How To Correctly Drink Water…Yep, You Read That Right

Share This:

Water is amazing!

Most people don’t think much about it but it does so much for us. I have been a fan of water since a young teenager. Yeah…I said it. Water is often undervalued in today’s society.

I consider myself a water connoisseur. A water snob, maybe even. Just ask my family. I would rather drink ice water or even unsweetened iced tea over any soda pop, even as a kid. So, within this post, I hope to show you how to correctly drink water, as well as increase the likelihood of you drinking it as well. Based on my personal experience.

My wife tells me she doesn’t know anybody that drinks more water than me. I absolutely love cold water to drink. There is no greater pleasure than pure, great-tasting water that is chilled to the right temperature when you’re thirsty. Simple but so pleasurable, that it satisfies some long learned instinct from our ancestors.

I think this post is important to help spread the importance of water as well as to get people to drink more of it, as compared to drinking soft drinks or energy drinks.

The Benefits Of Water

No Calories.
Life-Giving.
Cools us down when hot.
Pure water equals long life.
Cleans.
Abundant.

How To Drink Water 101

The first step to drinking the best water is to have a good clean source. This can either be through a well, city tap, or a spring. As clean as you can get. I know most people have tap water, don’t worry this can be drastically improved upon too.

We probably put more water into our bodies each day than anything else. More than food even. So, it is only logical to assume this might be our biggest avenue of contamination entering our bodies. The great news is we can buy filters to remove most of these contaminants.

The next step is to make it as enjoyable as possible. Temperature, taste, and clarity are the methods I implore.

I don’t subscribe to only drinking warm or hot water philosophy.

It’s pure bullshit, it hard in nature to find warm or hot water, and if you do happen to find a warm or hot source expect bacteria to be more than present in that water. It is much easier to find cool or cold water. Our ancestors drank freely from rivers and creeks that were cool. Our bodies are more than capable of drinking cold water, as are animals. We genetically prefer cold water because bacteria have a harder time growing in cold water, so naturally, it is cleaner than warm or hot water.

I believe it is also a natural survival mechanism to drink cold water over hot or warm water. Go with nature don’t fight it. You’re not going to convince me I have to drink warm water only.

So, if you like drinking cold water – drink cold water, as I do. I would much rather drink cold water then drink a sugar-laden soft drink. Drinking cold water is much more appealing to me than any soft drink. Refrigerate it or add ice to it freely. I filter my water into a 1 Liter glass Carafe with a lid (seen below) and place it in my fridge for refreshing ice-cold water. I just love the glass Carafe, as it holds a good amount of water too.

If you prefer drinking warm or hot water drink – drink that if it will get you off of soda pop.

How To Improve The Taste Of Water?

Obviously, water quality is number one but we will deal with that below. What I want to talk about is adding a flavor to water all the while adding little to zero calories. This can be achieved by adding common fruits and herbs to significantly bump up the flavor and even make little Billy want to drink it.

Here is what I typically add to water for improved taste and flavor. Most are subtle without sweetness.

Fresh lemon – This is my number #1 way I drink water, I add a quarter lemon squeezed into my water. I no longer just drop a lemon wedge in there as most of the flavor is locked within the lemon and most restaurants don’t wash their lemons before they put it into your water. Yuck. Get your lemon on the side then squeeze it in the water.
Lime – I just love the smell of lime on my fingers after squeezing a lime wedge into my water. Lifes simple pleasure. Another citrus, which tastes amazing. Nice to alternate between lemon and lime.
True Lemon – These come in little packets, like sugar packets but with no sugar, they are crystallized versions of the equal taste of a wedge of the same fruit. They’re made from real lemon and taste like it too. I really like having this in the house, especially when I run out of fresh lemons or limes. They have 4 flavors with zero calories: True Lemon, True Lime, True Orange, True Grapefruit. They come in different packet counts from 32 to 1000 count boxes. I just love these!
Fresh Herbs – You can either buy these or grow your own. These add a lovely subtle flavor to water and sure make it more appealing as well. I love to use any of the mints, spearmint, and peppermint. As wells as basil, rosemary sprigs, oregano, sage, thyme, and lavender. It helps to muddle the herbs, with a muddler to release the essential oils and enhances the flavors as well. Try different combinations of herbs and fruits to see what you like the most. Great to impress at parties or company.
Any fresh or frozen fruit – Just simply add fruit to add zip to a drink.
Pique Tea Crystals – This is an instant tea that I have found that come in these little sachets that can fit into your pocket, purse, or lunch bag. Ultra-portable to have tea on the go, without having to have access to warm water. These are all 100% Organic teas with six times the antioxidants of regular tea. These add a quick pick me up throughout the day with none of the side-effects of soft drinks. They have a total of 8 tea flavors to enjoy. You can use the Promo Code – DAN to save an additional 10%. You can read my full review of Pique Tea Crystals here, Pique Tea Crystals Review + Promo Code.

