Is tap water really safe?

Water is my favourite beverage. Since I was a child I've loved the taste of it over and above anything sweet or fizzy. Water is the only thing that has ever really quenched my thirst. After a day of running around in the garden, playing with my siblings, my greatest pleasure was to turn on the kitchen tap, put my head under it and just gulp down as much water as my stomach could handle without bursting. Somehow it tasted better that way and eased my thirst faster! Of course, my mom didn't approve and, these days, I understand why. I also do my best not to waste water now that I'm all grown up;)

As a child, life was all about living in the moment. As an adult, too much knowledge has made me let go of that simple, but expensive, pleasure. Now that I know that running a tap for a long time is wasting a valuable resource, I keep a bucket next to the kitchen sink and anytime I need to run the tap, I put the bucket under it to catch the overflow and use it to water my plants, fill the steamer, boil eggs etc (you get the picture)

I also haven't actually drunk plain tap water for a long time. The reason is simply because, as clean as Rand Water say their water is, I still don't consider it clean enough. If you go to their website you can download a PDF file of a water analysis in your area. It's very thorough. They give you everything from chemical properties to microbiological elements. It's a little alarming what you actually find in tap water. It may be in small amounts but, considering how much we use the stuff, be it to drink, or to cook with or to bath or shower in, you want it to be as clean as possible!

Listed under micro elements, you find things like Arsenic, Mercury, Lead and Cyanide. Trace elements of all of these are found in our water. Granted, they are within compliance levels but I find it a little scary that they allow even a little of these toxins in. Under microbiological they have E. Coli. That little nasty DEFINITELY shouldn't be in our water and yet, if you download Johannesburg's water analysis for July 2011, they were only 97% compliant which means they didn't quite make it. AND the compliance level still allows for SOME anyway so there are definitely more traces than there should have been of E. Coli in Johannesburg's water.

Something else that is present in our water, and is a necessary evil because it destroys bacteria and other organisms we DON'T want to ingest, is chlorine. Without chlorine in our water, we'd end up being very, very ill. It's ironic because, WITH chlorine, we also end up being very, very ill, just in a different way. Here's what happens when chlorine is added to water: it forms Trihalomethanes (THMs), one of which is chloroform (you'll be familiar with that if you have watched any movies that involve kidnapping!) THMs increase the production of free radicals in the body and are highly carcinogenic, which means cancer causing.

Chlorine and THMS have been linked to various types of cancer, kidney and liver damage, immune system malfunction, nervous system disorders, hardening of the arteries, and even birth defects. Cancer risk is 93% higher in those who drink chlorinated water than in those who don't and women with breast cancer have 50-60% higher levels of THMs in their body tissue than women without breast cancer. Chlorine is a poison. Just because we use levels that DON'T kill a human, when we clean our pools and disinfect our water, doesn't make it any less a poison. There is such a thing as slow-poisoning and that is what a lot of people are suffering from. You can imagine the effect that chlorine has on swimmers who are exposed to it daily. They are at a higher risk for cancer and many of them end up suffering from asthma as a direct result of over exposure to chlorine as well.

The scary thing about chlorine is that it is toxic enough to be used as a chemical weapon. I'm sure some of you have experienced that chlorine burn while cleaning your pool, or swimming in a pool that contains too much chlorine, or breathing in too much? Imagine that on a larger scale. No question, it could be a very effective chemical weapon. Inhaling chlorine can cause difficulty breathing, chest pains, coughing, eye irritation, increased heartbeat, rapid breathing, and death.

If you were to pour a glass of water and leave it on the counter for 24hrs, the chlorine would evaporate out of it. That's a good thing, and a bad thing. Good because it means you can safely drink that glass of water and not ingest any chlorine. What's bad about that is, when you are showering or lying in a hot bath, you may not be aware of it but you are breathing in chlorine as it evaporates. It's pretty much impossible to completely escape it unless you install rainwater tanks in your garden and only use that water. Not all of us have that, yet.

If you have a water filter system installed in your house, lucky you! It makes your life easier. However, some people are not as lucky. I'm still waiting for ours;) In the meantime, I needed a way to get rid of all the nasties in the water I drank, and cooked with until I can get a water filter. My solution? I boil all the water I drink. Boiling water destroys everything bad in the water, including the chlorine. It sounds like work, and, maybe it takes a LITTLE extra time, but I don't really notice it. Over time I have collected 1 litre glass water bottles from restaurants or shops and once a day I boil the kettle, fill them up, and put them in the fridge so that anytime I need water, it's on hand. I also have a bobble for the days when I am out and about.

In case you didn't know about these, they are water bottles that are small enough to carry around in your handbag (or manbag), that contain a filter. That means you can fill it up anywhere, and drink, knowing that the water you are drinking is clean.

There is ONE problem with only drinking boiled water, and filtered water all the time and that is that you are basically drinking dead water. Water has a lot of minerals in it that our bodies need to keep hydrated. Drinking water without minerals WILL dehydrate you very quickly. So now what Mel?! Well, all you need to do is put the minerals back into your clean water. How do you that? 

By now I HOPE you have some good quality salt in your kitchen. If you don't, read this post and go and buy yourself some! THEN, you put about 4 tablespoons of that salt into a glass jar and fill the jar with filtered, or boiled water. Don't worry about mixing it. Put the lid on and put it in the fridge and leave it for a few days. What you will end up with is a saline solution or brine. You'll see, at the bottom of the jar, some sediment from the salt, because it is a saturated solution and can't absorb any more salt. That's fine. That's what you want. A saturated salt solution.

Get yourself a dropper. I was lucky enough to already have a little glass bottle and dropper so I just washed them and filled the bottle with the brine solution. The rest is easy. When you take out a bottle of water to drink, take your dropper and add about 10-15 drops of brine to your drinking water. Hey presto, you have just re-mineralised and revitalised your dead water:) I always add the drops when the water is cool because heat tends to destroy most things.

So that's how you can still drink tap water, while making sure it's good for you. The longterm benefits of this are unmeasurable. Cutting chlorine, and all those other nasty things, out of your life will benefit you hugely.

Bottoms up!