Dehydration is much more common than most people realize. In fact, 75% of Americans are actually dehydrated right now! Even mild to moderate dehydration can lead to fatigue, dry skin, loss of appetite, headaches, muscle cramps, chills and nausea. It is recommended that we drink a minimum of half our body weight in ounces of water each day to replace the water lost through the daily activities of living. But not all water is created equal.
He we will discuss the water you should and shouldn’t be drinking:
Unfiltered tap water
The positives of tap water are that it is inexpensive and regulated by the government to be neutral or slightly alkaline on the pH scale with a pH of 7 or higher. However, filtering your tap water is Prevention Magazine’s #1 suggestion for reducing your risk of cancer. This is because municipal tap water is laden with a host of known or suspected carcinogens like chlorine, fluoride, mercury and arsenic along with hormone-disrupting chemicals. Some of these toxic chemicals (namely chlorine, chloramines and fluoride) are actually regulated by the government to be there, despite known adverse health effects. Agricultural runoff, chemical cleaning fluids, and pharmaceutical drugs including sex hormones often find their way into our water supplies due to improper disposal. When the water leaves the treatment plant it must travel miles through pipes which may be old and rusted and leach heavy metals into your water. When we consume water that contains traces of synthetic chemicals, we force our liver and kidneys to be the filter, ultimately damaging or destroying two of our vital organs.
Bottled, reverse osmosis or distilled water
Due to fear of contaminants and pollutants in city tap water and added convenience, many people turn to bottled waters, despite the high cost and negative effect the plastic bottles have on the environment. They are then shocked to find that the cons to bottled water don’t end there. Most bottled waters are nothing more than tap water which has been run through a reverse osmosis filter. Reverse osmosis systems remove the good with the bad, so the end product is actually dead, acidic water which forces your body to leach alkaline minerals from your bones to neutralize it. The pH levels of most bottled and distilled waters usually range from pH 3.0 to pH 6.9! A 7.0 reading would be neutral, and because it is a logarithmic scale, a change of one pH unit implies a tenfold shift in alkalinity or acidity. Anything with a pH of less than 7 is acidifying to the body, which means it creates an internal environment where disease can thrive. Distilled water has this same effect on your body and is not recommended for long-term consumption.
The majority of bottled waters have a positive oxidation reduction potential (or +ORP) value, which means it is oxidizing to the body. A negative ORP is required in order to fight free radicals in the body.
Additionally, bottled waters are not heavily regulated, and there have been more than 100 recalls for bacteria and contaminants. A four-year study by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) found that one-fifth of the sampled bottled waters contained known neurotoxins and carcinogens such as styrene, toluene and xylene. Another NRDC study found that, out of 103 brands of bottled water, one-third contained traces of arsenic and E. coli. This means that out of a sample of 1,000 bottles sold in the U.S., at least 300 would have some level of chemical contamination. Many of the plastic water bottles that the dead water is stored in for months contains BPA, a suspected carcinogen which can and does leach into your water.
A new report on how to reduce exposure to carcinogens from the President’s Cancer Panel suggests that home-filtered tap water is a safer bet than bottled water, and the Environmental Working Group performed a study which determined that the quality of bottled water is often not higher—and is in some cases worse—than that of municipal sources. So despite trying to get contaminant free-water by buying bottled, there are no guarantees except that you will pay more for it than gasoline.
Well Water, Artesian Water, Glacier Water
The water from standard wells contains valuable alkaline minerals and may not have added chemicals like that of municipal tap water supplies, but it also usually contains contaminates and bacterial organisms. Depending on where the well is located, it may be polluted with nitrates form agricultural runoff, arsenic, pesticides, radon, chemicals found in gasoline, etc. Very few regulations exist to govern the quality of private well water supplies, so it is up to the well owner to monitor and test their well water regularly and/or safeguard with a good filtration system.
Artesian water is comprised of naturally pressurized deposits of water that comes up to the surface when a well is sunk, and has the same quantities as those from standard wells. Artesian water is naturally filtered through the aquifer when it surfaces which removes many of the impurities. However, this natural process can require many years, making it harder and harder for the purification process to keep up with the vast amount of contaminates that man puts into the land nowadays.
Glacier water is formed when glaciers melt and the water enters the water cycle. The water is sometimes advertised as being purer than ground sourced water, but where pollutants or precipitation has been combined with water from glaciers, it shows the same impurities as other water.
Spring Water
Pure spring water is difficult to find and sources are limited. Many springs which were once viable are becoming increasingly contaminated. Unless you live next door to a spring, pure spring water is not usually a viable option, and even if you are able to find a reliable source of spring water, you will still be required to filter out the heavy metals. And unfortunately, bottled spring water carries all the same negatives and issues as regular bottled water (outlined above).
Sparkling/Carbonated Water
In order to acheive the fizzy bubbles found in sparkling and carbonated waters, carbon dioxide gas is dissolved under pressure in water. This carbonation process actually renders the water acidic and is oxidizing to the body, which means it speeds up the death of your cells. This applies to all carbonated drinks including sodas which are actually the worst beverage you can choose to drink, as they most of them are even more acidic than alcohol. All acidic beverages can actually leach minerals from your body, thus weakening bones and connective tissue.
Filtered, alkaline ionized water
Chanson water ionizers were created to replicate what happens in nature to unpolluted streams of alkaline water when it runs over rocks and is given a slight electrical charge. Many doctors, scientists, researchers and water experts across the globe agree that filtered alkaline ionized water with a pH of 9.5 is the healthiest type of water you can drink as it provides your body with alkaline minerals which helps neutralize acidity in our every day diet. According to Dr. Robert O. Young, disease cannot thrive unless it has an acidic environment to live and grow in, and by alkalizing our bodies with alkaline water, we are creating a more disease-resistant body. Ionization causes the water molecules to be microclustered, so they are able to hydrate up to six times better than tap or bottled waters.
Alkaline ionized water is also a powerful antioxidant which seeks out and neutralizes free radicals which would otherwise cause damage to cells and bring about disease and premature aging. This is also known as having a negative ORP (Oxidation Reduction Potential). Most tap and bottled waters have a very high ORP, which creates free radicals that actually accelerate the aging process. And alkaline ionized water also delivers an abundance of healthy oxygen to your cells in the form of OH-, which is very stable because it is mated with positively ionized alkaline minerals. Thus, drinking alkaline ionized water results in a body rich in health, oxygen and energy.
You have the choice to continue to consume and to bathe in water that has been processed, chemically altered and deconstructed to a form that bares little resemblance to that which God intended, or to turn the clock back using some very clever science and technology that may improve your health dramatically by merely hooking a Chanson prefilter and water ionizer up to your own tap. Insist on the cleanest, healthiest water available - filtered, alkaline ionized Chanson water.
