Do not waste money on expensive bottled water! Make your own filtered water
for only pennies a gallon. Optimum Choices offers countertop water filters from
BigBerkey,
one of the highest-quality, yet affordable, water filters
on the market. We personally use a Berkey filter in our home. To learn why,
click the green
[Berkey Water Filters]
button below.
Click the
BigBerkey button
below to learn directly from the manufacturer how you can get affordable pure drinking water
in your home.
by Margaret Auld-Louie
Many
people are aware now of the health risks of drinking tap water
so they drink bottled or filtered water. But what about our
pets? How many of us feed our pets a super premium pet food or
natural raw diet, yet fill their water bowl with tap water? Even
holistically-oriented people often provide tap water for their
pets, either not realizing the health impact or figuring that
bottled water would be too expensive. Yet we have heard of cases
from holistic vets where pets got better when switched from tap
to bottled or filtered water, particularly with conditions
affecting the urinary tract system. So there are very real
health benefits to providing healthier water for our pets.
Healthy water for our pets is not just a fad, despite the
companies producing flavored bottled waters for dogs.
The health benefits of drinking bottled or filtered water are
very real, for both people and pets. Tap water is generally
disinfected using chlorine, which not only tastes unpleasant but
leads to the production of trihalomethanes
(THMs), a class of
organic compounds formed when chlorine interacts with organic
substances in the water. THMs can have bad health effects such
as increasing the risk of certain cancers and possibly causing
adverse reproductive outcomes. There are also thousands of
synthetic organic chemicals that can contaminate water, yet
water treatment facilities typically only test for about 150 or
so. Some of these chemicals may cause hormonal disruptions. Most
laboratory tests of the effects of these chemicals are done
using a single chemical, but there may be several organic
contaminants together in a water source. Scientists are just
beginning to realize that exposure to multiple organic chemicals
seems to increase the risk of health problems much more than any
of the chemicals would separately. For more details,
see this page on the Environmental Working Group (EWG)
website. The EWG reports that of the 260 contaminants found in
the nation's tap water, more than half have no safety standards.
For more information, see the EWG's:
Is Your Drinking Water Safe?. Pathogens such as
Cryptosporidia and Giardia sometimes get through water treatment
facilities, since they can be hard to kill. Once the water
reaches our house, lead can leach into the water from lead pipes
or copper pipes with lead solder. Even small amounts of lead can
cause neurological problems. Our pets and children are at more
risk of lead poisoning because of their smaller size as well as
the fact that they have more exposure to environmental lead from
contaminated floors and ground. If you want to find out
specifically what is in your water, contact your water company
for an analysis.
Since tap water can contain substances that are known to
cause hormonal disruption and cancer, could giving our dogs tap
water be one factor in the high incidence of cancer and
hypothyroidism seen? There will probably never be a study funded
to prove this (who would pay for it?) but it makes sense to
provide our pets with not only healthy food but healthy water as
well.
Bottled
water is by far the most expensive way to buy water, as
well as
not always guaranteeing the quality of it, so we don't
suggest giving bottled water to your pets. In numerous cases,
bottled water is simply repackaged tap water. And then there is
the problem of the bottle itself. The bottles are usually
plastic and some of that plastic leaches into the water. Most
people prefer the hard, clear polycarbonate plastic bottles,
since they don't leach plastic taste into the water. These are
the plastic 5-gallon water bottles in common use in office water
coolers and at health food stores, as well as the hard, clear
1 quart Nalgene water bottles used by outdoor enthusiasts.
You will find a number 7 recycling code on the bottom of these
bottles. Unfortunately, this plastic is now known to be the most
dangerous plastic healthwise for storing water. In 1998 it was
discovered that polycarbonate bottles leach the chemical
bisphenol-A, an estrogen-like hormone disruptor into the water.
Some recent studies of bisphenol-A (BPA) have found:
- BPA can cause insulin resistance in mice. Insulin
resistance in people leads to Type II diabetes and
congestive heart failure. The exposure levels used were
within the range that people experience regularly.
- Levels are higher in women with a history of repeated
spontaneous miscarriages
- BPA alters development of the reproductive tract, the
immune system, increases prostate tumor proliferation,
changes brain chemistry and structure and affects an array
of behaviors, including hyperactivity.
- BPA causes changes in brain structure and behavior in
rats.
- Exposures to 1/5th the level considered safe are
sufficient to alter maternal behavior in mice, including
reductions in time spent nursing, increases in time resting
away from offspring, and increases in time spent out of the
nest.
