Ah! The purest drinking water! Sounds great, doesn't it? So refreshing! Well, it would be nice if you could easily find pure drinking water, but the cold, hard facts are that you can't...at least, not that easily.

Maybe there was a time long ago when lakes and streams were full of pure, clean drinking water. Probably not, but it's a nice thought. Nowadays, it's almost impossible to find good, pure drinking water.

You surely are not going to get the purest drinking water from your kitchen faucet! I don't care if you get your water from a municipal treatment facility or a well, there's probably everything in it from pesticides to prescription drugs. If you're drinking city water, or water that's been treated (as opposed to well water), then you have the added problem of chlorination.

I used to think that a good brand of bottled water would get me what I want. Remember the Perrier scandal a few years ago? They found benzene in their water. Most bottled waters come straight out of a tap somewhere, anyway. You would think that all those bottles of water come from some pristine, alpine glacier, but sadly that's not the case.

Well, where does this leave you? It leaves you with the need and responsibility to filter your own water. And that's where you're going to get the purest drinking water! Buy a quality water filter of the right type and make your pure water yourself!

Now, all you need to understand are water filters, what types there are, how much they cost, that sort of thing.

Let's get a run down on this.

Some of the most popular types of water filters and purifiers are distillers, reverse osmosis filters, ultraviolet light purifiers, and carbon and ceramic filters. All have their strengths and weaknesses.

For instance, distillation doesn't necessarily work well with chlorinated water. The heat from the distiller can cause volatile, carcinogenic chemicals in the water (such as chlorine) to vaporize and get in the supposedly clean water.

Reverse osmosis used to be extremely popular, but then people started wondering about the long term health consequences of drinking demineralized water. Demineralization occurs when the trace minerals like potassium, calcium, and magnesium are taken out of water. We need those trace minerals for optimum health.

Ultraviolet light purifiers work well. They're cost effective, and efficient. The only problem with them is they don't do anything for non-living substances like lead, asbestos, and aluminum. These are commonly found in trace amounts in supposedly treated water, by the way.

Perhaps the best filters are combinations of carbon and ceramic filters. If you want to produce the purest drinking water you've ever had, then consider one of these types of filters.