HYDRATE: Water Quality
It is important to keep in mind that quality of drinking water is as important
as quantity. Water is a scarce commodity these days with only 1% of
the earth’s drinking water available (the rest being locked up in glacial
ice), our industrial society has resorted to pouring more and more chemical
and toxic wastes into those lakes and rivers providing our drinking water.
Compound that with the age of water pipes that were laid in urban areas
many decades ago now having layers upon layers of collected deposits, and
the inadequacy of water filtration and treatment plants, the concerns are
alarming.
Poisoned Horses Excerpts
Public water supplies in 42 U.S. states are contaminated with 141 unregulated
chemicals for which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has never established
safety standards, according to an investigation by the Environmental Working
Group (EWG). According to a report by the EWG, the top 10 states with
the most contaminants in their drinking water were California, Wisconsin,
Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, New York, Nevada, Pennsylvania
and Illinois—in that order. You can begin to see how important a good
water filtration system can be.
What's in That Bottle?
Evocative names and labels depicting pastoral scenes have convinced us
that the liquid is the purest drink around. "But no one should think that
bottled water is better regulated, better protected or safer than tap,"
says Eric Goldstein, co-director of the urban program at the Natural Resources
Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit organization devoted to protecting health
and the environment.
Yes, some bottled water comes from sparkling springs and other pristine
sources. But more than 25 percent of it comes from a municipal supply. The
water is treated, purified and sold to us, often at a thousandfold increase
in price. Most people are surprised to learn that they're drinking glorified
tap water, but bottlers aren't required to list the source on the label.
Labels can be misleading at best, deceptive at worst. In one notorious
case, water coming from a well located near a hazardous waste site was sold
to many bottlers. At least one of these companies labeled its product "spring
water." In another case, H2O sold as "pure glacier water" came from a public
water system in Alaska.
Lisa Ledwidge, 38, of Minneapolis, stopped drinking bottled water a couple
of years ago, partly because she found out that many brands come from a
municipal supply. "You're spending more per gallon than you would on gasoline
for this thing that you can get out of the tap virtually for free," she
says. "I wondered, Why am I spending this money while complaining about
how much gas costs? But you don't ever hear anyone complain about the price
of bottled water." Ledwidge says she now drinks only filtered tap water.
(Janet Majeski Jemmott - Readers Digest)
Make Your Own High-Grade-Filtered
Ionized Alkaline Drinking Water!
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