Raw Living Foods Lifestyle Training - chiDiet.net

Conservation of Water Resources

There are many simple things we can do at home and at work to reduce our consumption of water. Here are 10 of the 100 smart water-saving tips from Water: Use Less, Save More:

1. If you are making a hot drink, fill the kettle with only as much water as you need. You will save energy as well as water.

2. Garbage disposals use a considerable amount of water. Start composting—put vegetable scraps in your compost bin.

3. Use a bowl to wash vegetables or to wash and rinse plates.

4. Don’t keep the tap running when cleaning your teeth.

5. While waiting for shower water to run hot, collect the cold water and use it on your plants.

6. Have a five-minute shower instead of a bath—and save 30 gallons of water.

7. Attach a hose to your washing machine outlet pipe. Collect the used water when the machine is discharging and use it to water the garden.

8. Use a rain barrel to collect the rainwater from your roof rather than using treated drinking water on your garden.

9. Make sure everyone in your home knows where the main water valve is and how to work it. Use it to turn the water off if you have a leak.

10. Keep the telephone number of a plumber handy for emergencies.

Committed to Raising Consciousness,

Dorit, Raw Lifestyle Film Festival Creator and Organizer
Book, Celebrating Our Raw Nature 1 & 2
http://www.serenityspaces.org
 

Water and You

We all know that water is important but I've never see it written down like this before:

• 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated.
• In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger.
• Even MILD dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as much as 3%.
• One glass of water shuts down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a U-Washington study.
• Lack of water is the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.
• Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.
• A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.
• Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.

Are you drinking the amount of water you should every day?

Bottled water and snake oil

SO THE emperor really isn’t wearing any clothes. Last week PepsiCo announced that the label on its Aquafina brand of bottled water will soon carry the words “public water source”, instead of simply the innocent looking “P.W.S.”. That’s right: Aquafina is to all intents and purposes tap water. Coca-Cola is under pressure to follow suit with its Dasani brand, though so far it is refusing to do so. “We don’t believe that consumers are confused about the source of Dasani water,” Diana Garza Ciarlante, a Coca-Cola spokeswoman, said. “The label clearly states that it is purified water.”

No doubt Coca-Cola still remembers what happened in Britain in 2004, when the press made a stink over the fact that Dasani was simply filtered tap water. The company became a laughing stock, as readers were reminded of an episode of a popular TV comedy, “Only Fools and Horses”. In it Del Boy, a decidedly dodgy businessman, decides to bottle tap water, selling it as “Peckham Spring”, named after the unprepossessing inner-London borough. No sooner had the initial furore died down than Coca-Cola discovered that some of the water had been contaminated betwixt tap and bottle, and decided to admit defeat. Dasani was axed in Britain a mere five weeks after it was launched.

Will Pepsi’s new label have a similarly disastrous impact on sales of Aquafina, which is now the market leader in bottled waters in America? It is by no means inevitable.

The success of bottled water is in many ways one of capitalism’s greatest mysteries. Studies show consistently that tap water is purer than many bottled waters - not including those that contain only tap water, which by some estimates is 40% of the total by volume. The health benefits that are claimed for some bottled waters are unproven, at best. By volume, bottled water often costs 1,000 times the price of tap water. Indeed, even with oil prices sky high, a litre of bottled water can cost more than a litre of petrol. And on top of that, there are the environmental costs of transporting bottled water and of manufacturing and disposing of the bottles.

Yet sales of bottled water have been booming. In 2006 Americans spent nearly $11 billion buying 8.25 billion gallons (31.2 billion litres) of the stuff, an increase in volume of 9.5% on a year earlier. The average American drank 27.6 gallons of bottled water last year, up from 16.7 gallons in 2000.

Quite a business model. In Britain, despite the failure of Dasani, sales of bottled water have soared from 990m litres in 1998 to 2.28 billion litres in 2006 - worth $3.3 billion and accounting for 15% of the total soft-drinks market. Its share is forecast to rise to 21% next year.

Moreover, drinks companies are betting heavily on the future growth of bottled water, including popular new varieties with added “healthy” ingredients. In May Coca-Cola paid $4.1 billion for Glaceau, the company that makes vitamin water.

