the water. Boiling water will kill bacteria, but in the process of boiling, pure steam (water) escapes. Since we have removed pure water, the water will be biologically safe but all of the other contaminant levels will be higher or more concentrated.
Marketing Myths
There are many deceptive marketing practices in the water industry that you need to watch out for:
“New Amazing Discoveries”: It seems that there is a New Amazing discovery in water treatment on a weekly basis. While it is true that science is discovering new things, these people rarely find something new that is not related to a product that you can only get from them! I prefer to look at nature, and believe that nature has perfected many things in the eons that have gone past. But if you also look at it from a practical aspect, would you like to be the first person to try something that is purported to be about your health? Wouldn’t you rather have answers to questions like: “How many years have people been using this product?” and “How have they fared in the long term?”
“Magic Water”: As with the New Amazing Discovery claim, there are new water products every year that are “magic”. They will cure all of your ills, help you lose weight and even make you better looking! Water, as with eating properly and exercising is not an instant pill. You should drink water every day to maintain your hydration and bodily function. Water in your body regulates functions from the cellular level to your waste flushing through sweating and bathroom visits. So if your body is using water to flush your system, then use pure water and do not add more contaminants to your system.
“Organic Water”: Water is not organic, nor will it ever be organic. It is an inorganic chemical comprised of 2 Hydrogen atoms and one Oxygen atom. This is a scientific term in chemistry. In today’s over-marketed world many terms are used to confuse the consumer.
“Living Water”: Water is not living, it does not have life. If it does have life in it, then you should not drink it.
“Our system removes the bad things but not the good things”: This is a claim that basically says that their product, that they want you to buy, is smart enough to remove only the bad things from water, but leave the good. They continue by telling you that all other types of water are dangerous, poisonous, will cause disease, etc. Most people associate this with the mineral content of their water. However the minerals that are generally found in water are in an inorganic form (rock form) which the body is not able to derive nutritional value from. However the minerals that the body can use are the organic form which have been chelated by a plant during photosynthesis and are bio-available in the food that you eat (whether it be the plant itself or meat from an animal that ate the plant).
“Other types of water can kill you”: This is quite simply a scare tactic that is often used by manufacturers of competitive processes much like many of the myths we’ve mentioned. We have been manufacturing distillers for over 40 years and have customers that have been using our distillers for their drinking water for just as long. We also have an “Over 80” club for our distributors which is adding members faster than losing them. If distilled water really caused early death then these people have all dodged a bullet for over 4 decades. In direct contrast to this claim we have hundreds of unsolicited letters from our customers thanking us for the health benefits our distillers have given them over the years.
In conclusion we would just like to say that we truly believe in what we do and that we truly are “improving the quality of people’s lives through the quality of water”. Our distillers are based on a scientific process which we believe produces the purest and most healthful drinking water. No magic, miracles, gimmicks or tricks, just pure water – plain and simple as nature intended.
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