Common Impurities & Toxins In Water

Fluoride – Most of the time added to water by humans. Why? Under the false assumption, that it is good for our teeth.
Chlorine – Most of the time added by humans. This is generally used to kill whatever is living in the water.
Bacteria
Copper
Lead
Mercury
Parasites
Pesticides
Methyl-tert-butyl ether (MTBE)
Dichlorobenzene
Trichloroethylene (TCE)

Using A Filter – Any Filter!!!

The cleaner the water the better tasting it is also. So, if you can only use a cheap filter, for now, buy the cheap filter. But save for the Reverse Osmosis water system, when I got the first one I was so freaking happy afterward. I highly recommend a Reverse Osmosis filter, you’ll thank me after you get one. The water tastes amazing and it gives you peace of mind knowing the water is pretty clean.

But even better (and I made the switch) than a reverse osmosis filter is drinking distilled water. Distilled water is the cleanest water you can drink, bar none. Instead of lugging around gallon jugs from the grocery store, I highly recommend you look at my review of the best home water distillers here, Top 10 Water Distilled. They have countertop versions that easily fit on your counter and provide you with the cleanest water.

No Thanks Fluoride

As you may know or not know, most water municipals add chemicals to the water. The two most common chemicals put into water are fluoride and chlorine. Fluoride, in my opinion, is completely unnecessary, as you can read many conflicting reports about fluoride online. Chlorine is there to kill bacteria and germs that live in the water, but chlorine is also a known carcinogen.

We humans with our great and vast knowledge (I’m joking) believe we need to add chemicals to our public water. I don’t buy it, I think we are doing more harm than good. I don’t buy we need chemicals added to our water to improve our teeth, especially.

The next step is to have some sort of filter. The better the filter generally the more a filter costs. I used to buy and attach the kitchen faucet models until I realized that they don’t effectively remove fluoride or chlorine from the water.

I never even bothered with a filter until I found out I had kidney disease. Even though my doctors never even mentioned it. I thought if my kidney filters my blood, then I should filter the water that goes into my blood, to theoretically lighten the load for my kidneys. I was diagnosed in 2008 and shortly started using pitchers type filters and attaching a filter to the kitchen faucet models. But shortly after learning that a lot of the chemicals were not filtered out, I started to look for other methods to filter water.

Enter The Reverse Osmosis

I was turned on to reverse osmosis a few years ago as the price came down and the models were small enough to go under the kitchen sink were built and sold to the public.

Update: Read my newest post, What Is The Best Reverse Osmosis Water Filter Of 2018. As newer models come out and are improved upon.

I love Reverse Osmosis!! The under the sink method is the most practical filter for my house and it is financially viable as well. If you are a handy enough person with some tools you can install it yourself, and save paying the plumber to put it in. But don’t feel bad if you don’t want to tackle this project by yourself as for me I would much rather pay for someone to work with plumbing. I just have a couple of really bad experiences with plumbing from the past.

It is the method most bottled water is filtered by. It also removes most of the fluoride and chlorine. Fluoride is a difficult chemical to remove from water, but an RO can remove most of the fluoride from the water. Yep, not all of it, unfortunately. Even industrial models have a hard time removing more than 98% of it from the water.

**Update* I’ve Moved On To Distilling Water

I have gradually progressed from a faucet filter to a reverse osmosis filter to now using a home countertop water distiller. Drinking distilled water is the cleanest purest water you can drink. But there are controversies surrounding drinking distilled water, which I don’t believe after much research and can understand if someone feels the need for drinking water from reverse osmosis. As this is, in my opinion, RO is the second-best way of consuming water and distilled water is the best method for drinking water.

You can read my recent article reviewing the best home-distillers here, Top 10 Water Distillers.

What Models I Recommend For Reverse Osmosis

iSpring

I purchased the iSpring 5 Stage RCC7 5-Stage Reverse Osmosis Filter for around $200.00. Which I had purchased through Amazon and when it arrived it took me roughly three hours to install. It gives you a great looking brushed nickel solid brass body faucet. It looks nice and works great.

I am very happy with my purchase and do recommend it to family and friends all the time. When something works great, you can’t help but tell people about it. They also have a 5-star rating on Amazon, with over 2,400 people that have reviewed it. How is that for a reputation?

The water tastes great too. I have more peace of mind after purchasing and installing the iSpring filter, as I know my water is pretty darn free of anything that might harm me.

iSpring has Reverse Osmosis with even more stages of filters an iSpring 6-Stage filter as well as an iSpring 7-Stage filter. For even better filtration and taste.

APEC

Another comparable brand and it is even made in the good ol’ U.S.A. is the APEC. This also gets good reviews and from what I hear works darn good as well. Generally, you’re going to be paying a little more since it is made in the U.S. but you know your getting quality as well. They have a stellar reputation as well.

Final Rinse

Water is amazing, it is the foundation of life. Let’s face it humans are screwing up natural water, but we can also fix it as well. With the use of filters and temperature as well as strategically place low to zero-calorie flavor enhancers we can enjoy life-enriching pleasures that we take for granted on a daily basis. Enriching life is important, and why not bump the taste and clarity of water up a nacho, to further add to a quality of life.

I hope, I bring a new understanding of water to you and increase your enjoyment as well.

Peace.

If you have any comments or suggestions drop me a line below. More than happy to hear them. Thanks!