Is Soft Water Safe to Drink?

Last Updated on 2 years by

Once my dearest friend asked this question to me and I was like, huh! Why not! There isn’t any harm in consuming soft water.

But later on, I researched that the only way of converting hard water into soft water is via the process of ion exchange in which hardness causing minerals are removed in trade-off salt molecules. Technically, salt is added into the water which maybe not safe for hypertension patients.

So if you are eager to know if soft water safe to drink then this article will expose some useful information to you that will tell you how you can make soft water drinkable even for people with health concerns.

Let’s dive in!

Soft Water and Hard Water:

Water is said to be hard when it has a high amount of dissolved minerals such as calcium and magnesium. These hardness causing minerals are the culprits for increasing the amount of soap to lather and leaves limescale build-up on the pipe.

A water softener is responsible to remove these hardness-causing minerals via the ion-exchange method. In this process, hard water passes through the resin beads that are made up of polystyrene and are charged with sodium ions. This causes mineral ions and sodium ions to swap. Thereby increasing salt concentration in the resulted water.

The salt concentration of soft water depends on the hardness of the water. If the water is extremely hard it means that most of the hardness minerals are exchanged by sodium ions.

Is Soft Water Safe to Drink?

Yes, of course, there isn’t any harm in consuming soft water. But yes, it has some amount of sodium in it. The amount of sodium in water depends greatly upon the hardness of the water. If the hardness of the original water is less than 400ppm then you can safely enjoy then soft water it has little amount of salt. Whereas, if the water hardness exceeds 400ppm, then you have to treat your soft water before using it so that sodium levels will be reduced. Consuming untreated soft water that has a high amount of salt may end up with increase sodium intake, which means an increased risk of heart diseases, Type II diabetes, and stroke.

How to Convert Soft Water Into Drinkable Soft Water?

If you live in an area where extremely hard water is supplied then chances are your soft water would have a high amount of sodium which is quite dangerous. If you are concerned about your sodium intake or you have someone in your family that has hypertension so it’s better to convert your soft water into drinkable soft water.

This can be done by using reverse osmosis filters.

RO filters or Reverse Osmosis filters are a unique and amazing water purification technology that purifies water with the help of a semi-permeable membrane. This membrane will remove salt molecules and other large particles from soft water and makes it drinkable.

With this technology, you will get pure, soft, and salt-free, and contaminant-free drinking water that tastes divine.

Final Words:

Soft water is extremely safe to drink in fact WHO has stated that, “There are no firm conclusions on whether it poses long-term health risks so no health-based guidelines are proposed.” But it’s better to take precautions for elderly and hypertensive patients. You can safely use soft water for drinking, cleaning, and cooking purposes. But remember, soft water is not recommended for mixing baby feeds and for those who are on a low-sodium diet.

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