I’ve been drinking Brita-filtered water at home just about exclusively for over ten years (using the same original two pitchers, even; is that bad? – I do change the filters regularly, religiously). I just can’t drink tap water anymore:
- I’m bothered by the thought of drinking nasty germ-ridden municipal water. Yes, I know, Brita only filters out chemicals and doesn’t do anything for microbial agents. But growing up in a doctor-headed household, and now living in a family of doctors, it’s more natural for me to think in terms of germs instead of chemicals.
- I really do think the Brita-filtered water tastes better.
Why does Brita-filtered water taste better? Ostensibly, all the bad-tasting bad stuff is filtered out. And Brita marketing would like us all to think that.
But … what if there is some insidiously-applied taste agent included in the filter (alongside all that activated charcoal)? I looked on the outside of my box of filters, and on the shrink-wrap around each individual filter. The front of my 4-pack box of filters prominently reads:
Guaranteed to make your water taste better.
The back of the box reads:
The Amazing Brita® Filter – The Brita Filter’s activated carbon and ion exchange resin work together to filter your water so you get healthier, great-tasting drinking water.
Interesting. The taste of the water gets top billing, and removal of chemicals is only alluded to with the mention of “healthier” water. I found nothing resembling a “List of Ingredients” that you find on food items. I suppose that is reasonable, since the Brita filter is not “food”. And one might argue that the recipe for filter technology is some kind of proprietary trade secret, like Colonel Sander’s secret recipe, or Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi. But it also means that we all could be unknowingly drinking lightly-flavored vitamin water, or something worse …
I couldn’t find any other research into Brita filtration. The best I could come up with was some people using a Brita pitcher to make some deep-well vodka taste like something closer to Grey Goose (hey, I’ll have to try that some time) …
Conventional wisdom says that municipal water supplies are viable targets of terrorist attack, but if I were a trillionaire maniacal arch-villain bent on world domination via some water-soluble ingestible mind-controlling drug, I think I’d just buy Brita (the company) and use their filters as my delivery vehicle. And their US headquarters is just an hour away in Oakland …
#1 by Rafa on Mon May 21, 2007 - 4:24 am
I think Batman Begins would have been a lot less interesting if we were watching the Scarecrow do an LBO of Brita.
#2 by Ishir Bhan on Wed May 23, 2007 - 8:22 am
I think Brita would use an ion exchange system, so it could be adding sodium and removing calcium. That bit of sodium might make it taste better.
But maybe you should confirm the findings first. Have someone set up a blind taste test with 10 sets of glasses of water and see if you can tell which is which.
#3 by kevin marshall on Wed Mar 10, 2010 - 5:56 am
umm … let me think
#4 by Yolanda on Fri May 27, 2011 - 3:18 pm
The main reason Brita tastes better is because it removes most of the chlorine from the water. Chlorine is great for cleaning your clothes or toilet bowl but isn’t so great tasting, nor good for health.
There may be some kind of ingredient added to the water but even though I’m not a fan of Brita I doubt that.
But as a person from a family of doctors you are right to be concerned about the health of the water you drink. However, Brita is not your best solution to that concern.
To learn the FACTS about water filters I suggest you read my page on Compare Water FIlters at http://www.whatsthebestwaterfilter.com/CompareWaterFilters.htm
This page contains a comparison of Brita, Aquasana, Multi-Pure and other filters and gives a side-by-side comparison of contaminants reduced by each so that you can make an informed decision.
#5 by Mike on Fri Aug 19, 2011 - 5:11 pm
While Brita is an okay filter, it does not filter out as many contaminants as some other and while the price of the filter is cheap, it costs more than others to operate in the long run.
Another factor if you read the WATER FILTER REVIEWS, you will see that Brita is known to have a low flow rate (that means the water does not come out of the faucet very fast) and that many complain of the units leaking or breaking.
Aquasanas are okay but again there are complaints about them and a big factor is that they are NOT NSF CERTIFIED. Also they cost more to operate than some others.
To COMPARE WATER FILTERS please see my site which shows a clear comparison between Brita, Aquasana and Multi-Pure among others.
http://comparingwaterfilters.com/
What I have tried to do is present the facts and let you decide which is best.
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