Drinking Water Safety

If you are drinking or cooking with tap water, are you concerned with the lead level?

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Well, it is both good and bad. It’s good before entering our bodies. It’s bad after entering our bodies. Bill Thornington, the owner at Green Living Store explains it well:

Chlorine, it is good or bad? Well, that depends on where it is in our delivery system. What makes it a ‘good thing’ in our municipal water pipes is because it’s effective and it’s persistent. It’s a ‘bad thing’ when it’s in our household water.

The action of Chlorine is to oxidize compounds with which it contacts. The very reasons that Chlorine is used in water purification are the reasons we should remove it before we finally use it. It is an indiscriminate killer. It kills both good and bad bacteria. It will attach the hostile bacteria, the stains in your clothes, or the good bacteria in our bodies, Vitamins C and E, thyroid hormone, your skin and hair and many other compounds important to human life. Drinking Chlorine treated tap water upsets the natural and necessary bacterial balance in your intestines and is one of the factors involved in overgrowth of Candida.

Candida acts as a natural antibiotic and is a ‘good thing.’ It helps to control the growth of adverse bacteria and is also kept in check by these same bacteria, forming a balance in the intestines. Through the use of antibiotics, swimming, bathing in or drinking chlorinated water, the essential microorganisms in

the body are killed off, allowing a bloom or overgrowth of Candida, which is a ‘bad thing.’

Why do we use Chlorine in America? The chlorination of water supplies began early in the 20th century as a response to cholera and typhoid epidemics (water-borne pathogens) which were killing many people. It worked - people stopped dying of cholera and typhoid. Instead, they began developing cancers, arteriosclerosis, heart disease and other chronic degenerative diseases, years later.

Cholesterol-bearing foods took the rap, even though people had been eating them for centuries without these problems. Newer research is pointing directly at Chlorine that has been directly associated with Heart Disease, atherosclerosis, hardening of the arteries, plaque formation and cancer causing carcinogens like chloroform, which is formed in the chlorinated steam of your bathroom shower.

Americans are just beginning to become aware of the importance of removing chlorine from drinking water, but little is said about removing it from bathing water. During the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, the European Olympic Committee refused to compete in the Olympic pool until the chlorine was removed and an alternate purification method was installed.

Every time you step into a hot, steamy shower, the pores of your skin open. Your body acts as a giant sponge and absorbs Chlorine and chloroform. Chloroform is also known as trichloromethane, methane chloride, or methyltrichloride. Likewise, the steam and mist created by the hot shower including chloroform is inhaled and deposited in your lungs and blood stream. Many health officials and biochemists believe that Chlorine is so dangerous that if it were proposed today for the first time, that it would be banned by the FDA.

In humans, chloroform affects the central nervous system (brain), liver, and kidneys. Chloroform was used as an anesthetic during surgery for many years before its harmful effects on the liver and kidneys were recognized. Results of studies of people who drank chlorinated water showed a possible link between the chloroform in chlorinated water and the occurrence of cancer of the colon and bladder. Cancer of the liver and kidneys developed in rats and mice that ate food or drank water for a long time that had large amounts of chloroform in it.

The key to good health is good water.

The human body is designed to run on water. Every life giving and healing process that happens inside our body - happens with water. So many common ailments and illnesses can be prevented and possibly even cured with an increased intake of healthy water. Headaches, hypertension, back pain, arthritis, ulcers, asthma, morning sickness and fatigue, to name a few. An investment in a Chlorine trap filter on your shower, tap water or a whole house system will instantly yield results in softer hair and skin, and will stop the daily attack on your body by chlorine and chloroform.

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Not necessarily. NRDC conducted a four-year review of the bottled water industry and safety standards that govern it, including a comparison of national bottled water rules with national tap water rules, and independent testing of over 1,000 bottles of water. Their conclusion is that there is no assurance that just because water comes out of a bottle is any cleaner or safer than water from the tap. And in fact, an estimated 25% or more of bottled water is really just tap water in a bottle - sometimes further treated, sometimes not.

Further more, bottled water usually sits in the bottle for a while before consumption, water is stale and turns acidic, which is not healthy for the body. Plastic bottle when left under direct sunshine or in high room temperature can leach bad chemical that harm your health also. Studies have shown that chemicals called phthalates, which are known to disrupt testosterone and other hormones, can leach into bottled water over time. A study found that water that had been stored for 10 weeks in plastic and in glass bottles contained phthalates, suggesting that the chemicals could be coming from the plastic cap or the plastic bottle.

