As you walk down the aisles of your grocery store, you can't help but to wonder what all these bottled waters are really trying to tell us. Some of them claim that you will not find a more refreshing, cleaner, crisper taste than what is packaged inside their bottle. Others claim they come straight from the mountains and are packaged on site.

Then there are others that add electrolytes, which are usually lost when water undergoes some purification methods. With the bad publicity plastic bottles have been receiving lately, more people are opting for their kitchen sink. Is it necessary to drink waters that have been purified and bottled, or is the water that comes out of your kitchen sink safe enough to drink?

Most people stay away from tap water or use filters to filter out impurities in the water in the first place, and they have good reason to suspect the water is not safe. The journey that tap water takes alone is enough to convince anyone that they should not drink this water. Water is cleaned and treated at your local municipal system but then has to travel through miles of underground pipes, which may have lead and rust, to reach your kitchen and bathroom sinks.

Although I'm sure there is maintenance and upkeep to keep these pipes clean at times, the truth is these pipes are not always clean. What's worse is that these pipes are not always closed and are actually exposed to the air and whatever chemicals and toxins that are in the air. This is a perfect opportunity for germs to get into your drinking water. The water may have been cleaned to the water company's liking, but that water will not arrive in the same condition as when it was first treated.

Drinking tap water has been linked to kidney stones. Increasing water intake is recommended for anyone who battles kidney stones, but it has to be clean water. A study reported that drinking directly from hard tap water without using a filter actually increased urinary calcium concentration by 50%. Hard tap water is defined as having a combined calcium and magnesium content that exceeds 100 parts per million.

These stones are made from excess calcium that has accumulated in the kidney. Residents of Centre County in Central Pennsylvania had a higher percentage of kidney stone incidents because of the tap water they were drinking.

Their magnesium concentration ranged from 14 to 20 parts per millions, and the calcium concentration ranged from 180 to 220 parts per million. This particularly high level of calcium is believed to originate from the local bedrock, which consists of carbonite limestone and dolomite. Even though the water had been treated in the local municipal systems, the water authorities were unable to purify this imbalance.