What’s In Your Water?

About a year ago I resolved to make water my drink of choice and wean myself off soda and juice. This isn’t my first time at the rodeo with this particular struggle. I didn’t grow up drinking water. We always had soft drinks in the house — sodas, juices, lemonade, iced tea. I only drank water when there was nothing else around. However, this time I had a few new tools in my repertoire. Being a new devotee to the Law of Attraction, I focused on what I wanted. I bookmarked web sites, read books, news articles, etc.

I bought a water bottle and carried it to work with me. I stopped buying sodas and allowed myself one glass of juice in the morning. I thought I had removed all the barriers to drinking water. I seemed to finally have this water thing whipped. For several weeks things went as planned, then I noticed the taste of the water changed. It smelled and tasted strongly of chlorine.

Our local newspaper carried a story about a child that had gotten lead poisoning from drinking the water. The water utility responded by dumping chlorine among other things, into the water. Besides tasting awful, it was wrecking my body. My skin felt like sandpaper and my hair was bone dry. No moisturizers or conditioners seemed to help. Undaunted, I bought water filters. They helped somewhat but the problem didn’t go away.

This is when I got discouraged. All my planning and resolve seemed for naught. Once again circumstances were working against my resolve. For a month or so I drifted back into my old habits. My weight went up accordingly, and mild depression set in. I needed a bridge — a holistic methadone so to speak. I found a company that sold natural flavorings for water and bought some. That helped, but I remembered from all my research that chlorine and fluoride weren’t good for you. I went back into research mode and what I found was pretty disturbing.

The most common chemicals water utilities add to the public water source are fluoride and chlorine. Fluoride is added to toothpaste and mouthwash to fight tooth decay;  however, ingestion of too much fluoride causes dental fluorosis. Dental fluorosis causes brittle, discolored tooth enamel. Also, there are studies dating back to the 1950s showing a link between fluoride and Down’s Syndrome.

As for chlorine, I had a close encounter with chlorine many years ago. In a former lifetime (it seems) I was in the Army. I spent 6 months in Honduras and the Army, being overzealous, dumped copious amounts of chlorine into our drinking water. The chlorine killed the bacteria and damn near killed me too. I ended up in the hospital with severe diarrhea and dehydration for about 10 days.

So, what to do? I bit the bullet. Right now I’m having my drinking water delivered. I’m still looking for a suitable filter for the bathroom as my hair and skin haven’t quite recovered, so if you know of a good one let me know. I do feel good about my resolve to drink water though.

What’s your opinion on this?