“Where can I get good water to ensure good health?”

While most people can detect the odor and taste of chlorine in tap water, there are contaminants we cannot see with our bare eyes. Since bottled water are not guaranteed to be safer than tap water either, and it is a very expensive commodity, installing a quality water purifier to filter out the tap water is the safest and most economical solution.

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Scientists estimate that each year up to 7 million Americans become sick from contaminated tap water, which can also be lethal. Pollution, old pipes and outdated treatment threaten tap water quality.

Let’s see what are usually found in tap water:

• Particulates: silt, sand and pipe scale
• Chemicals: chlorine or chloramine (as disinfectant)
• Lead from soldered pipes
• Heavy metals from environmental pollution
• Microbiological growth inside pipelines or tanks
• Particulates from corrosion and rusting inside pipes or holding tanks
• Vinyl chloride from new PVC pipes
• Leeching industrial runoff, pesticides

According to Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), there might be rocket fuel, arsenic, germs and many other contaminants that are not seen by the human eyes in your tap water.

Would you still feed your body unfiltered tap water, in the form of drinking or cooking?  Don’t use your kidneys as water filter device.  A quality water filtration system is worth every penny, over time.

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By Kim Hackett

Health warning for three more area beaches

“……Experts say polluted storm-water runoff can degrade drinking water supplies, contaminate fish and contribute to the growth of harmful algae blooms

According to a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council last year, the number of closing and advisory days at ocean, bay and Great Lakes beaches in 2006 topped 25,000 — more than ever recorded in the survey’s 17-year history.

Florida’s drainage problems stem from development practices decades ago, when facilitating growth took precedence over water quality protection.

Elaborate regulations now require systems to treat the storm water from new development to prevent water pollution.

But officials have struggled for years to figure out how to improve water quality in runoff from older developments………”

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If you live in Columbia, here is an article from the Missourian regarding Trihalomethanes in water. Trihalomethanes are compounds that form when chlorine, which is added to drinking water to kill potentially harmful bacteria, interacts with organic matter in the water. Trihalomethanes have been linked with increased risk of cancer.

Read here to see how this high level of trihalomethanes in your tap water can affect your health and what are the remedies the city are looking to resolve this water safety issue.

Most cities add chlorine to treat drinking water. Filtering it out before consuming water should be taken seriously considering all the side effects that comes with this necessary water treatment method at city level.

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Stop Throwing Money Away Buying Bottled Water

Invest In The eSpring Water Purifier And Save Money In The Long Run

Save Mother Earth, Save Your Purse!

Why choosing an eSpring water purifiers? Here are a few reasons:

• It improves the taste, odor, and clarity of 1,320 gallons of water, enough for a family of six to cook and drink with, for one year.
• The carbon-block filter reduces more than 140 potential health-effect contaminants: pesticides, VOCs, mercury, lead….
• Allows beneficial minerals like calcium and magnesium to pass through.
• The UV bulb destroys microorganisms in drinking water without the use of chemicals.
• The counter-top unit is about the size of a coffee maker and attaches to your existing faucet in minutes, without special tools.
• Comes with 120 days satisfaction guarantee!

I like the last feature best. Most other product offer a 30 days to 60 days guarantee, this company offers a full 120 days, that is almost 4 months to test use the unit! If for any reason you are not satisfied with its performance, simply ship it back and you will be refunded 100% , no question asked.

Yes it costs $577 for the counter top (there is below the counter unite available), it sounds like a lot of dough to come up at once. But if your family is consuming 4 cases of bottled water a week, then this unit will pay for itself in 6 months time, or less. Plus you get fresh, clean, safe, great tasting water from your faucet. No more trips to the store hauling in cases of water and depositing tons of empty bottles to the landfill. No more paying for the bottles more than you are paying for the water and not even sure if its content is bacteria and contaminants free. Save your money for gas, get a filter.

Quit Doing This and avoiding this

Get This

Try it out for 120 days - the best way to find out if the product delivers as promised. Some people even took the purified water to the lab and got it tested. You can do the same just to make sure you have the best quality water for your body.

