Does The Berkey® Remove Minerals From Water?
Some people want to know if the Berkey® water filter system (Black Berkey filter elements) will remove minerals from the water.
The answer is, it removes some of them.
Is that a good or bad thing (not removing all of them)?
Answer: It’s all good. Let me explain…
The Berkey® will filter out sedimentary minerals (such as iron oxide and others). The Black Berkey® elements will also filter out heavy metals such as lead and mercury (and others – more on that in a minute).
However (and it’s a good thing), it will not filter out beneficial “ionic” minerals.
Your Body Needs Minerals
From the “mothership”:
The media within the Black Berkey® Purification Elements is not designed to remove beneficial (ionic) minerals from your water supply.
These kinds of minerals can be reduced if they are in high concentration, but some will still be allowed through.
We have not done any testing for the removal rate of ionic minerals, as they are not supposed to be completely removed to begin with.
There are no water filtration companies on the market that publish a test of that nature.
Electrolytes are compounds such as sodium, potassium, calcium, etc. They help perform the functions of muscle contraction and heartbeat among other various bodily tasks. Many electrolytes also fall under the category of beneficial minerals.
RO (Reverse Osmosis) systems and water distillers?
I’ve read advice indicating that it’s not a good idea to drink water on a long term basis from these filtration systems.
Evidently RO or distilled water methods “remove all the beneficial minerals from the water making the water an acidic “hypotonic” solution. “
With that said, many or most minerals that one consumes will come from the food they eat. So I’m not so sure about the negative statements of RO or distilled water methods. Though it may be good general advice (having dug into more research/detail – beyond the scope of this article).
Berkey® Water Filter System
A commenter recently said, “In city water there are a a lot of dissolved chemicals/micro plastics/ prescription meds/etc, which city water treatment plants do not remove. (so I have read).“
She’s concerned whether or not the Berkey® removes any of this contamination. Some time ago I discovered a website page (from Berkey® ) which lists many of their test results. The list of what the Black Berkey® removes is extensive once you start to browse the reports.
A few quick links to their test results:
Heavy Metals, Pharmaceuticals, Coliform, E.Coli, VOCs, Chloramines, Petroleum, etc.
The takeaway is that RO and distilled water systems will apparently remove minerals from water. However there may be negative effects if drinking this water long term. A gravity filter system such as the Berkey is (in my view) the best you can get in this particular category of water filters. Browse the test results lists for contaminants that this filter will reduce.
As most of you know, I highly recommend “USABerkeyFilters.com” (The Berkey Guy) for all of your needs in this regard. Filters. Replacement elements. Accessories.
You might also email him with further questions (let him know you came from us) ;)