I am planning a longer post about tap water in general, but first I wanted to share my story about setting up a water purifier in our new home.
In NYC, I used a small counter-top reverse osmosis filter from Crystal Quest. It worked pretty well, certainly not as well as a larger version, but it was very small and convenient for our tiny apartment. We used the pitchers for a couple of years before I became concerned about fluoride, so that is why I opted for the counter-top RO. As it was easy to take off the sink and install on another one, so I just planned on installing it on the sink in the new place.
However, this did not prove an easy task. First off, the only sink I could really install it on was in the bathroom. We are staying with an older relative (could not install it where she could see it... too much to explain, too hard for her to use, etc.), but the whole downstairs floor is ours, it just does not have a kitchen. It has one larger commercial sink, but the spout was too wide for the RO. So on to the bathroom sink it goes, after straining some time to get the bottom part of the spout off. Big mistake! It leaked everywhere and sprayed us constantly.
This was pretty upsetting to me. I believe in access to clean, purified water. It is one of the guidelines of the WAPF diet, http://www.westonaprice.org/basics/dietary-guidelines, and very necessary to living a more "clean" life in this toxic world. When I travel, which has been happening more lately, but normally only a few times a year, I buy bottled water. I know, and I feel very bad about it, but I also think it is a decent temporary measure as long as I do my best to make sure the bottles are recycled and try to buy BPA free bottles (Penta is a good one). But since we traveled a lot in May, mostly for our honeymoon and moving, I was sick of the bottles and eager to have my own water source again.
So I was trying to get to sleep that night thinking of what I was going to do when I wake up thirsty in the morning (my husband took the RO off the sink immediately). I woke up and put it back on the sink and figured we would deal with the splatter until I could find a better solution (husband rolled his eyes, but did not argue).
My friend's mother had recently purchased a distiller that she was very happy with. The nice thing about it was that it did not have to be linked with any sink, only a power outlet. I thought that might be a good solution, but was concerned because I had always heard that, in order to remove fluoride, a purifier needed a reverse osmosis component. I did a little research online and also wrote to the company, Nutriteam, and they assured me that distillation was a very effective method of removing fluoride and that the water is 99-100% pure after distillation. So I ordered one from amazon. I actually had to leave town for a few days (ugh again), and it was here when I returned.
All in all, I can say I am very happy with it. My husband likes the water much better and thinks it is the cleanest he has ever tasted. I does require a lot more work then an RO and is loud. But it does not make any more noise than a fan would, so it just fades in the background as white noise to us. It does have to be cleaned regularly as well. We run it about twice a day, sometimes three times (it makes a gallon every 5-6 hours), and I use the water for cooking and soaking grains as well as drinking and hot beverages but it is enough once I got used to running it frequently. I ordered two pitchers, although they are pretty expensive, to make it easier to run it back to back. I could see needing a larger one, or even two, for a bigger family.
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