Everything You Need to Know About Drinking Water
Clean water literally falls from the sky, yet most people drink tap water chalk full of thousands of different types of poisons including fluoride.
If your goal is vibrant, brilliant health, it is essential that you supply your body with clean water.
In a recent interview, health enthusiast Daniel Vitalis compared our bodies’ water content to that of a fish tank. A fish tank is about 70% water, just like the human body, so ask yourself the following question: Even if you feed fish the healthiest food possible, how healthy can they be if the water they’re living in is polluted?
No matter how nutritionally superb the food we eat is, if the water that we drink everyday is not clean and balanced, our health will suffer.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Dangers of Tap Water
After analyzing 20 million tap water quality tests, The Environmental Working Group found a total of 316 contaminants – including industrial solvents, weed killers, refrigerants and the rocket fuel component perchlorate – in water supplied to the U.S. public between 2004 and 2009. Here is a more thorough look into some of the contaminants contained in U.S. drinking water:
- Pharmaceutical Drugs:
A vast array of pharmaceuticals – including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones – have been found in the drinking water supplied to at least 41 million Americans.
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- Herbicides and Pesticides:
Consumption of inorganic vegetables, fruits and meat, as well as agricultural runoff from inorganic farms have resulted in toxic herbicides and pesticides finding their way into our water supply.
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- Chlorine:
To prevent bacteria, water must legally contain chlorine when it comes out of our faucets. Everybody knows that chlorine is toxic, and to remedy this, many people filter their water with a Brita or similar filter, and then think they are drinking clean water. If you examine a filter like Brita, what you will find is that it claims only to remove ‘the taste and smell of chlorine’, not the chlorine itself. Ultimately, the chlorine will remain in the water, and once inside the body, chlorine combines with other compounds to form Trihalomethanes, which trigger a cascade of free radical damage.
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According to the Environmental Protection Agency, trihalomethanes are carcinogenic. In a study, when chlorine was added to the water supply of rats, they developed tumors in their intestines, liver and kidneys. According to the U.S. Council of Environmental Quality,”The cancer risk to people who drink chlorinated water is 93 percent higher than those who don’t”.
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Additionally, many authorities believe that we inhale and absorb more chlorine into our bodies from a single shower than from drinking 6-8 glasses of chlorinated water per day. This is why it is very important to upgrade your shower by strapping a filter onto the incoming water in your home.
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- Arsenic:
Arsenic is a toxic heavy metal that is classified by the International Academy for Research on Cancer as a Category l carcinogen. This potent, cancer-causing metal makes its way into our water supplies from industrial and agricultural runoff.
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- Lead:
Classified by the EPA as a probable human carcinogen, is a known to harm and damage your brain and nervous system. It is so toxic that it has been banned in gasoline and children’s toys, and lead paint hasn’t been in use since 1978.
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An estimated 3.3 to 6.4 million water service lines in the U.S. are made out of lead, and this makes it very likely that your home’s tap water is being contaminated by this poison.
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- Fluoride:
Fluoride is toxic to all biological life. A Harvard University study analysis funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has concluded that children who live in areas with highly fluoridated water have “significantly lower” IQ scores than those who live in low fluoride areas.
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Dr. Dean Burk, head chemist at the National Cancer Institute for 34 years, declared the following upon his retirement: “In point of fact, fluoride causes more human cancer deaths than any other chemical… It is some of the most conclusive scientific and biological evidence that I have come across in my 50 years in the field of cancer research.”
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Adding fluoride to water has been banned in other countries but shockingly remains a common practice in many American cities. For more information on water fluoridation, download 50 Reasons to Oppose Fluoridation by Paul Connett, PhD, of the Fluoride Action Network.
The Dangers of Bottled Water
Many people drink bottled water because they believe it is a healthier choice than drinking tap water. There is evidence that actually suggests tap water is safer to drink than bottled water. Let’s take a look…
- A study from Goethe University Frankfort found that drinking bottled water leeches over 24,000 different chemicals into your body.
- According to an article in the Telegraph, “While tap water must be checked daily under a rigorous inspection regime, by contrast, bottled water makers are only required to undertake monthly testing at source”.
- Dr. Mercola has written that “about 40 percent of bottled water is nothing more than bottled tap water! So not only might you still be drinking all the chemicals you were trying to avoid in the first place, you may be exposing yourself to even MORE chemicals by drinking from plastic bottles.”
Drinking from plastic bottles poses additional health risks because of the chemicals in the plastic itself. Here are the 3 main concerns with water from a plastic bottle:
- Bisphenol A (BPA):
According to the website for the National Institute of Health, “Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical produced in large quantities for use primarily in the production of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. This class of chemical known as a Xenoestrogen is powerfully estrogenic, and has a number of damaging physiological effects to both men and women.
