Okay, let’s clear up the confusion. Your water softener doesn’t actually dissolve table salt into your drinking water. It uses a process called ion exchange, which sounds like a spy thriller but is much more boring. Hard water contains calcium and magnesium ions—these are the little villains that leave crusty white deposits on your showerhead.
The softener trades those villains for a tiny amount of sodium ions from the salt in the brine tank. It’s like a prison swap: “You’re out, calcium! Come on in, sodium!” That swapped sodium is what ends up in your glass. And in those quantities? It’s hardly noticeable.
Think of it this way: if you’re worried about the salt in your water, you should be terrified of a single bagel. A bagel can pack 400 milligrams of sodium. That’s like drinking twenty glasses of softened water in one bite. Nobody’s cutting bagels from their diet for sodium reasons, right?
