Did you know smoking will eventually kill you?
You’re probably thinking, duh!
But, maybe you haven’t thought about the very water you're drinking as doing the same.
Without water we die and with it? We can also die. [CLICK TO TWEET]
Water is a necessity of life. Just like food.
No news breaking information here.
The contaminants that have been slowly leaking into the very water you're depending on slowly chips away at your life expectancy.
100, 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40…
You put so much trust into water quality.
It’s clear, tastes the same (is that really true?), and it’s everywhere.
70% of earth is water.
The difference is, the water you’re drinking is slowly killing you.
And here’s why...
Contaminants, ruining water quality one sip at a time
What is a contaminant?
A contaminant is a substance that’s where it shouldn't be and at high enough levels to have a negative effect on our health or on the health of animals or plants.
Simple enough.
But did you know a certain amount of contaminants are allowed in your drinking water?
These small deviations in water quality can have drastic effects to your health over time.
I remember when I moved to a new home several years ago.
It was in a county that used chlorine to kill bacteria and other nasty little buggers. This is very common.
It was terrible!
My eyes were always dry, my skin felt like leather, and my clothes were a mess.
I don’t know about you but I don’t go to a pool to drink the water...and I felt like I was living like that every day.
Chlorine isn’t the only contaminant, there’s a number of others:
- Total Coliform: Coliform bacteria is found in drinking water when there’s a problem with the water treatment or the pies that distribute the water. Having any form of coliform in your water indicates a possible contamination by disease-causing microorganisms. Watch out if you have diarrhea, cramps, nausea, and possibly jaundice. You may also notice associated headaches and fatigue.
- Gross Alpha Radioactivity: Would you like some radioactivity for dinner? It’s presence indicates contamination by radium, radon, uranium, or other naturally occurring radioactive substances. Each and everyone of these substances is a known human carcinogens. In 1991 the EPA reported that over a lifetime 15,750 people get cancer from drinking radioactive water.
- Total Trihalomethanes: THMs are disinfection byproducts. They are chemicals that are formed when the chlorine used to disinfect your drinking water reacts with naturally occurring organic material in the water. It is reported by more than ten human epidemiological studies that these chemicals are associated with rectal, bladder, or pancreatic cancers.
- Atrazine: Atrazine is an agricultural herbicide (commonly used on corn and soybeans) that is frequently found in drinking water. It has been found to cause cancer of the mammary gland in animal studies. Atrazine has also been found to affect the hormonal and endocrine system. Exposure to atrazine above the MCL is a serious concern because the standard is particularly weak, allowing cancer risks that exceed the "negligible" risk standard by a factor of 18. EPA has placed atrazine into Special Review, the first step in a possible ban, due to concerns over the public health impacts of exposure in food and water.
- Lead: Don’t worry, were not talking about your pencil. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, “...lead is the number one environmental threat to children. For years, many water pipes contained lead, and this lead continues to leach into drinking water. Lead can cause a variety of adverse health effects in humans at low levels of exposure.” The EPA has also decided that there is no "safe" exposure to lead. Lead in drinking water causes interference with red blood cell chemistry, delays in normal physical and mental development in babies and young children, deficits in the attention span, hearing, and learning abilities of children, and increases in the blood pressure of some adults.
- Nitrate:Exposure to nitrate in drinking water above the current EPA standard of 10 ppm poses an acute risk to infants of methemoglobinemia, or blue baby syndrome, a condition caused by lack of oxygen. Symptoms of methemoglobinemia include shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy, and in more extreme cases loss of consciousness, and even death. In addition, nitrate reacts with other chemicals in the gut to form nitrosamines, potent carcinogenic compounds. Yikes.
Clean it up…
As you can see, water quality is important and since it's so readily available we take it for granted.
There is no secret or special how to template to getting clean water in your home.
Well, there's one secret.
It’s stupidly simple.
DO NOT drink out of your faucets and put limited trust into bottling companies (less regulated).
Put more trust in your own hands.
The simplest and purest way to get clean water in your home is to rely on quality filters.
You can find thousands of quality filters on Amazon but I’ve put my trust into Aquasana fro many years.
I’ve used Aquasana Whole House Filtration system for 7 years now and I’m on my second house.
The water quality is amazing. You can actually taste a difference.
The reason I decided on the whole house system is for various reasons.
I never have to buy quality bottled water, it comes straight from my faucet.
It also filters the water my family showers in and the other water sources we use (i.e. dishwasher, ice cubes, laundry, etc.).
No matter what filter you chose, putting the trust of your health into your own hands is crucial to being a better, smarter, healthier you.
Clean up your water and use a filter every time you drink and shower in water.
