Ever noticed the buildup of minerals around your shower head, sink drain, water hose, etc? Ever tried to scrub that off with just water and not by using vinegar, CLR, or some other type of caustic household cleaner product? Ever use tap water in your iron and then see small white "flecks" or "chunks" of mineral deposits that fall out onto your clothing during ironing? Ever notice clogging in the jets that spray your windshield when you use tap water instead of windshield fluid in your automobile?

This water corrodes and clogs your household's pipes, valves and filters. Conversely, your body includes a delicate series of pipes, valves and filters in the form of arteries / veins, heart and kidneys / liver. Though it may clean your shower head, you certainly can't down a shot of CLR every day to clean out your body's organs and pathways. So, why subject your body's system to any more work than it already has to perform to properly filter an additional unusable substance being put into it?

Any energy expended to deal with eliminating a substance that the body can't use, takes energy away from the most baisc processes that your body SHOULD be expending energy on. Such as, digestion, metabolism, immune system function, respiration, cardiovascular function, weight maintenance, fat loss, maintaining healthy balance of pH / good bacteria, and on, and on, and on, and on............

In order for a mineral to be of any use to the body it must be presented in a form in which it can be used. That form involves an association with an organic (carbon based) molecule. Carbon based molecules are to be found in living systems, and are not found in the ground which is where mineral water comes from. Thus, your minerals should be coming from your diet in the form they can best be assimilated and used by the body.

Water from the ground comes with minerals, but these minerals are in salt form. When salt is presented to the body (with rare exceptions such as sodium chloride) it must be either stored or excreted. A good example is CaCO3 (calcium carbonate). Carbonate is not a sufficiently complex organic molecule and therefore cannot properly contribute its calcium to living systems. The calcium comes out instead in ionic form (with a positive charge) and precipitates by forming other salts. Common locations for precipitation of calcium are the lens of the eye (cataracts), the kidneys (kidney stones) and the walls of arteries (arteriosclerosis).

CaCO3 comes from lime stone and comprises the bulk of most calcium supplements, including that in “calcium enriched orange juice.” If you want cataracts, kidney stones, and arteriosclerosis, be sure to eat and drink plenty of “calcium enriched” foods.

Contaminated runoff, chemicals, pesticides, insecticides, dry cleaning chemicals, oil from automobiles, fuels of all sorts, weed and feed, weed killer, by-products from industrial production and manufacture, etc. etc. etc.

These are all things that seep into our soils every day. Spring water comes from aquifers that are the unfortunate recipients of this runoff. What process does the water pass through before being bottled? Is it the most basic of processes just to make the water "passable" by the Department of Agriculture?

Are there too many unanswered questions here? Do you want to subject yourself and your health to product uncertainty?

Spring water can also contain dissolved solids (TDS, usually measured in parts per million or PPM), as discussed in the previous question and answer, that can lead to the same health issues.