WATER

The importance of the daily consumption of copious amounts of fresh, clean, high quality water cannot be overstated. Why? Water is the most abundant nutrient in our body, comprising 2/3’s of the body’s mass. The exact amount will vary from person to person making it impossible to recommend a healthful amount for everyone. If you are healthy drink when you feel thirsty! Some of us however, have lost touch with our natural instinct that gives us cues on how much we should drink. Most of us but not all should increase our daily water intake. Our individual requirements for water can vary daily. Meat eaters require more water to help flush uric acid and other wastes from the body, as will people who are more physically active, and people who live in dry, hot or windy climates. Vegetarians usually require less due to the fact that fruits and vegetables are often made up of 90% water. It is also best not to drink water that is too cold, or too close to meal time as either of these can have a negative impact on digestion by diluting HCL and cooling enzyme systems that are most efficient around 100.4 degrees F.

Sadly most of the water sources on our planet are polluted with literally thousands of compounds that are not fit for human consumption. The list of compounds is lengthy and scary, but I will list a few here: chlorine, fluoride, bacteria, virus, lead, strontium 90, nitrates, nitrites, heavy metals, herbicides, defoliants, pesticides, or perhaps it was taken from human excrement found in the sewer and recycled! The exact combination of these will vary from water system to system. When chlorine is ingested, it destroys vitamin E in the body. It will also destroy beneficial bacterial flora in the intestines. The EPA has warned that prolonged swimming or bathing in chlorinated water contributes to skin cancer. Chlorine readily combines with many organic substances found in water to form chloroform, a poisonous cancer-causing chemical, which does not evaporate. We have evolved over tens of thousands of years without chlorine in our water so it is hard to swallow the idea that we have adapted to its presence over the last few decades. Fluoridation of water has been hotly debated over the last decade. Should everyone receive some people’s medicine? Originally, tooth decay prevention tests were carried out with CALCIUM fluoride, yet SODIUM fluoride is the chemical added to city water supplies. Sodium fluoride is used as rat poison and is a toxic by-product of the aluminum industry. If enough calcium is present in the water the sodium fluoride will convert to calcium fluoride, but this does not make me feel any better about its use. Some people will add calcium powder to their water and either drink it or let it settle to the bottom of the container. In Europe sodium fluoride treatment of water is illegal in Sweden, Denmark, and Holland; Germany, France, Belgium, and Norway will not use it for water treatment.

So, what to do? A water filter at best removes suspended material leaving water- soluble toxins behind. A water purifier denotes a government-regulated standard, which specifies that the purified water is “very nearly only pure water”. Activated charcoal filters will leave behind water-soluble minerals like sodium fluoride and water-soluble toxins like nitrites. So if these are in your water you need to do more. Reverse-osmosis purifiers are a now affordable option, their only draw back is they discharge several gallons of waste water for each one they purify, also the water has had the minerals removed, so for most people the minerals need to be replaced by a product like “concentrace” liquid mineral drops (I feel it is important that our water contain a healthy balance of minerals which are necessary for our health). Water distillers have the same drawback as reverse-osmosis systems with out the high amount of wastewater. The option I have been using is a combination water filter followed by ionization of the water. The ionizer not only removes water-soluble toxins but also leaves the minerals behind in a slightly rearranged fashion. Also, the water is supercharged with oxygen, and the shape of the water molecules is altered so that it more readily passes in and out of our cells. The water delivered at the tap is also made more alkaline (this is controlled by the user) thus facilitating the removal of toxins from the body. There is about a half gallon of acidic wastewater produced per gallon and if the mineral content of your water in imbalanced then this system is not your best choice.