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We all know water is essential to live. But most of us are not aware of the crucial role water plays in virtually every organ and function of our bodies. Water does more than sustain live. Good water can actually improve our health, our fitness, and even our appearance. On the other hand, water with contaminants, chlorine or chloramines may slowly affect us.
Water is good for you only if it’s good water. But what is good water?
It has to be clear, clean, odor less, contaminant free, bacteria and virus free, there should be trace of beneficial minerals such as calcium, magnesium, and fluoride.
Potable water has become a major concern for many people today. The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) maintains that the number of Americans exposed to water contaminant above EPA standard is growing.
Do you know what is in your tap water before it is in you?
We often take the purity of our tap water for granted - and we shouldn’t. There are endless reports of contaminants in our tap water. Aging pipes can break, leach contaminants into the water they carry and breed bacteria - all potential prescription for illness. Old-fashion water treatment -built to filter out particles in the water and kill some parasites and bacteria, generally fails to remove 21st century contaminants like pesticides, industrial chemicals and arsenic.
To disinfect, chlorine is added to our water supply at the water processing plant. Chlorine is a poisonous greenish-yellow non-metallic gas used to prevents algae growth and kills bacteria in water. (Simply, it’s a form of bleach, think of Clorox in the laundry room or the bathroom for disinfection) In many cities, ammonia is also added to the process which is called Chloramine, to stabilize the chlorine so it won’t vaporize over time. Here are a few quotes from our city (San Francisco) water department pamphlet: “Unlike chlorine, chloramines cannot be removed from water by boiling or by letting an open container of water stand to dissipate chlorine gas? It can be removed by specific treatment methods.”; “Chloraminated water can harm fish and amphibians, such as turtles and frogs, as chloramine passes through their gills and directly enters the bloodstream but it’s safe for people and animals to drink”

Huh? I have to scratch my head when reading this. Water does eventually enter our blood stream too, how does that make it safe, just because we breathe through our lungs? It won’t kill us right away, but will slowly if accumulated over a long period of time, like 10, 20, or 30 years? Chlorination is necessary to kill bacteria in our tap water, but should be removed before it’s coming into our bodies. Beside chlorine or chloramines, tap water may or most likely contain:

• Lead from soldered pipes. Lead can result in anemia, low birth weight in children, increase blood pressure in adults
• Microbiological growth inside pipeline or tank
• Particulates from corrosion and rusting inside pipes or holding tanks
• Pesticides from leeching industrial runoff
• Mercury, which may cause kidney damage
• Radon from land decade can increase the risk of stomach cancer
• MTBE (Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether), a cancer causing chemical
• Bacteria and viruses

EPA estimates that 2-10% of bladder cancer may be from contaminated drinking water. The use of at source water purification devices is strongly recommended to protect you and your family’s health.

I don’t know where this guy lives. He said in the video that he has been gone only for 3 days and return to his home to find that the water from his tap is ….

Lead is another major concern in tap water. Removing it is a must.

For the best and safest water, this is a better solution.

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Chlorinated water is founded in almost all municipal water.  City water is treated with chlorine (just in case you don’t know what it is, it’s the disinfectant like Clorex that you use to clean your bathroom or to bleach your white laundry with) to kill the bacteria. This is good for killing the bacteria, but there are drawback side effects not so good or even dangerous to our health.

Most people don’t like the taste or the smell of tap water because of the chlorine, but don’t think much about the bad side about chlorinated water. If you are drinking or cooking your meals straight from the tap, there are a few things you should know.

According to numerous studies , chlorinated water:

• Is skin irritant, could be associated with skin condition like eczema
• Can destroy vitamin E and polyunsaturated fatty acids in the body and generating toxins capable of free radical damage (oxidation)
• Destroys the friendly bacteria (intestinal flora) that help in the digestion of food and also protect the body from harmful pathogens.
• Contains chemical compounds called trihalomethanes, which are carcinogens resulting from the combination of chlorine with organic compounds in water. These chemical do not degrade well and are stored in the fatty tissues of the body (breast, mother’s milk, blood and semen). It suppresses the immune system function and interferes with the natural controls of cell growth.
• Aggravates asthma, especially in children frequently swim in chlorinated swimming pools.
• Chlorinated by-products can result in bladder, breast and bowel cancer as well as malignant melanoma.

