Water: Don’t Drink, Shower, Bathe, or Swim until you read this!

If you care about your microbes (and you need to!) then don’t drink municipal water!

I have spent more than 20 years teaching lacto-fermentation as “The Lacto-fermentation Queen”, and for the last 8 years or so, as “The GAPS Chef™”. This is to say that I have spent many years of my life letting people know about the importance of including beneficial microbes in their diet. I encouraged people to grow their own beneficial bacteria (lacto-bacilli) and yeast, and to eat and drink them – years before it was popular to do so. These days, I suggest everyone include beneficial microbes in their diets – as lacto-fermented vegetables, fruits, and tonics, and long cultured, homemade raw yogurt, kefir, and cultured cream. We spend a lot of time, money, and effort to build (or rebuild) our microbiome. And often, we compromise it by simply by the water we drink.

Where is this water that kills off our beneficial microbes? It comes out of the tap in the kitchen, (unless you have a water filter or a well with clean water). It is the water you drink, the water with which you cook. Go to restaurants? It is in that water pitcher with ice! (It is also not a good idea to drink ice water when eating.) Best to refrain from drinking water at restaurants or order a bottle of mineral water.

Drinking Water – Hydration or Disruption?

Depending on where our drinking water comes from can mean either hydration for our cells or disruption of our microbes.

Hydrating water is structured water. That means it is water that bubbled up from a natural spring, or it is water that you have structured with a structuring bottle (a Flaska is my favorite) or a wand (the Analemma Wand can structure a gallon or more at a time). There are other ways of structuring water, like biodynamic flow forms for gardens, and more. You can learn more about structured water from Viktor Schauberger, Living Water and the Secrets of Natural Energy and more recently, Gerald Pollack in his book, The Fourth Phase of Water, Beyond Solid, Liquid, and Vapor. (He will also be speaking again this year at the annual conference of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Wise Traditions. Find out more here.

Water that comes from your tap (unless you have a well) is municipal water. All municipal water in the U.S. is treated with chemicals to for the purpose of killing microbes. All of those chemicals (chlorine and chloramine are two of them) are toxic to the microbes in your body. They will kill them. Therefore, those chemicals must be filtered out before you drink that water or use it for cooking. There are many kinds of water filters available; it is very important that you purchase one that filters out PFAs, (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances known as “forever chemicals” because they are persistent in the environment and can accumulate in the body). Curious about which chemicals may be in your tap water? Check the Tap Water Database, courtesy of the Environmental Working Group: https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/ . Once you have decided to look into water filters for your kitchen, check out this article: https://www.ewg.org/research/getting-forever-chemicals-out-drinking-water-ewgs-guide-pfas-water-filters. For whole house filters, check with Radiant Life online.

No Plastic Bottles!

Speaking of the water you drink, if you are going to purchase bottled water, be sure it is in glass. Plastic bottles have their own problems beyond BPA – phthalates which are disruptive to the endocrine system. My favorite bottled water? San Pellegrino, Gerolsteiner, Mountain Valley Spring Water. I raise my mineral water to you and say “Salud! To your health!”

Bath Water – Cleansing or Detrimental?

Putting your child in a detox bath? Taking a leisurely soak in Epsom salts or Dead Sea salts? Be sure you have filtered the water going into the bathtub before getting in (see the tap water database link above). If not, your skin will absorb the chemicals that are coming out of the faucet into the tub. Instead of detoxing, you will be “toxing” (or “re-toxing”)! This goes for showers, too! Not only will your body absorb the chemicals in the water, but these chemicals will also kill the beneficial microbes on your skin and scalp.

If you don’t have a whole house water filter, there are good bath filters (bath balls) and shower filters that are inexpensive and will do the job. See the Resources page on my website, here: https://simplybeingwell.com/emfs-water-resources. Of course, there are high end shower filters, too, like the Aquadea Venus Rose and the Aquadea LifePower Larimar 6, which are hand manufactured Crystal-Vortex-Showers and Crystal-Water-Vortices from Upper Bavaria in Germany.

Swimming in Chlorinated Pools?

Need I say more? Not only are you swimming in chlorine (with the same effect as noted in the bath water section above), but there is chlorine gas that you breathe in when you swim, which can affect your lungs and their microbes! And how many children and adults gulp pool water when swimming or diving? Chlorine “down the hatch”!

If you would like to swim, perhaps there is a salt pool in your area. Or best - go “natural” – swim in lakes, rivers, and the ocean. Each of these waters have their own benefits and gifts for you.