Aside from both male and female reproductive issues, environmentalist Bruce Lowry describes the side effects we’re seeing from exposure to BPA: “Things like Attention Deficit Disorder, Childhood Obesity, Asthma, Autism, and then a whole range of Cancer’s that we’re seeing too – Brain Cancer, Liver Cancer, Prostate Cancer. ”
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- Phthalates:
While BPA mimics estrogen, phthalates block testosterone action. So not only do we have a chemical in plastic water bottles that has a powerful estrogenic effect on the body, but we also have a chemical that inhibits the body’s use of testosterone. Studies in male animals exposed to pthalates have found reduced sperm production, undescended testes, hypospadias, and decreased testosterone production.
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- No Different than Tap Water:
If Dr. Mercola was correct in saying that “about 40 percent of bottled water is nothing more than bottled tap water”, then by drinking bottled water you are ingesting all of the contaminants in tap water, plus all of the additional chemicals from the plastic bottles!
There are exceptions to the mostly-fraudulent bottled water industry, and one of them is a brand of water called Gerolsteiner. Although expensive, Gerolsteiner might be one of the cleanest and most medicinal mineral waters on earth. Uniquely carbonated by the earth itself, Gerolsteiner water is bottled at the Volcanic Eifel in Germany, and gets its superb mineral profile from the interaction with dolomite rock, known for its rich mineral content.
Distilled Water
During the distillation process of water, water is boiled, and then the steam is condensed and collected. This leaves behind heavy metals and other contaminants that were in the water. After distillation, what you have is mineral-free water.
Of course, this method of water filtration is not perfect. The downsides of Distilled Water are as follows:
- Leeches Chemicals from Containers:
Because all minerals have been removed, distilled water is acidic, and will seek to balance itself by pulling minerals out of whatever container you put it in. “Storing distilled water in a plastic bottle”, says Houston Tomasz of Aquasana, “is doing you more harm than good”. The World Health Organization conducted a 28 year study on demineralized water, and what they found was that people drinking demineralized water had much higher incidences of osteoporosis and other diseases associated with mineral deficiencies.
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- Doesn’t Eliminate all Toxins:
Anything that vaporizes at a temperature lower than water, like volatile organic compounds (industrial solvents), will also be boiled and condensed into your water. According to Houston Tomasz of Aquasana, one volatile organic compound in particular – trihalomethane is, in his opinion, “the number one cause of breast cancer and colon cancer”. According to an Houston Tomasz of Aquasana, water distillation removes 55% to 60% of the fluoride from water. Additionally, chlorine will change to chloroform during water distillation, and will end up in your treated water.
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- Energy Intensive:
Producing distilled water uses a lot of energy
_ - Price:
Water Distillers can be expensive
Mini-Classic ll Counter Top Pure Water Distiller
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Reverse Osmosis Water
Reverse osmosis filters water by pushing it through a membrane with holes the same size as a water molecule, so that nothing larger than a water molecule can pass through it. This method of filtration is very good at removing chlorine, chlorine byproducts, herbicides, pesticides, and heavy metals such as lead. Since it’s devoid of minerals, reverse osmosis, like distilled water is great to drink for short periods of time to detoxify the body.
Of course, this method of water filtration is also not perfect. The downsides of Reverse Osmosis water are as follows:
- Leeches Chemicals from Containers:
Because all minerals have been removed, reverse osmosis water is acidic, and will seek to balance itself by pulling minerals out of whatever container you put it in. Generally with reverse osmosis systems, after the water has been filtered, it remains in a holding tank until use, and since it is devoid of minerals and imbalanced, it can leach iron or other metals from the interior of the holding tank. The World Health Organization conducted a 28 year study on demineralized water, and what they found was that people drinking demineralized water had much higher incidences of osteoporosis and other diseases associated with mineral deficiencies.
_ - Doesn’t Eliminate all Toxins:
Any hormones or chemicals molecularly smaller than water can seep through the reverse osmosis membrane and contaminate the water. According to an Houston Tomasz of Aquasana, reverse osmosis filtration removes 80% of the fluoride from water.
_ - Membrane Malfunction:
If a hole gets torn in the R.O. membrane, contaminants can pass through the filter and into your drinking water. One way to ensure that your filter is working and not torn is to measure the total dissolved solids in your reverse osmosis water using a TDS meter.
_ - Wastes Water: It takes 2 to 10 gallons of water to create 1 gallon of reverse osmosis treated water.