To many, all this is the ultimate proof that consumers are daft and easily manipulated by retailers to buy things they don’t need. Indeed, a campaign, “Think Outside the Bottle”, is now under way in America, aiming to wean the public off bottled water. It is winning influential converts. Having successfully popularised gay marriage, San Francisco’s charismatic young mayor, Gavin Newsom, is now trying to achieve the opposite impact on bottled water: his ban on the use of city funds to buy the stuff took effect on July 1st. Other mayors are starting to follow his lead.

Even so, there may be good, rational reasons for the popularity of bottled water. It is convenient, much more portable than a tap. Also, some consumers suspect, perhaps correctly, that there is a “last mile” problem with tap water. It may be pure as driven snow when it is tested at the plant, but is it still so virginal once it has passed through old pipes in homes and offices?

Above all, consumers may be buying bottled water because they believe it is fundamentally safer, less likely than tap water to become contaminated - a growing worry nowadays, thanks to terrorists. And, if it is contaminated, that contamination is likely to be spotted and neutralised faster and more effectively by a bottler than by government regulators or a water utility.

The contaminated Dasani water in Britain brought bad publicity, but the dirty water never reached the public. Likewise, the impressive way that Perrier handled its benzene contamination scare in 1990 - immediately recalling its entire output of bottles - is a case study in how to manage such a problem.

Perhaps the popularity of bottled water is an indictment of the waste inherent in capitalism. On the other hand, maybe it is testimony to the good job that capitalism, in the form of bottled-water producers, has done in developing quality controls and safety protections that are more reassuring than those put in place by our governments and regulated utilities. The difference may be small—but big enough to get those who can afford it to pay a substantial premium for what is, after all, the stuff of life.

from The Economist. Emphasis added: http://www.economist.com/research/articlesbysubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933600&story_id=9569968

Harvesting rainwater

By Melissa Breyer, Producer, Care2 Green Living.

When I was young we used to hightail it outside, clanging pots in hand, at the first whisper of a summer storm. It was our firm belief that shampooing with rainwater imbued our hair with magic. Girlhood diversions aside, the truth is that harvesting rainwater may be more important than we realize; here we give you the rundown on collecting rain and why it’s so important.

SIMPLE SOLUTION:  According to the UN, 20 percent of the world's population in 30 countries face water shortages. This number is expected to rise dramatically by 2025. Although water is something that many of us take for granted, 1.2 billion people don’t have access to safe drinking water. And consider this: While the average American individual uses between 100 and 176 gallons each day, the average African family uses only 5 gallons.

Fresh water from underground aquifers is finite—there is only so much of it, and because of pollution and the rate at which it is being extracted…well, the word “crisis” comes to mind for many. However, rainwater is considered a renewable natural resource. And while domestic potable water collection requires effort, energy, and chemicals for purification and transport, rainwater conserves natural resources, is free of chemicals, and is delivered without challenging the environment.

The easiest way to collect rainwater is with rain barrels, and harvested rainwater is great for your lawn, garden and houseplants. Especially in the summer months, many of us have intense heat accentuated with brief yet heavy summer storms—with a dry ground much of that water simply runs off.

By setting a rain barrel beneath your downspout you'll have a free supply of water for your landscaping. Wooden barrels provide rustic charm, but plastic ones are more widely available. You can buy ready-made rain barrels (check with your water company or municipality, first, as many provide them free of charge or at a reduced price). Alternatively, there are many websites that provide instructions on how to build your own. You may not be ready to make the commitment to a more permanent system—but you can always start out by placing plain buckets underneath your downspouts…just to get your feet wet.
Use a lid to minimize evaporation and to keep out debris and mosquitoes. A hose fitting will give you easy access to the collected water, and a diverter lets you switch back to the downspout, or another barrel, should the rain barrel get full. Don't expect to be able to use a hose directly from your rain barrel; gravity probably won't give enough pressure to get water through it. Instead, use the hose fitting to conveniently fill a watering can or slow delivery containers.

