Why are Brita Filters SO Popular?

I used to think it was stupid. Then I moved to an area with bad tasting water. It was so bad I was tempted to buy bottled water. Instead I got a Brita & saved all those plastic bottles. It also helped my house plants. Is my tap water safe? Yes! Do I still use a water filter? YES!

Hard water affects how coffee is extracted from the grounds. Using a filter legit makes my coffee taste better.

It really depends on where you live. In our town in NJ they told us last year that it was discovered that lots of kids had increased levels of lead. They tested water and it turns out for over a year water was not fit to consume this whole time. And we only learned a year later! We only drank filtered water. And will continue to do so. Because I don’t trust the city government. And I have a kid now. So, unless we live in a Switzerland, I’m not drinking from the tap.

Don’t agree with the point that Britas aren’t replacing water bottles but tap water. My family used to buy water bottles to drink at home and would make incredible amounts of trash bottles by the end of the month. Since I ibtroduced them to a Brita they bought each a metal bottle and refill it with water from the Brita

Sry, but locking the explanation behind why Future Proof health was closed behind a paywall on Patreon is a rly weird decision. As someone who likes both channels, a simple "hey this is whats going on" instead of having to pay 5 bucks for it, would have been nice.

I don't use a filter to make it "safer" I use it to soften the water and get less limescale build up on my appliances. After learning how much chlorine is in our tap water I started drinking RO water from the water fill stations now I understand it doesn't get rid of 100% of things but it is far better than just the tap water treated by the local water utility, too many people throwing hazards down the drains and flushed down the toilet.

I believe I mentioned this on the Future Proof Health video as well: The reason my father drinks filtered water is not one of taste (although it helps), but one of health: Once upon a time, he had well water (not city water) due to where he lives, but as time went on, they eventually hooked him up over time to the city's lines, however, the water in the area contains an excessive amount of calcium compared to other water in other areas of the Midwest. If he doesn't filter the water, he gets massive kidney stones. By filtering the water, he cuts down on that risk. Has worked for him for years. I've moved place to place (state to state) with our Brita pitcher as a back up in case the water is gross since we rent everywhere we go. So far, we've lucked out with the taste of tap water. In most instances, most places had a filter installed already on their faucet or within the fridge unit, so it wasn't an issue. And yes, I am signed up with Terracycle to recycle our filters as I use them, although I don't go through them nearly as fast as perhaps an average user would since I use the pitcher as a backup.

I will not stop using a filter, it tastes better. The taste of the tap water at my house is the only reason i didn't drink it that much

With the mass deregulation of ground water protections, (which I ask, who is that supposed to benefit? It’s not the U.S. citizens) AND the further deregulation of penalties for oil companies that engage in fracking, which has been shown to contaminate water sources, you can never know if another situation like Flint, Michigan will happen to another metro city.

I tested my water with my Uncle who is an expert. The result was: my tap water was healthier than most of the mineral bottled waters we tested. Most of them even contained chlorine and some plastic particles.

I live in Belgium, which have one of the best drinking tap water in the European Union, it is to the point that using tap water for baby milk powder is 100% safe, but I still use Britta to filter out some of the limescale that is rather larger in quanity (20-30 mg/l) in my region. There are no risks due to the limescale, at all. But it does make the cleaning of my coffee machine, kettles, ... all so easier if there is less of it. And I really dislike using the citric acide to clean my appliances, it leaves that highly tart taste for a least a couple of full runs after each cleaning.

Two useful things about filtering jugs: 1 - If the timer on your Brita jug runs out of battery or stops working for whatever reason, you don't need to replace the whole jug - Brita sends those timers for free to anyone, just call your local infoline and give them your address, they will mail a new timer to you. 2 - I can recommend looking online for cheaper alternatives that are not made by Brita, as they do have a price markup for being the most recognizable brand and other brands can be even few times cheaper. If you already have a jug, some companies make filters that also fit into Brita jugs, especially the older ones, as Brita does implement some modifications in design to prevent this. Best to read the description of the filter, they tend to provide instruction on what to look for to tell if their filter will fit your jug or not.

In the Philippines, we don't exactly have drinkable tap water, but we do have a massive industry of water companies that sell 5 gallons of water (not sure why we use gallons since we're a metric country). The containers are reusable and washable. It comes in 2 configurations: round, and square. They're commercially filtered by reverse osmosis. Much better to buy from them rather than using your own filters because it's still cheaper to buy from them than the cost of a residential filter.

I don't drink water, not even filtered water. I drink tea. However I have found that filtering the water I use in my electric tea kettle leaves less hard water mineral build up on the kettle. My daughter uses filtered water to reduce mineral build up in her coffee maker. Since neither she nor I have the overall need for a full house water softener, this is an easy fix for the few appliances that consistently has otherwise hard water run through it.

The tap water in our area is particularly clean and I use it for everyday drinking and cooking. But when it comes to heating water in a kettle, particularly for brewing coffee, I always use filtered water. Not only does my coffee taste better with filtered water, it significantly reduces the limescale buildup in my kettle. I find a brita style filter system is the most practical for my needs. Edit: we have since moved to using Zero Water, seems to do a better job in mitigating the scale issue in the bottom of our kettle than Brita.

unfortunately we live in a city with well documented cases of the tap water being disgusting. we have to use a life water filter jug

Florida gets their water from the "Florida Aquifer"... The short version of this story is that our water is generally pretty hard, and often comes with unwanted tastes. I absolutely agree that the idea that "tap water is dangerous" is a sham. I know from experience that the MAJORITY of people who buy Brita filters aren't doing it because they think it'll make their water safer. We buy it because tap waste taste bad. We have one on our faucet, and I have a brita water bottle. We went with Brita because we rent; And it's not exactly easy to install a true water filtration system in an apartment. And I absolutely disagree with the idea that Brita filters don't curb the use of single-use water bottles. Ever since I got my Brita bottle, I have almost exclusively used it as my source of water. I've stopped buying water bottles all together.

For me the question is not the safeness of the water but simply the taste. I live in Ireland, and while our tap water alike is safe to drink and supposedly really good, it does have a slight chlorine flavour from the sanitiser in the treatment plants (like in a lot of places in America too). For me, this spoils the taste of my tea. I used to buy bottled water, but when I got a Brita filter it got rid of the chlorine flavour entirely. This saves me a lot of money!

Some older buildings still have lead pipes! I've lived in a large city with water that is condsidered safe, but in old apartment bulidings (70+ years old) for a long time. It's always been recommended to me to use a water filter that can filter out lead because at the moment lead pipes don't have to be disclosed (but lead paint has to be!). Soo many landlords will be sneaky about admitting there is lead in the pipes because they don't want to repalce the plumbing in the builiding. So even if the water is safe, a buliding's pipes might not be.

These points have been touched upon, but (1) we mainly use filtered water because when we moved to the Washington, DC area we were shocked at how funky the tap water tasted, even though we didn’t seriously doubt its safety, (2) we’ve found that filtering the water also reduces the rate that lime scale develops in our kettle, which is a bonus, (3) now that we own our home, we have a dedicated under sink filter system that’s nice because it filters in real time and has an alert when it’s time to change the filters (with the capacity for larger, rechargeable, and/or replaceable batteries or other power supply to make sure it actually functions), but that wasn’t really a convenient option when we were renting, so we used britta pitchers, and (4) not to mix FutureProof videos, but filtered water + a hydro flask bottle has replaced plastic bottled water on innumerable occasions.