In article
>,
--Bryan > wrote:

> On Jan 12, 1:23*pm, brooklyn1 > wrote:

> > > wrote:
> > >On Jan 10, 1:51*pm, Mark Thorson > wrote:
> > >> I'm watching Ask This Old House, and they're replacing
> > >> a water softener. *Actually, they're using the old tank
> > >> but replacing the head and the resin beads. *As they were
> > >> dumping out the old beads, there was all this black muck
> > >> at the bottom of the tank. *They didn't comment on that.
> > >> I'd hate to think of my drinking water passing through
> > >> that crap.
> >
> > >> When I was a kid, a friend of mine across the street
> > >> had a water softener at his house. *I always thought
> > >> the water tasted terrible over there. *Borderline
> > >> undrinkable.
> >
> > >You're not supposed to drink soft water - usually, the setup excludes
> > >the kitchen/cold water from the soft water system. *Soft water is best
> > >for laundry, bathing, washing hair, etc. *Drinking it is not the
> > >recommended usage -
> >
> > Horsepucky. *Water softeners do not add salt to water

When people talk about consuming salt, they are really referring to
"sodium". Some foods contain sodium, but most of the sodium we consume
comes from salt. Thus, the words "sodium" and "salt" are sometimes used
almost interchangeably when talking about diet.

> Of course they do.

For all intents and purposes, yes. Technically, no.

> You must be thinking of reverse osmosis filters,
> not water softeners. They exchange sodium for calcium and magnesium.
> It was my job to fill the salt tank at the resort I worked at.

The salt is where the water softener gets the sodium. Soft water has
more sodium than the hard water that went into the water softener.

--
Dan Abel
Petaluma, California USA