If you have a garden or tool shed, heck, even a playhouse, why not attach a gutter and barrel there as well? If you have a collecting (or “catchment”) area of 1,000 square feet and an average annual rainfall of 20 inches, you have the potential to collect 24,000 gallons of water annually—the equivalent to the water 13 African families use in a year.

-----------------------------------------------

Hi there,

I really appreciate this post. Just one thought ... you write:

• "And while domestic potable water collection requires effort, energy, and chemicals for purification and transport, rainwater conserves natural resources, is free of chemicals, and is delivered without challenging the environment."

Rain water is not chemical-free, nor has it been for many years now. Think "acid rain." We CAN capture and conserve water. We cannot reasonably assert the condition of that water without examining the water itself.

Also, plastic barrels themselves pollute the captured water--severely, in some cases.

Best,
Elchanan

[This article came from http://serenityspaces.org/. Thanks, Dorit!]

[Personally, I trust rainwater more than city water. Plastizer contamination is also dependent upon the exposure time. - James]

What's in your bottled water?

EWG is about to embark on a new study about bottled water--where it comes from, how it's "purified," and if it's even worth the expense. A big part of this project is just compiling the data, so we need your help to gather information from the labels of whatever bottled water you have at hand.

To thank you for your time, we'll send you a free Pesticides in Produce wallet guide and fridge magnet if you're one of the first 1,000 people to enter your label. What do pesticide-free veggies have to do with bottled water? They're both EWG research projects that effect your family's health and might just save you a few dollars at the grocery store.

In order to help, we'd like for you to tell us:

What brand?
Where did you purchase it?
How much did you pay?
What type of container?
There are a few additional questions, and the whole process will only take a few minutes. If you're willing to go to your local store and record the information for several additional brands, even better!

If you'd like to help, please enter your label information here:

LINK: http://www.ewg.org/issues/bottledwater/

Just follow the instructions for the two-step process. We've included illustrations to help you find the information we need.

Thank you for your continued interest and support!

Sincerely,

Jane Houlihan
VP for Research
Environmental Working Group

More side-effects of chlorinated water

"One of our HRC clients discovered that the constant groin pain that had plagued him for years disappeared when he stopped using chlorinated water. He later found that he could turn the pain on and off by switching from spring to tap water. I have noticed that allergic people don't feel well when they drink city water treated with chorine and other chemicals."

[See the chapter Be Your Own Detective: The Elimination Diet at:  http://204.147.80.67/~brecovery/biochemical_traps.html#anchor268648.

- thans to Helen Terry

Global water crisis intensifies

According to United Nations figures, 2.6 billion people consume unsafe and polluted water every day. As the population blooms, the issue of access to fresh water is literally one of life or death. The Financial Times pointed out some interesting facts about everyday water consumption:

It takes 53 liters of water to produce one orange.
1 pint of milk: 250 liters
1 egg: 450 liters
1kg of potatoes: 500 liters
1 loaf of bread: 550 liters
1 kg of butter: 18,000 liters
1kg of wool: 200,000 liters
1 car: 150,000 liters

http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_1593.cfm

The many ways the government protects the bottled water business

Bottled water may not be all it is cracked up to be. The bottled water industry currently has annual sales amounting to over $35 billion worldwide, and is the fastest-growing segment of the beverage industry.

Bottled water is often perceived as safer than tap water. But in fact, tap water often adheres to stricter purity standards than bottled water, and 40 percent of bottled water actually begins as tap water in any case: http://www.mercola.com/2006/aug/1/the_many_ways_the_government_protects_the_business_of_bottled_water.htm.

The amazing benefits of drinking water

1. Water prevents and cures heartburn.
Heartburn is a signal of water shortage in the upper part of the gastrointestinal tract. It is a major thirst signal of the human body. The use of antacids or tablet medications in the treatment of this pain does not correct dehydration, and the body continues to suffer as a result of its water shortage.

Tragedy: Not recognizing heartburn as a sign of dehydration and treating it with antacids and pill medications will, in time, produce inflammation of the stomach and duodenum, hiatal hernia, ulceration, and eventually cancers in the gastrointestinal tract, including the liver and pancreas.

