Is Drinking Tap Water Safe?

“If we grew our own food we wouldn’t waste a third of it as we do today. If we made our own tables and chairs, we wouldn’t throw them out the moment we changed the interior décor. If we had to clean our own drinking water, we probably wouldn’t contaminate it.”

~ Mark Boyle

Did you know that water makes up about 60 percent of an adult body?

It’s what makes up most of our tears, saliva, sweat, blood, lymph, digestive juices and urine. It also carries important electrolytes and minerals like calcium, chloride, potassium, magnesium, potassium and sodium in the body.

Without water, we’d most likely die within 3-4 days. We need water for survival. But if you’re drinking tap water every day, you’re most likely reducing your survival rate.

Why is that, you ask?

Because the government and its interest groups found ways to manipulate us into believing that drinking tap water is safe.

But it’s far from safe.

Time To Tap Out

Our tap water is now contaminated with remnants of prescription drugs, pesticides, heavy metals, chemicals and viruses.

Yuck.

In fact, hundreds of potentially toxic compounds are found in drinking water across North America.¹ They leach into our bodies, compromise our health at the cellular level, wreak damage and havoc over a period of time, drain our nutrient supplies and make our liver work overtime.

It’s been linked to many chronic, degenerative diseases such as cancer, infertility, Alzheimer’s, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma and Parkinson’s.

Here are just some of the dangerous contaminants lurking in your tap water:

Fluoride

Initially added in the early 20th Century to promote dental health. Studies show that fluoride suppresses thyroid function, lowers immunity, weakens the bones and reduces IQ in children.

Chlorine

Used to destroy pathogens in the water; one of the chemical weapons used in WW1; when consumed regularly, has been associated with birth defects and cancers.

Arsenic

Mainly from mining, industrial pollution and large-scale agriculture using heavy fertilizers and pesticides that leaches into groundwater; arsenic poisoning is associated with skin problems, physical deformities, multi-organ failures and cancer.

Lead

Mainly from old metal pipes; extremely toxic; associated with fatigue, lower IQ, fatigue and irreversible brain damage, even small amounts can lead to permanent damage.

Pharmaceutical Drugs

Both over-the-counter and prescription drugs such as those used to treat infections and psychiatric disorders find their way into the ground water from the sewage, which end up in our drinking water.

For a more complete list, click here.

Is this something you want to nourish your body with?

I understand that it’s always easier to be complacent than to actually do something about it. And if you can’t see the toxins, it’s easy to ignore the long-term effects that drinking contaminated tap water can cause.

After all, out of sight, out of mind, right?

I know many people who still drink straight from the tap for whatever reason and would argue that it’s perfectly safe.

Well, not me.

Once I learned about the harmful effects of drinking toxic tap water, I started investigating my options:

  • bottled water
  • filtered water
  • fizzy water
  • well water
  • boiled water
  • spring water
  • rain water …

Okay, a bit of an exaggeration here but you get my point.

Why so many choices? What has changed in the past 50 years? I’ll tell you what’s changed.

Money.

Ban The Bottle

Surprise. Surprise. Marketers found a way to monetize our water by bottling it into pretty plastic containers and selling it.

And I fell for it.

I started buying plastic bottled water by the truckload. I thought I was moving toward a healthier direction until I discovered the many hidden secrets marketing companies used to sell their toxic products and the damage it was doing not only to my health but also to the environment.

Several companies including Coca-Cola (Dasani), PepsiCo (Aquafina) and Nestlé (Pure Life) were caught red-handed in recent years when it was revealed that they were actually selling bottled tap water.

In Europe, these companies are now banned from selling water unless they indicate prominently on their bottles that they are actually selling tap water.

Bottled tap water not only contain the same toxins as tap water but with the added beauty of plastic that have leached into the water while sitting on factory floors and grocery store shelves.

Plastics contain BPA or bisphenol-A, a known hormone disruptor that wreaks havoc on our endocrine system.

As if I need any more contributors to my mood swings!

To add insult to injury, plastic bottles are only recyclable if they actually get recycled. And that’s less than 50 percent. The rest (over 65 million) end up in landfills every year and can take up to 1000 years to even begin composting. If incinerated, they release toxic fumes.

According to Greenpeace, about 10 percent of all plastic produced end up in the ocean.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating island of plastic about the size of Quebec, kills millions of birds and marine animals each year when they eat the tiny pieces of plastic that enter their food chain.

Don’t allow advertising to influence your nutrition and decisions about your health and lifestyle.

The other day, I watched a woman fill her shopping cart with Nestlé bottled water like she was stocking up for the apocalypse.

It was difficult to watch knowing that her purchase was going to further contribute to the contamination of the planet with plastic waste but also harm whoever was going to drink that water.

Upon knowing the dangers of plastic bottled water, I then started to buy bottled glass mineral water.

Though one step better than plastic bottles, they still contaminate the planet by using fossil fuels to deliver and make these bottles.

How pure is it? How fresh is it?

What Are My Options?

At the time, there was so much hype surrounding different types of water filters, it was hard to decide.

But I settled on a Brita.

They claimed to remove, calcium, magnesium, chlorine and lead. Although a water filter jug is better than drinking tap water, you need to ensure the filters are changed regularly and the jug is cleaned (and is preferably glass, not plastic).

However, these filters do not remove fluoride from the water, a harmful chemical I definitely don’t want to be consuming.

After several more years of research, we finally decided the best purification system for us was a distiller.

This system involves vaporizing water in one chamber and then condensing it into liquid in a separate chamber.

It removes most organisms, minerals and chemicals from the water, including fluoride.

Distilled water isn’t for everyone. It’s costly and takes maintenance. But I couldn’t put a price tag on our health. Just knowing that each glass provided us with pure, clean water without the toxic gunk tap water offered was enough to never let me go back.

If you also own a distiller, just remember that since it removes every mineral from the water, including minerals that we need to keep our pH balanced, we need to put some of those back in. Something called hypotonic solutions that can actually burst our cells is what we need to avoid. Don’t get alarmed. Sounds worse than it is. Simply add some drops of pure homemade Himalayan sea salt brine back into your water.

I’m now starting to investigate shower filters. The same toxic chemicals from tap water get absorbed into our skin when we shower or soak in a tub. Without our liver to help detox, the chemicals enter the blood stream quicker causing damage faster than if we were to drink a glass of tap water.

When chlorine gets heated up, as in a hot shower, it’s like bathing in a gas chamber. Something you may want to think about.

You may be where I was several years ago and still be drinking tap water. I agree that the choices today are overwhelming to the point of ridiculous. But we’re now more vigilant than ever before.

Just think about what water you’re drinking, what contaminants may be lurking in that water and how it can be contributing to your ailments.

Perhaps start with investing in a small water filter jug that removes a few contaminants to begin with. Then gradually work your way up to removing more chemicals.

Educating ourselves about the dangers of drinking polluted water is the first step to changing the behavior and moving toward consuming safer, tastier drinking water.

What water do you drink?

 

 

REFERENCES

¹ Perro, Michelle. “News.” Organic Consumers Association, 28 Dec. 2018, https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/over-267-toxins-found-public-tap-water

 

Recommended Documentary: Tapped