Water, water everywhere...

but not a drop to drink!

By J. J. Gregor

Anyone who has experienced Montezuma's revenge while visiting Mexico knows that you have to be very careful in choosing your drinking water.

Water treatment has been a part of our history for millennia, with the great ancient cultures boiling, distilling or making beer and wine (alcohol) to kill off the bacteria and parasites that would infect the drinking water. Now, there are tons of modern techniques that allow us to have drinkable water. But unfortunately, many of these treatments are doing a significant amount of harm to our long-term health. Let’s do a bit of an overview of where we can get our drinking water.

Tap water or public water:
Most of us that live urban or suburban are hooked up to city water and sewer. This water is heavily treated in water purification plants. The major drawback is how this water is treated.

First, aluminum sulfate is added to help clarify the water by increasing sedimentation. While it’s a debatable issue, aluminum has links to Alzheimer's, dementia and some cancers. As if this wasn’t enough, the water is also chlorinated to sterilize it and keep it that way until you are ready to turn that tap.

This may sound great, keeping us safe, so we don’t get amoebic dysentery. However, the chlorine actively competes with iodine for absorption. This is a problem because your thyroid uses iodine to make the hormone that controls your metabolism. Additionally, treatment plants will add fluorine, which is also competing for those iodine receptors. Both chlorine and fluorine have strong correlations with increased cancer rates and are extremely toxic.

There are a couple of things you can do to help get rid of these toxic chemicals from your drinking water.

Filter:
Buy a distiller or a filter for your tap. I’m sorry, your fridge or Britta filter just won’t cut it. The best filter I have found Berkey. It has carbon and specialized filters that do a great job of removing Fluoride and most contaminates. Unfortunately, there is now a new chemical (Chloramines) that some treatment plants are using that may be more dangerous, and harder on your filters and your health. The Berkey filters are probably one of your best bets for drinking water. But for whole house filtration systems that remove Fluorine, Chlorine and Chloramines can cost $10,000-15,000 and yearly maintenance of up to $1,200.