2. Water prevents and cures arthritis.
Rheumatoid joint pain - arthritis - is a signal of water shortage in the painful joint. It can affect the young as well as the old. The use of pain-killers does not cure the problem, but exposes the person to further damage from pain medications. Intake of water and small amounts of salt will cure this problem.

3. Water prevents and cures back pain.
Low back pain and ankylosing arthritis of the spine are signs of water shortage in the spinal column and discs - the water cushions that support the weight of the body. These conditions should be treated with increased water intake - not a commercial treatment, but a very effective one.

Tragedy: Not recognizing arthritis and low back pain as signs of dehydration in the joint cavities and treating them with pain-killers, manipulation, acupuncture, and eventually surgery will, in time, produce osteoarthritis when the cartilage cells in the joints have eventually all died. It will produce deformity of the spine. It will produce crippling deformities of the limbs. Pain medications have their own life-threatening complications.

4. Water prevents and cures angina.
Heart pain - angina - is a sign of water shortage in the heart/lung axis. It should be treated with increased water intake until the patient is free of pain and independent of medications. Medical supervision is prudent. However, increased water intake is angina's cure.

5. Water prevents and cures migraines.
Migraine headache is a sign of water needed by the brain and the eyes. It will totally clear up if dehydration is prevented from establishing in the body. The type of dehydration that causes migraine might eventually cause inflammation of the back of the eye and possibly loss of eye sight.

6. Water prevents and cures colitis.
Colitis pain is a signal of water shortage in the large gut. It is associated with constipation because the large intestine constricts to squeeze the last drop of water from the excrements - thus the lack of water lubrication.

Tragedy: Not recognizing colitis pain as a sign of dehydration will cause persistent constipation. Later in life, it will cause fecal impacting: it can cause diverticulitis, hemorrhoids and polyps, and appreciably increases the possibility of developing cancer of the colon and rectum.

7: Water and salt prevent and cure asthma.
Asthma, which also affects 14 million children and kills several thousand of them every year, is a complication of dehydration in the body.

It is caused by the drought management programs of the body. In asthma free passage of air is obstructed so that water does not leave the body in the form of vapor - the winter steam. Increased water intake will prevent asthma attacks. Asthmatics need also to take more salt to break the mucus plugs in the lungs that obstruct the free flow of air in and out of the air sacs.

Tragedy: Not recognizing asthma as the indicator of dehydration in the body of a growing child not only will sentence many thousands of children to die every year, but will permit irreversible genetic damage to establish in the remaining 14 million asthmatic children.

8. Water prevents and cures high blood pressure.
Hypertension is a state of adaptation of the body to a generalized drought, when there is not enough water to fill all the blood vessels that diffuse water into vital cells.

As part of the mechanism of reverse osmosis, when water from the blood serum is filtered and injected into important cells through minute holes in their membranes, extra pressure is needed for the injection process. Just as we inject I.V. water in hospitals, so the body injects water into tens of trillions of cells all at the same time. Water and some salt intake will bring blood pressure back to normal!

Tragedy: Not recognizing hypertension as one of the major indicators of dehydration in the human body, and treating it with diuretics that further dehydrate the body will, in time, cause blockage by cholesterol of the heart arteries and the arteries that go to the brain. It will cause heart attacks and small or massive strokes that paralyze. It will eventually cause kidney disease. It will cause brain damage and neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease.

9. Water prevents and cures early adult-onset diabetes.
Adult-onset diabetes is another adaptive state to severe dehydration of the human body. To have adequate water in circulation and for the brain's priority water needs, the release of insulin is inhibited to prevent insulin from pushing water into all body cells. In diabetes, only some cells get survival rations of water. Water and some salt will reverse adult-onset diabetes in its early stages.

Tragedy: Not recognizing adult-onset diabetes as a complication of dehydration will, in time, cause massive damage to the blood vessels all over the body. It will cause eventual loss of the toes, feet and legs from gangrene. It will cause eye damage, even blindness.

10. Water lowers blood cholesterol.
High cholesterol levels are an indicator of early drought management by the body. Cholesterol is a clay-like material that is poured in the gaps of some cell membranes to safeguard them against losing their vital water content to the osmotically more powerful blood circulating in their vicinity. Cholesterol, apart from being used to manufacture nerve cell membranes and hormones, is also used as a shield against water taxation of other vital cells that would normally exchange water through their cell membranes.