A Drilled Well vs A Dug Well
While a dug well is a well created by digging a hole just deep enough to reach the water table, a drilled well is essentially an artificial spring, allowing you to harvest water directly from a deep underground aquifer.
A dug well gives you surface water, as opposed to water from an aquifer, and it will be contaminated with the same pollutants as surrounding surface water. Dug wells are far from ideal, but drilled wells can be a great source of water, probably the next best thing to a natural spring.
Natural Spring Water
The only water that exists on earth, which is not contaminated by pollution from humans, is water that comes from below the earth’s rock layer, out through a natural spring.
Real spring water makes its way to the earth’s surface through cracks in the bedrock from deep within aquifers. If a truck full of gasoline were to crash and spill everywhere, the water table – including wells, rivers, streams, and lakes – would all be polluted. Spring water, on the other hand, would not be contaminated by an accident of this type, because it exists below the earth’s rock layer.
Additionally, unlike tap and bottled waters, which are both sterilized, pasteurized, and processed, algae and bacteria are found in real spring water. The fact that real spring water is alive, and can support life, makes it a far better substance with which to build your blood, spinal fluid, and to nourish all organs and systems of your body.
Getting your water from a local spring, from deep within the earth, is like getting a piece of earth as it was prior to the industrial revolution, when all above-ground water became polluted. There is no water like spring water, and although I have a reverse osmosis system in my house and drink reverse osmosis water, I also regularly collect and drink local spring water.
Thanks to Daniel Vitalis, we now have an amazing resource we can use to locate a local, ancient spring, where we can harvest safe and healthy water to drink – www.FindaSpring.com
How To Test Natural Spring Water
There are a couple of electronic meters that we can use to test water quality, which can help us decide if the water we’ve harvested from the natural spring is something we want to put into our bodies.
None of the following tests can guarantee that the water is free of contaminants, such as industrial chemicals, but the likelihood deep underground water being cleaner than anything else is very high in my opinion.
Acidity
The acidity of water is measured by finding its pH. pH, a measure of how acid or alkaline water is, stands for ‘potential of hydrogen’. The pH scale goes from 1 to 14. Whereas an extremely alkaline pH of about 14 would dissolve the oils of your skin and burn you, a highly acidic pH of about 1 would also burn you. The ideal range for pH in water is a ‘neutral’ reading of about 7.
Mineral Content
The mineral content of water is measured using a TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) meter. It gives you an overall reading of the concentration of minerals present within the water. A higher reading indicates “harder” water, and a low reading means the water is “soft”. Although it can be medicinal in small amounts, when a “hard” water is ingested in large quantities, it is said to be taxing on the liver. A “soft” water, on the other hand, is devoid of the natural mineral amounts, so when ingested, it is said to aggressively strip the body of minerals to balance itself out.
- Distilled water, which would actually strip a lot of minerals from the body (because of its lack of mineral content), would have a reading of about 0-20 ppm.
- A water with a TDS reading of between 20-150 ppm is probably ideal.
- A water between 150-250ppm would be considered a mineral water. Although it won’t be as hydrating as a water in the ideal range of 20-150ppm, it is known to have therapeutic benefit because it’s balanced and concentrated mineral content. Although mineral water is not ideal for everyday drinking, it can be thought of as a medicinal water, used temporarily to cleanse and balance the minerals in the body.
Survival: How to Find Water in the Wild
Water is one of your most urgent needs in any survival situation. Within just six hours without water, the body begins to dehydrate, and a full day without water is a serious cause for concern. You can survive only about 3 days without water, so it’s important you replace the fluid that your body loses from stress, high or low temperatures, and exertion.
Ideally, in a survival situation when you are looking to build yourself a shelter, it should be as close to a water source as possible.
Tips for Locating Water in the Wild:
- Surface Water: Search for streams, rivers and lakes
- Spring Water: Natural springs are usually very safe for consumption.
- Rock Crevices: Rainwater may have been collected.
- Muddy or Damp ground: Dig a hole to get more
- Patches of Green Vegetation: Water is present at least in the roots of the plant
- Animal Tracks: Follow them to a water source
- Insects: Often live close to water
- Birds: Often circle watering holes
When you find a source, it’s critical that you purify it. If you don’t purify it, you can get sick from bacteria or viruses. Freshwater springs can be safe to drink from without filtering, but you might want to purify this water anyways. The Lifestraw, a handheld filter used by millions of people around the world, removes 99.9999% of all bacteria, pathogens and virus’ from water without using iodine, chlorine, or other chemicals. There are also a Lifestraw Family Water Filter, which can provide clean drinking water for a family of four for 3 years.
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