Water - a straightforward choice?

Despite elaborate filter systems, a diverse spectrum of undesirable substances, e.g. chemical from sewage treatment plants or medicinal residues from households and hospitals enters our water lines unnoticed with the water. These substances not only do away with the water's naturalness, they can also impair our health.

For example, it is possible for heavy metals, which frequently dissolve in pipe systems and pollute the water, to be deposited in the human body. Also pesticides, which originate in industrial agriculture, enter our mains systems via the ground water.

In addition, hormone residues are repeatedly found in drinking water samples. Above all, estradiol, the synthetic hormone used in oral contraceptives, enters our drinking water cycle via waste or ground water at some point. The possible effects of this continual hormone uptake have not yet been completely investigated.

In order to eliminate viruses and bacteria, e.g., chlorine and UV light are used in sewage treatment plants. Despite this procedure, some of the pathogens survive and can be found in random samples — just as chlorine residues do.

Unfortunately, our water is also sporadically polluted with nitrates and nitrites, which are used as fertilizers in industrial agriculture, and even with asbestos. These chemicals are patently considered to be hazardous to health.

Finally, the grave fact that many bottled mineral waters also exhibit similar pollutions is a serous problem. In many cases there is additionally an artificially elevated concentration of minerals in them. In this context, they are present in inorganic form, and it is much more difficult for the body to absorb them than is the case with organically-bound minerals such as those that naturally occur in vegetables, grain, fruit or meat.

Most of these inorganic minerals which have been added to the mineral waters are thus excreted from our body without having been beneficial.