- BPA induces changes in mouse mammary tissue that
resemble early stages mouse and human of breast cancer
- BPA lowers sperm count in adult rats even at extremely
low levels
- Metabolic differences between rats and humans probably
mean that humans are more sensitive to BPA than are rats
- BPA speeds the pace of sexual development in mice, and
causes mice to be obese
For more study details, see:
www.ourstolenfuture.org/NewScience/oncompounds/bisphenola/bpauses.htm
Consumer Reports, who is quite conservative in their health
pronouncements, is now recommending that people avoid using
polycarbonate bottles for water or baby formula. A safer plastic
for storing water is the #1 plastic used in the small bottled
waters sold everywhere--supermarkets, health food stores,
restaurants, convenience stores, vending machines, etc. However,
this plastic quickly breaks down so it is not recommended to
reuse these bottles, as some people do. And if you were to buy
all your water in these little bottles, the cost per gallon
would be extremely high. So people often go to the health food
store to fill up their 5 gallon polycarbonate bottle. This can
cost as little as 25 cents per gallon, however you have the time
and hassle of going to the store to get water and lugging around
heavy bottles, plus you are exposed to the toxic bisphenol-A
chemical that leaches from polycarbonate. The only other
alternative for a 5 gallon bottle is glass, but those are
extremely heavy when filled. I once dropped a glass bottle on
our pottery water dispenser when trying to replace a bottle,
breaking the dispenser.
Since there is no lightweight, safe large plastic bottle on
the market, how can you get healthy water for a reasonable cost?
Some people buy water distillers so they can distill their own
water and avoid having to buy bottled water. We did this years
ago ourselves but have since learned that distilling does not
remove all the contaminants in the water, while it does remove
the beneficial minerals such as calcium, magnesium and iron. It
is also quite an expensive method of purifying water when you
factor in the cost of electricity to run the distiller, and it
creates a lot of waste water as a byproduct. Finally, distilling
water creates a lot of steam in your home, which then encourages
mold to grow (and mold can be toxic). We periodically had to
scrub mold off the walls and door of the room our distiller was
in. Since we live in a dry climate (Colorado), the mold did not
come back when we stopped using the distiller. But in a damp
climate, this could have led to a permanent population of toxic
mold in our house. And who knows what volatile chemicals could
be in that steam that you are breathing in from the distiller?
We suggest purchasing a good quality solid block activated
carbon (SBAC) filter and filtering your water, instead of
distilling or buying bottled water. Not only does this eliminate
the use of polycarbonate bottles but you can be assured of good
water quality if you buy a high quality filtering system. Also,
the cost per gallon (typically under 10 cents per gallon) is
lower than buying bottled water or distilling your own water, so
the filter pays for itself over time. It is important to select
a solid block carbon system, not granulated. While granulated
may cost less, problems with this technology include periodic
dumping of contaminants, bacteria breeding in the filter (and
not being filtered out because of the large pore size) and water
creating channels around the carbon granules and failing to be
filtered. These problems do not occur with SBAC filters. Some
people buy the cheap pitcher or faucet mount filters that have a
low initial cost, however the cost of the replacement filters
over time will make the long-term cost higher than if you
purchased a larger, high-quality SBAC filter. It's the same
concept as buying a cheap inkjet printer and then paying a lot
of money for the refill cartridges (on a cost per page basis)
versus buying a more expensive laser printer and having a lower
cost per page. Also, the cheaper filters are usually granulated
carbon and therefore remove far fewer contaminants than a
high-quality SBAC filter. If there are some contaminants in your
water that are not removed by carbon filters, then you can add a
reverse osmosis filter to the system which will remove all
minerals and metals. Another advantage of filtering your water
is that the purified water is conveniently available at the sink
for washing vegetables and cooking, as well as drinking.
When
you need to transport your filtered water, what should you put
it in, since polycarbonate is bad? According to an
article by Seventh Generation, "better options include
polypropylene (#5 PP), high density polyethylene (#2 HDPE), and
low density polyethylene (#4 LDPE). No evidence has been found
to suggest that these plastics leach toxic materials. Scientists
advise against the repeated use of plastic water bottles made
from plastic type #1 PETE as there is evidence to suggest that
such bottles leach a compound known as DEHA, which is classified
by the EPA as a possible human carcinogen, as well as
acetaldehyde, which has received the same designation from the
International Agency for Research on Cancer." Or if weight is
not a consideration, you can use small glass or stainless steel
bottles.
Once you switch to filtered water, it becomes affordable to
provide healthy water for your pet. Just fill their water dish
with the same fresh, filtered water you drink. We suggest using
glass or stainless steel water dishes, rather than plastic, to
reduce bacterial contamination and leaching of plastic into
water. Glass water dishes are ideal, since they are
energy-neutral, but there is the risk of breakage, in which case
you may prefer stainless steel. Now you and your pets will reap
the benefits of drinking healthy water without breaking your
budget!
Click the
BigBerkey button below to learn directly from the manufacturer how you can get affordable pure drinking water
in your home.
Click here to purchase
Berkey Water Filter
