What should be the TDS value of your RO Water purifier

Most of us stop worrying about purity of water after installing a RO water purifier, which is an essential part of modern kitchens. The truth is that we never care about the TDS value of the output water. In 1980 WHO published a research paper which said that low TDS water is harmful for human body. Today we are drinking water packed in plastic bottles with very less amount of minerals in it. In our last articles we discussed how this low TDS water is acting as a slow poison for our body. Here we will tell you about the appropriate TDS value of drinking water to live a healthy life.

TDS value of Natural Water
TDS value of water differs from one geographical region to other depending upon the minerals in the soil and their solubility. Therefore TDS value of water differs from 30 mg/litre to 6000 mg/litre.

TDS value and the taste of water

Water of different locations with same TDS may have different minerals in different proportion. Taste of water changes with their TDS value and the minerals present in it. According to a WHO report the taste of water and their TDS value is directly related to each other. Following table show that relation

Taste of Water	TDS level (mg/litre)
Excellent	Less than 300
Good	300 to 600
Fair	600 to 900
Poor	900 to 1200
Unacceptable	Greater than 1200

If you talk about the taste of water with very low TDS then its taste will also be unacceptable due to its flat and insipid taste. You may find the above information in a WHO document on the following page.
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/chemicals/tds.pdf

"If it tastes good then it is healthy"
Some of you might not agree with the above statement but some will. If you have got a healthy body then your tongue can better decide what your body needs. The nutrients that your body needs will be found tasty by your tongue. However it might not be true if your are suffering from some medical condition such as diabetes, where psychological factors make you like those things from which you should abstain yourself. For a healthy human being tongue is the best  testing kit for nutrients. If you are finding the water tasty enough to drink then most probably it will be of correct TDS value.

If the TDS value of your water is between 200 to 500 the most probably it will be good to drink. The WHO report of 1980 recommended that the minimum TDS in drinking water should be 100 mg/L. It also recommended that the TDS should be about 200-400 mg/L for chloride-sulphate waters and 250-500 mg/L for bicarbonate waters. You may take the following WHO page as a reference to this information. http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientschap12.pdf 

We don't encourage people to stop drinking purified water, but to make them drink water of correct TDS value that can provide them sufficient amount of minerals.