Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrfusion | Hacker News Reader

I think Brita and such can filter it out. Seemed like it last time I researched?

there are a lot of frustrating tradeoffs with these kinds of filter pitchers. they can remove a lot of nasty solutes, but they can also introduce bacteria.

here's a study that found that brita-filtered water contained more bacteria than the tap water only a week into the filter's service life: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8740859/

I used to be a religious brita user, but now I just stick to tap. hard to assess the relative risk, but it's cheaper than buying filters.

Does this change if the pitcher is stored in the refrigerator versus on a countertop?

I didn't read past the abstract, but yes, they found that the bacteria count was also higher when stored in the fridge. presumably by less than the room temperature pitcher.

Undersink RO is not that difficult these days, and might be a good solution for you.

I use Zerowater and I can tell when it gets a slight smell (bacteria I assume) , I just change the filter at that point even if it hasn't been ~3 months.

Eh, drinking water with bacteria is plenty natural. Water with synthetic PFAS or lead, not so much.

Unless the bacteria is actively causing harm or a variety known to be harmful to humans I'd still rather take my chances with the filters.

> In some cases colony counts in the filtered water were 10,000 times those in tap water.

like I said, hard for me to do a good comparison of the relative risk, but that sounds pretty bad too. some bacteria is normal, but this is like drinking from a stream vs drinking from standing water.

I always noticed that when I used the brita filters I would get stomach aches. This explains why perhaps

Not sure if studies have been done on Brita itself, but yes, granulated/powdered activated charcoal is very effective at adsorbing it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com