The issue of pure drinking water has been front and center in the news lately. Water companies continue to spring up everywhere in response to consumers' growing awareness of our contaminated water supplies. And while they focus on providing us with "pure" drinking water, they seem to be overlooking the fact that there is much more to drinking water than just purity.

As a life-long devotee of drinking water (its my FAVORITE beverage) I have also followed the path to pure drinking water by buying bottled water and having water treated by reverse osmosis delivered to my home. But where our health is concerned, we may be short-changing ourselves by focusing on "pure" drinking water. I've recently learned exactly what drinking this "pure" water does and doesn't do when it comes to being safe and healthy.

What water treated with reverse osmosis and bottled water will do is provide you with water that tastes and smells good. And if you're lifting those five gallon bottles into your home dispenser, you're also going to get some nice looking biceps. And bottled water does harm to the environment by producing, transporting and disposing over 60,000,000 plastic bottles EVERY DAY in the U.S. alone.

What this type of pure drinking water doesn't do is a lot. Bottled water doesn't give you water that's any safer than tap water. Even the FDA has noted this fact by stating, "...companies that market bottled water as being safer than tap water are defrauding the American public.

Water treated with reverse osmosis doesn't provide you with essential minerals like calcium, potassium and magnesium, which our bodies need to work well and be healthy. The reverse osmosis procedure strips out these important minerals while stripping out other contaminants.

Drinking water that's been stripped of these important minerals has a negative effect on our teeth and bones. And the acidid nature of demineralized water in our bodies effects our ability to resist cancer.

Reverse osmosis also doesn't filter out synthetic organic chemicals (SOCs) because of their tiny molecular size. So they are able to get through the filter and into your drinking water.

So now that you know what pure drinking water does and doesn't do, what's the next step? Well, if you're still interested in safe, healthy water for you and family you may want to consider a home water filtration system. But not just any water filtration system. You have to do some research so that you can find a quality system that will deliver the kind of pure drinking mineralized water that nature intended you to have: clean, safe, health, good tasting and smelling.

A quality water filtration system will also be affordable, easy to install and maintain and will have strong customer support. And believe me, there are some great water filtration companies out there that will provide you with pure drinking mineralized water you can have confidence in.