In recent years, water filters of all types have proven very popular.
From reverse osmosis filters to desalination plants, these filters can filter out any bacteria or chemical materials, including lead, sodium, chloride and fluoride.
While this improves the overall quality of the water, it also filters out some of the good elements in water, such as minerals like magnesium and calcium.
When you desalinate water, then this reduces the pH of your water, which leads to corrosion of the water pipes in your home and through the water distribution network in your local area.
The World Health Organization strongly recommends to drink water that contains a certain amount of magnesium and calcium, as this benefits our physical health and wellbeing.
This is the reason why we take a look at some techniques that can add these important minerals back into your water, improving the water quality for drinking and cooking.
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6 Treatment Techniques For Filter Remineralization
We tested six remineralization techniques that add minerals, such as calcium and magnesium, back into your water.
Add An Alkalization Stage During Reverse Osmosis
Adding in a stage of alkalization in the reverse osmosis process simply means that you increase the pH of the treated water to over 7.0.
This can be done by adding the natural minerals in, such as magnesium and calcium. This does not only improve the taste of the water but it also provides the important nutrients for your body when you drink the water.
When you install an alkaline filter with your reverse osmosis system, then you do not need to add any other water filters or pitcher filters.
Use An Alkaline Water Pitcher
Alkaline water pitchers come in all shapes and sizes. They can be a bottle, a large water jug or any other convenient water container.
With an alkaline pitcher, you simply add the demineralized water and as you pour the water out again the filter adds in any minerals to the water.
There is a large variety of water pitchers on the market and it’s important to make sure you choose the right one for you.
When you are looking to buy a water pitcher, check that it can achieve a pH level between 8.0 and 10.0.
Also check for the type of minerals that the filter in the water pitcher adds. You need to look out for calcium, magnesium and potassium.
As these filters do not just add minerals, but can also remove them, you may also want to find out if your water pitcher removes other elements from the water.
Compared to some of the other remineralization methods we look at in this article, the filters of water pitchers can be expensive over time, so make sure to keep an eye on the costs.
Add Mineral Or Electrolyte Blends
Electrolyte blends are essentially a mix of minerals, such as potassium, sodium and magnesium.
These blends come in a range of different flavors and forms. You can find them as powder or even simply as a tablet that you drop into your water.
The tablet will then dissolve instantly, and mix with the water. You may want to try a few options, as different brands offer different blends.
If you try a different mineral blends, then you can find out what flavor tastes best.
Add Mineral Salts
Salts are an ideal way to add minerals back into your drinking water. For this, you can use natural salts, such as rock salt or Himalayan salt.
They contain a large variety of nutrients and minerals that are usually filtered out during the reverse osmosis (see also ‘ Is Reverse Osmosis Water Acidic? ) process.
You only need a small amount of salt to add to a gallon of your filtered water. Stir the water and mix with the salt. This will help remineralize water immediately.
As salt is relatively cheap, and you can choose from a wide variety of natural salts, this is the most cost-effective way we found to re-mineralize your water.
However, it’s important to point out here that you should not use normal table salt (containing sodium chloride) as it does not contain the essential nutrients that you want to add to the water.
In addition, high sodium levels can lead to health issues, such as high blood pressure and kidney problems.
Use Mineral Filters
Similar to water pitchers, mineral filters also add in the minerals that were removed during the reverse osmosis reaction.
Mineral filters are made of natural calcium carbonate which raises the pH of the water. This helps it to become non-corrosive, and it also adds in the right amount of magnesium and calcium.
Use Green Blends
Green blends are extracted from vegetables and plants. These extracts help to increase the mineral levels in your demineralized water and it adds vital nutrients.
As green blends are more complex to manufacturer, they are unfortunately more expensive than some of the other method we talked about above.
In addition, green blends do leave a slight after-taste in the water, which may take some time to get used to.
Is It Healthy To Drink Demineralized Water?
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends to not use demineralized water as drinking water or for cooking.
While water can contain a number of harmful chemicals as part of the processing, natural water does also contain a large amount of natural minerals that are essential for our body.
Continued use of demineralized water can lead to prolonged health issues over time.
Conclusion
Reverse osmosis (see also ‘Reverse Osmosis Vs. Distilled Water‘) and other demineralization filters can be ideal to purify water.
However, it also removes essential nutrients from the water that our body needs to stay healthy.
That’s why, it is important to make sure that you add these minerals back into the water with the remineralization techniques we talked about above.
There are a variety of filters that remineralize water quickly and easily. They also do not have to cost the world.
Adding minerals to your purified water is not only healthier, but it also makes the water taste better.
