Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Synthetic Chemicals in Water

It's been a long time since we could really count on the purity and safety of the water we are drinking out of our taps.

The plain and simple truth of the matter is that if you are drinking contaminated water, you are harming yourself. Aside from the diseases contaminated water may bear, drinking it will also slow down weight loss, disrupt digestion, and slow down the proper absorption of nutrition. With that going on, it makes sense that your energy and focus on life would take a beating as well.

One of the things that you need to be aware of is the fact that there are well over 80,000 different synthetic chemicals in our drinking water in the 21st century. That's right, over 80,000 man-made synthetic chemicals, and that does not take into account the other drugs manufactured and let loose in our water through a variety of ways.

If you're wondering how synthetic drugs and other chemicals wind up in your tap water, you should be aware that runoff, wastewater leakage, flooding, flushing drugs down the toilet, improperly using chemicals, and the illegal release of drug-laced wastewater from drug manufacturing plants play a major factor in their presence in our taps. In other words, there are so many ways for drugs and other pollutants to get into our water, that it is virtually impossible to police them all.

So, aren't these chemicals and other pollutants caught at municipal water treatment plants? While you might think that is the case, it isn't. Very few water treatment plants have been upgraded into this century and currently rely on horrendously outdated technology to keep our water "safe." The bizarre thing about water treatment plants is that they actually use a toxic chemical to disinfect your water – chlorine.

While chlorine does have a good reputation for killing bacteria and parasites, it's not exactly the kind of thing you should be drinking, as it's linked to an increased risk of having cancer. If you think that might be untrue, consider this: since chlorine came into use, cancer rates have gone from 1 in 50 people to 1 in 3. Those numbers ought to shock you into action.

If it was just chlorine in the water, it might be fairly easy to do something about filtering it out. However, along with the chlorine is its close companion, lead – considered to be a major threat to children. Add that lead already present in the water with lead leaching from fixtures, pipes and soldered joints and what do you get? A double dose of lead in your home plumbing system. If you live in a newer home, you may not have this risk, however it's been estimated that just about 98% off all home plumbing systems have lead fixtures.

With all the crud floating around in our water today, there is really only one method that will ensure you have water that is safe to drink at home – a home distillation system. It's the only water purification system that is able to provide the purest, freshest water for our health; the only process that ensures the water is clean and safe to drink. No other water purification method is as effective as distillation.

Larry Wardell is with H2olabs.com, a provider of water distillers and water distillation systems. To learn more about Water distillers, water distillation systems, water purification systems, visit H2olabs.com.

Beware of Portable Drinking Water Stations

You might think that taking a quick swig of water out of a portable drinking station is OK to do, but what you don't really know about the water may harm you.

Sure, there are going to be times when you have no choice but to drink from a drinking station. We all have those moments when we are in an area that we know isn't safe and have to resort to the best alternative we have on hand. If you are in a situation where you need to rely on portable drinking water, then ask around and find out if it has been purified or not.

Just because the people at the portable drinking station are telling you the water is safe, doesn't really mean that it is; and even if it's classified as drinkable, doesn't mean it isn't loaded with chemicals. The horrifying thing these days is that even water with toxic "things" in it gets classified as being OK to drink if the levels of the chemicals aren't too high. Well, that's all well and good, but if you keep drinking contaminated water, the cumulative effects are not good for you.

Imagine the government or other water distributors telling you that minimally contaminated water is OK to drink. There is something terribly wrong with that picture when you consider that the water may contain bacterial spores and other items too numerous to list. Here is something else rather disturbing too. Many portable drinking stations use chlorine to disinfect, which does do a passable job on most things, but is a stand alone killer.

While you may think using chlorine only makes good sense to kill what can be killed, think about this statistic: the Natural Resources Defense Council have figures that indicate there are roughly 30 new cases of rectal cancer daily as a result of drinking chlorine contaminated drinking water. Doesn't that make you want to check your drinking water much more closely?

