H-2-O specs... (Page 1 of 2)

Cameron, here's what I've found out from doing some research through search engines.

RO pressurizes water against a membrane with pores so small only water molecules can pass through - the rest, consisting of the rejected particles and waste water is flushed away. [This means, the more impure your source water, the more water is wasted to make RO water. For every one gallon of RO water made, two gallons of tap water are flushed away. That's just the way the system works.]

Does it remove minerals and metals? Yes, though pre-filters are used to take these out before they get to the osmosis membrane, otherwise the membrane will clog more quickly.

An RO system takes out chlorine, fluoride, minerals, metals, and some microorganisms. The difference with steam distilled water is that the latter is even purer but tastes flat due to the free oxygen having been boiled out of it.

If you make RO water, and add your own minerals - that should work. I think adding minerals to distilled water would be good too, other than potential problems with oxygen levels and pH. 

You may not know what minerals and metals are in natural water, even spring water. There could be lead, mercury, fluorite, etc... and rain water can contain sulfuric acid and so on. Leaving these in would not be good, obviously.

But what these technologies don't account for are the effects upon the memory and crystal/microcluster structure of water. For example, steam distillation will erase the homeopathic memory of water, the vibrations it carries from the processing it's been put through.

RO distillation may filter out the larger water crystals only letting smaller malformed ones through. This article discusses how pure water contains six sided crystals, but RO water lets through mostly five side (malformed) crystals due to their smaller size. It says that reverse osmosis is an unnatural process because in nature osmosis is the standard process.

Then we have Viktor Schauberger's view on water. Basically he said that water exposed to turbulent or explosive motion (meaning force pushing water forward as in turbines and pumping systems) infuses bad energy into the water, or at least disrupts its capacity to contain good vital energy. He then explained how water that is instead given an implosive or swirling motion, as in a vortex, restores it to its pristine vibrational state.

If I had to make an ideal water system, I would use steam distilled water, add some minerals, and put it through a funnel device to swirl the water into an imploding vortex, much like water goes down a drain in a vortex shape except in this case it would be dumped into a container.

Schauberger created a device that would do just this, except once the water comes out form the bottom it is carried back up to the top and into the vortex again, thus it loops through the vortex many times - each time becoming a bit colder, suggesting the vortex motion has negentropic effects. He says that nature uses this process anyway, that mountain spring water tastes so good because the water swirls in vortices naturally due to the meanderings and pockets in the stream, and this is a motion that adds life to the water.

A quick note about your Brita filter.  I always naively assumed that it takes out at least *some* fluoride.  It actually does not remove ANY fluoride at all.  I don't know why I didn't check this till yesterday:

http://www.brita.com.au/help/frequently_asked_questions

On a related subject, about one month ago I met a man who other said he was 99 years old.  The thing was, he looked literally 30 years younger.  I approached him and we started a nice conversation.  I asked him "what's your secret" to staying so young?  He said two things:
1) He never ate breakfast
2) He never drank water unless it was boiled.

I thought that both were pretty interesting!

PS - I can't seem to locate the multi-page thread from several months ago that discussed and reviewed experiences with water filters in detail, including the mention of filters using "crystal" technology.  Anyone help me out?

Water is definitely a tough debate. . here are some of my thoughts.

For washing, showering, etc., the best thing is to get an RO filtration system and water softener.  Hard water is more difficult to wash with, and you have to use more soap, etc.  Also it's probably not the best idea in the world to be inhaling chlorinated / fluorinated water vapor in your shower.  Is it going to kill you?  Probably not.  Halogenated water also breaks down the fabric in your clothes, the enamel on your teeth, and pretty much anything else it comes in contact with.

Drinking water is a whole different debate.   Bottled brands such as Fiji, Trinity, and Voss tend to be the best, but are also the most expensive.  It is definitely better for the water to be more alkaline, and naturally occurring minerals in the water are good for you.  Then again, water isn't exactly the main source of minerals in the diet.

One thing which I personally wouldn't do is drink straight distilled water.  It is superb if you are using it to make various forms of extractions (like coffee or tea), however it is for the same reason that I recommend against drinking it straight. 

The issue is the osmotic pressure, which is determined by the various substances which are dissolved in the water, as well as their concentrations.  If you took an RO membrane and put regular water on one side, and distilled water on the other, the distilled water would move across the membrane according to the chemical gradient set up by the difference in osmotic pressure between the two compartments. 

The reason I suggest against drinking distilled water is because the body does not work like an RO system.  Water is, for the most part, moved passively as a result of ion pumps in the cell membranes.  Therefore if you were to inject distilled water into the bloodstream, the result would be a movement of minerals out from the cells into the blood, rather than the other way around.  It is a poor hydrater and will, over the long term, result in demineralization of the bones, and extra strain on the kidneys.

There are a few locations, the lower large intestine being the most notable, where there are water pumps, however these are used when it is necessary to get large amounts of water out of the body, usually when an infective agent has unhealthily populated the colon.

That being said, I can think of two situations where you may want to drink distilled water.  One is if you are drinking it in moderate amounts (<8 oz) along with a high carb or protein meal.  The water will help to activate hydrolytic enzymes in the gut and also help to extract some minerals out of the food.  Then again, a highly alkalinized spring water, like Trinity, may work even better.  I am not aware of any research comparing the two.

The other case is if you are engaging in a short term (<3 days) detox program, but only if you make sure to follow up the program with a course of a high-potency mineral supplement to help replenish the mineral loss sustained during the detox process.

If are eating a meal that is high in fat, the best thing to drink in terms of solubizing the nutrients would actually be a glass (or two ) of red wine.  Though a pint of Guinness goes much better with a plate of wings, and it can double as a reasonably nutritious breakfast in a pinch!

The best choice, in my opinion, for straight drinking water would be a form of structured water, such as Penta, AquaDraat, or Angel Fire.  Angel Fire http://angelfirewater.com/ is currently my fav as it is alkaline spring water, and is oxygenated as well as structured.  The company has also done some preliminary research using a Bio-Electrical Impedance Analyzer (BIA) which indicates that their form of water is more effective at cell hydration then regular spring water.

Again, not the cheapest thing around, but then again, you don't need to drink as much of it.  It takes me several hours to put down a liter of that stuff when I could drink a liter of regular water in minutes.

Boiling water does not remove dissolved solids, so actually the longer you boil water, the higher the osmolarity, since you are losing solvent in the form of water vapor.

To my awareness, the only advantages of boiling water are:

1:  To kill any pathogenic organisms that may be present in the water.

2.  To increase the solubility of some constituent that you wish to extract in the water.

What old man?