Chlorination is necessary to kill bacteria in our tap water, but should be removed before feeding it to our bodies. Anything you can do to eliminate or minimizes chlorine would certainly be helpful or at least lower the chances of having the above mentioned health issues. Installing a water filter or purifier to filter chlorinated water is most practical and economical for your family’s well-being.

There is a video at the end of this post showing how water purifier can effectively remove chlorine and other contaminants from tap water.

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How to make tap water safe for drinking at home or the office has been the rising concern of many people today. Most people don’t like drinking tap water because of the taste, but there are more reason to rethink drinking right from your tap.

It’s impossible to have clean tap water. Water is transferred through old pipes that are decaying. Lead, heavy metal and tons of other contaminants leak into the water. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention reports 30-40 outbreaks of waterborne diseases from viruses, bacteria and parasites in the U.S. each year, and half of those are related to drinking water.

Municipals water treatment plans use chlorine (some use chloramin, which is a combination of chlorine and ammonia)to purify water, and that can cause health problems. The Environmental Working Group did a study in 2005 and reported that there are more than 140 unregulated chemicals, including a gasoline additive MTBE. In many cases, water contaminants exceeded safety limits.

Because the rising question about tap water safety, people are turning to bottled water thinking they are supposedly cleaner than tap and they do certainly taste better, and more convenient. But there are reports showing that up to 40% of bottled water are worst than tap water. Beverage companies are not regulated by the FDA and not legally required to disclose the source of their water, so chances are many of the bottled water comes from the same source as tap water. In many cases, the consumers are paying more for a gallon of water than they are paying for gas. With the price of gasoline skyrocketing, along with the rise of everything else, it’s better to save money and stay with tap water, but clearing out all the harmful contaminants before allowing it getting into our body. A quality water purifier at your own tap is a smart investment.

The best way to make your tap water safe, at least for drinking and cooking, is to install a water filter or purifier in the kitchen. This is crucial if you have young children, are pregnant or have chronic illness that effects your immune system. Install a shower filter to filter out the chlorine is a good idea, especially if you or someone in the family has skin condition such as eczema and psoriasis, because even chlorine levels that are below the EPA limit can dry skin and worsen conditions, let alone that most city water exceeds EPA standard of safe chlorine level. Filter out the chlorine before filling your fish tank will definitely save your fish.

There are many types of water filtration system on the market. Range anywhere from $20 to a few thousands dollars. From faucet mounted, pitcher to whole house filter. Some just improve the water taste by reducing the chlorine and a few large particles, others will remove everything in the water including some beneficial mineral that our body needs. So how do you choose? Here are a few things to keep in mind when deciding on a type of filter:

• You want safe drinking water, not just taste good water, so you need to find the filter that will remove the most contaminants but not the beneficial mineral that are naturally in the water.
• Filter has its own lifespan, you need to know when to replace it or you are drinking water that are far more worst than the tap water itself, because all the contaminants got flushed out from the overdue filter.
• Fresh water always taste better and it’s better for the body because it’s full of oxygens. So freshly filter out of the tap water is better than water sitting in a pitcher or jar for a while.
• Flow rate might be something that is important to you if you are busy people.

Recently there are reports showing that pharmaceuticals - including antibiotics, anti-convulsions, mood stabilizers and sex hormones - have been found in the drinking water supply of at least 41 million Americans. So it is always good to go in for filters with maximum number of features and advantages, designed with the latest technology that help providing as best drinking water quality as possible.

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Choose the world’s best source of water,it has met the highest standards for clean water quality.
Here are a few reasons to choose the eSpring water purifier:
* destroys more than 99.99% of waterborne, disease-causing bacteria and viruses in drinking water
* reduces potential carcinogens that can be found in drinking water
* is more convenient than bottled water
* has a high flow rate to fill your glass or container quickly
* treats drinking/cooking water for a family of 6 for up to one year
* is convenient and easy to operate
* is less costly than bottled water
* effectively reduces chlorine
* effectively reduces lead, mercury in drinking water
* effectively reduces waterborne parasites
* effectively reduces radon and radon decay products in drinking water
* does not remove beneficial minerals, such as calcium, magnesium, and fluoride
* comes with a satisfaction guaranteed or your money back
* the only system certified to effectively remove lead, THMs and more than 140 contaminants
There are many more to list.

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