A company called us and offered a free water test if we would let their salesman come to the house and hawk their water filter. We're good at resisting sales pitches, and we'd been meaning to get our water tested, so why not?
Well, turns out they weren't testing for lead, arsenic, bacteria, or any of the other stuff we were concerned about. Their filter doesn't do anything about that stuff; it just removes minerals. They also weren't giving us a real test in a lab, done by a scientist, but some hocus-pocus done on the spot by the salesman. Their scheme is, you'll be convinced by the "science" (if you don't know much about science!) that your house has very hard water, and you'll be convinced by sampling the filtered water that it would be much more pleasant to have soft water. Now, we KNOW we don't have particularly hard water, despite the sales-pitch "science", because we don't get mineral accumulations anywhere. We also DON'T LIKE using very soft water, because it feels slimy and won't get the soap off. We didn't think the filtered water tasted any different from the regular water (which tastes fine) even when we tried them side by side.
So we sent the salesman on his way, but after he left we began to wonder about one of the things he said, and that brings me to THE POINT OF MY POST, finally! He had a diagram showing how water seeps thru the ground and into the river, picking up minerals such as calcium and magnesium that wind up in the municipal water, and he said that we should want to avoid drinking these minerals because "healthy, natural" water is "pure" and doesn't have these minerals. Now, wait a minute. Seems to me that the natural way of things is that water seeps thru the ground and contains natural minerals that are dissolved there, and what is UNnatural is removing them! Furthermore, calcium and magnesium are healthy nutrients; how is it "natural" to take them out of our water so that we have to swallow pills instead?
Am I missing something?
: Or is he just saying that to try to sell water filters?
Well, turns out they weren't testing for lead, arsenic, bacteria, or any of the other stuff we were concerned about. Their filter doesn't do anything about that stuff; it just removes minerals. They also weren't giving us a real test in a lab, done by a scientist, but some hocus-pocus done on the spot by the salesman. Their scheme is, you'll be convinced by the "science" (if you don't know much about science!) that your house has very hard water, and you'll be convinced by sampling the filtered water that it would be much more pleasant to have soft water. Now, we KNOW we don't have particularly hard water, despite the sales-pitch "science", because we don't get mineral accumulations anywhere. We also DON'T LIKE using very soft water, because it feels slimy and won't get the soap off. We didn't think the filtered water tasted any different from the regular water (which tastes fine) even when we tried them side by side.
So we sent the salesman on his way, but after he left we began to wonder about one of the things he said, and that brings me to THE POINT OF MY POST, finally! He had a diagram showing how water seeps thru the ground and into the river, picking up minerals such as calcium and magnesium that wind up in the municipal water, and he said that we should want to avoid drinking these minerals because "healthy, natural" water is "pure" and doesn't have these minerals. Now, wait a minute. Seems to me that the natural way of things is that water seeps thru the ground and contains natural minerals that are dissolved there, and what is UNnatural is removing them! Furthermore, calcium and magnesium are healthy nutrients; how is it "natural" to take them out of our water so that we have to swallow pills instead?
Am I missing something?
: Or is he just saying that to try to sell water filters?