If you think chlorine is a benevolent chemical that cleans up our drinking water to make it safe for us, think again. It was used to make chlorine gas in WWI. Think twice about drinking water from a portable drinking station without checking it first, or make sure you carry some of your own home distilled water with you.

The only answer to ensuring our safety at home and getting the purest, freshest water we can, is to invest in a water distillation system. No other method of purification is as effective as distillation.

Larry Wardell is with H2olabs.com, a provider of water distillers and water distillation systems. To learn more about Water distillers, water distillation systems, water purification systems, visit H2olabs.com.

Have Water Will Travel

If you're thinking about taking a trip out of the country be aware that the bottled water being sold to people in some countries is actually just local tap water.

If you want to avoid Montezuma's Revenge, also dubbed Traveler's diarrhea, when on the road or in other countries, try to stick with the purest and freshest water possible, which is distilled. Even in foreign countries, distilled water is available with a little hunting. It's not just the diarrhea that traveler's may contract when in other countries that is the major worry. The major concern is other more serious diseases, like cholera, typhoid and dysentery are the end result of contaminated water and food.

The hard thing to accept is the fact that although most of the diseases listed above may be contracted overseas in a third world country, they may also crop up in the U.S. It's sad to say that even in this day and age waterborne diseases are far more prevalent than we care to admit; and yes, travelers returning to the U.S. from overseas tend to bring diseases home with them.

When hitting the road within the U.S., it's easy to take along distilled water from home and have it bottled to suit personal preferences. Use it exclusively and avoid any potential problems with local water wherever you happen to stay. When out of the country, make sure to only drink bottled water, and inspect the seal of the cap on the bottles before drinking the contents. Avoid using ice cubes in anything you drink, or eating any local delicacies that include freshly washed fruits, seafood or vegetables. Use only bottled water to brush your teeth.

Many of the problems encountered while traveling and dealing with unknown water sources are easily handled by just sticking to water brought from home or ensuring there is access to distilled water in some form in the places that are on the itinerary. This could mean paying a visit to the local corner store or campground convenience shack, but usually there are other options to avoid using or drinking water that is not familiar and may be contaminated.

The best solution to get the purest, freshest water at home to take along while traveling is to invest in a water distillation system. It is the one system that will effectively remove things like lead, chlorine and other water borne contaminants,etc. A water distillation system means no worries while traveling with fresh water.

To learn more about Water distillers, water distillation systems, water purification systems, visit H2olabs.com.

Toxic Water at Work

This is something few people think about – the drinking water at work. Not many people ask questions about water they get in their working environment and they likely need to start.

That water cooler sitting in the corner of the office looks pretty darn good filled with fresh, clear and inviting water. However, is the water really all that it's cracked up to be? The kind of container that it's in makes a huge difference and the origin of the water is even more of an issue.

Workers avoid drinking tap water because they may well be aware that the water isn't good for them. In doing so however, they may find they have been drinking filtered tap water from the water cooler. Some days it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed. Those water coolers may be filled with things that aren't good for any of us. Just because the water happens to be in a water cooler does not make it any fresher or better than tap water. It just looks like it might be healthier than tap water – something that would not necessarily be the case.

The other problem is that most of the drinking water containers in offices are made of plastic. Add the contaminants already in the water with what leaches out of the plastic into the water, throw in the fact that these water coolers are not checked as often as they should be, and there is a recipe for disaster – contaminated water waiting to harm people's health.

Most water cooler tanks are made out of a material called polycarbonate, responsible for leaching bisphenol-A, a known cancer antagonist. No one needs to be drinking what they believe is safe water, only to find out later that it may be even more contaminated than tap water. The alternative is to carry water to work from home, water that has come from a home filtration system.

There is only one way to deal with a potentially contaminated water cooler and that is to have a home water distillation system. This is the only real answer to protect ourselves, as no other method of purification is as effective as distillation. The proof is in the water.

To learn more about Water distillers, water distillation systems, water purification systems, visit H2olabs.com.