Drinking Water and Health
I won't insult anyone's intelligence by going on about how much we need water to live.
Most of us are aware that when it comes to knowing how to stay healthy, drinking plenty of water comes very high on the agenda.
Maintaining the correct level of hydration is very important for our health and we do that by drinking liquids throughout the day.
This is also an important factor in our being able to digest our food properly, when eating a healthy diet.
But there is a serious question that we must ask ourselves each time we go to take a drink of that life giving liquid.
Is is really as safe to drink as we think it is?
So how clean and healthy do you believe your drinking water is that comes out of your tap?
Mostly Clean to Drink
Well, for most countries in the Western world it is surprisingly clean.
While it is recommended to drink plenty of plain water as part of a healthy diet, it is not without a few additions that you might not like to hear about. If you do, read on!
Most drinking water passed through a filtration system that takes out most of the nasties. However, depending upon where you live, there can still be more or less of the things you don't want in that water.
I'm not going to get country specific as they all differ to a greater or lesser extent, but some things are common, such as the addition of chlorine to kill harmful bacteria that gets through the filtration system.
Mostly chlorine is present but in low enough measures as not to present any problems, but in some places that level is quite high, especially in warmer climates where certain bacteria can multiply faster.
Impurities
Then the chlorine itself can become a health problem and when mixed with fluorine and certain other contaminates such as particulates of heavy metals has been linked with the big C (cancer).
There is also a growing fear that the heavy use of those good old pesticides by over zealous farmers is causing the residues to leach through the soil into the water table below. They and chemical fertilizer residues already pollute many rivers, often those that act as many a city's source of drinking water.
So next time you take a glass of water from the tap and raise it to your lips, bear in mind that while it is most often safe to drink, it's not always as safe as you might like it to be...
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