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By Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D., About.com Guide to Chemistry since 2001

How to Get Fluoride Out of Water

Thursday January 22, 2009
Drinking Water (ballyscanlon, Getty Images)
I like fluoride in my toothpaste, but I'm opposed to fluoridation of public drinking water and prefer not to drink it. Even if fluoride hasn't been added to your water, it may contain fluoride anyway. If you don't want to drink fluoridated water, you have a couple of options. You can buy bottled water that has been purified using reverse osmosis or distillation. If neither of those purification processes is specifically listed on the package, assume the water is fluoridated. Your other option is to remove the fluoride from water yourself. You can't boil it out -- that actually concentrates the fluoride in the remaining water. Most home water filters won't take out fluoride. The types of filters that do remove fluoride are activated alumina filters, reverse osmosis units, and distillation setups. Of course, you ingest fluoride through more than just water. If you're trying to cut back on your intake, I've put together a list of ways you can reduce your fluoride exposure.

As a side note, when you're buying bottled water, keep in mind 'distilled water' is not always suitable for use as drinking water. There may be nasty impurities in distilled water that are bad for you. So, using a product labeled 'distilled drinking water' is fine. Drinking any old distilled water... not such a great plan.

Comments

October 1, 2009 at 4:33 pm
(1) Jenn says:

Odd… because when I lived in NYC, not only did the water taste better but my teeth were in better shape too. Now that I live in PA where they think that flouride is this HORRIBLE thing, the water tastes like… well… you-know-what and I can’t even go 6 months without getting a cavity!

Now I’m pregnant and GUESS WHAT??? I NEED to drink water with fluoride in it. How that’s going to happen? I don’t know. I hate this state and I hate the idea that people decided that something that’s actually NOT harmful to us and is actually BENEFICIAL to your teeth and bones was wrong. This just goes to show you that the squeaky wheel gets the grease… no matter if they’re wrong or right!

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