If you're serious like me about protecting your family's health, a great way is to purify your water with a kitchen faucet filter. But with all the options out there, you could spend a ton of time shopping for the right one. And there is no shortage of water pollutants to watch out for. Spend the next 3 minutes here and I'll "filter out the noise" for you.
You want to look for a kitchen faucet filter that includes multiple stages to remove the widest range of chemical contaminants and other impurities that are hazardous to your health. The typical kitchen faucet with filter includes only one step, usually granular activated carbon.
Granular activated carbon or GAC removes something that we can taste and smell - chlorine. So, you might think that your kitchen faucet filter is great. When, in fact, there are health hazards that we can not taste, see or smell.
Lead, cysts, THMs, VOCs, traces of prescription drugs, herbicides, pesticides and hundreds of cancer-causing chemicals are present in practically every public water supply in the world. You can't taste them or smell them and GAC will not remove all of them.
To remove traces of lead, you need a kitchen faucet with filter that includes an ion exchange step. To remove cysts (parasites in an early stage of development that may cause only mild illness but can be fatal to "at-risk" individuals), you need submicron particle filtration.
To remove THMs, VOCs, traces of prescription drugs, herbicides, pesticides and other cancer causing chemicals, you need a kitchen faucet with filter that includes a block composed of multiple filtering materials that attract and trap those contaminants. GAC won't do the job.
Actually, a kitchen faucet filter that contains only GAC can cause additional problems, particularly if you don't change the filters according to the manufacturer's recommendations. You see, there are gaps between the granules. Water can channel through the gaps, reducing effectiveness. Bacteria can grow in the gaps, if the filters are used past the recommended replacement date.
If the granules are not tightly packed and submicron filtration is not included, some of them can end up in your glass. It is not unusual to see "so-called" water purifiers removed from the market by the Federal Trade Commission and other regulating agencies, because they leach carbon into the water.
The best kitchen faucet with filter can save a family of four over one thousand US dollars per year by preventing the need to buy bottled water. That's according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a non-profit, consumer advocacy group that conducts research and testing to help consumers find the best and safest products, at the best price.
The EWG recommends a kitchen faucet filter for families that live in many areas around the world. For example, millions of residents in the Washington DC metropolitan area are exposed to dangerously high levels of chlorine and THMs. Their source for drinking water is the heavily polluted Potomac River.
Independent testing has shown that DC water also contains high levels of lead, 9 different prescription drugs and perchlorate, a VOC that causes thyroid and metabolic disorders, as well as developmental problems. Obviously, DC residents need a multi-stage kitchen faucet with filter, but they are not alone.
Over 800 different sites have tested positive for perchlorate, a compound that is not even regulated by the EPA. Protect your health and buy a kitchen faucet filter that is certified to remove VOCs. It's the only logical choice.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bob_Goodhand
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