11. Water cures depression, loss of libido, chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy.
These conditions are caused by prolonged chronic dehydration. They will clear up once the body becomes well and regularly hydrated. In these conditions, exercising one's muscles should be part of the treatment program.

Dr. Fereydoon Batmanghelidj, Your Body's Many Cries for Water

If you're thirsty, you're already dehydrated

“If you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated.” Ever heard that? Joint pain, low energy, frequent infections, constipation, asthma and many other health problems are caused by chronic dehydration. But how do you know if you’re getting enough water each day?

Doctors are fond of telling us that we need 8-10 glasses, 8 oz each, of water each day. But does that mean that a 250 lb. weightlifter needs the same amount of water as my 93-year-old grandmother? Another adage is that we take half our body weight (hmmm…. I could deal with having only half my body weight. <g>)… that is, take half our body weight, and drink that many ounces of water in a day. For me, that’s almost 100 oz.

OK, that makes sense. HOWEVER… I don’t know about you, but when I’m drinking that much water I’m afraid to leave home because I’m in and out of the bathroom all day long.

Here’s the advice of “The Wellness Advisor,” a Nutritionist magazine: “notice the color of your urine. It should be pale, straw-colored yellow. If your urine is a brighter or darker shade of yellow, that’s a tell-tale sign that you didn’t have enough water over the last few hours. Your kidneys, liver and colon are straining and you’re setting yourself up for disease.”

Now THAT makes sense to me. I’ve been following that advice for a week now, and it is SOOOOOooo nice to be able to visit Sprawl-Mart without touring the bathroom facilities! <g>  More important, I no longer feel guilty that I’m ruining my health by not drinking enough water. That feeling of guilt is what makes us give up striving for good health.

Have a Wonderful Week!
Jim Carey

Cancer-fighting nutrients become deadly when combined with chlorinated tap water

From Fulvica Bioscience
http://www.fulvic.com/healthalert/chlorine2.htm

Some of nature’s most valuable and essential anti-cancer and anti-disease phytochemical nutrients, which are commonly found in food, have been discovered to form deadly cancer causing substances when consumed or combined with chlorinated tap water. This discovery includes familiar foods including soy, fruits, vegetables, tea, many health products, and even some vitamins. Research has proven that these essential nutrients are the exact same families of compounds that - even in infinitesimal amounts - have been tormenting the water treatment and chlorine industries for years.

Recently a joint study was undertaken in Japan by research scientists at the National Institute of Health Sciences and Shizuoka Prefectural University. They determined that natural organic substances originating from foods, including fruits, soy, and green or black tea, react when tap water is chlorinated, forming dangerous cancer-causing compounds. These deadly compounds have been named MX, which stands for "unknown mutagen", and are similar to the already well-known and more easily detected cancer-causing THMs (trihalomethanes).

The Japanese scientists specifically mentioned that their studies show that MX is created by the reaction of chlorine with natural organic plant phytochemicals such as catechins, which are contained in tea, and flavonoids, which are found in fruit. Since Japan has an extremely high consumption of tea, fruits, and soy products, it is easy to see how high amounts of residues from these foods would end up in their wastewater treatment and water recycling systems.

Earlier studies by scientists in Finland in 1997 determined that MX is 170 times more deadly than other known toxic byproducts of chlorination, and was shown in laboratory studies to damage the thyroid gland, as well as cause cancerous tumors.

Flavins, flavonoids, flavones, tannins, catechins, quinones, isoflavones, tocopherols, etc.  are some of the most valuable and promising anti-cancer nutrients found in our foods and health supplements. Coenzyme Q10 is a quinone, vitamin B-2 is a flavin, vitamin E is a tocopherol, citrus bioflavonoids including hesperidin, quercetin, and rutin are all flavonoids, green tea contains catechins, phenols, tannins, and isoflavones. Potentially all of these substances, and many more, are implicated by chlorination.

To comply with EPA rulings, water treatment plants have had to develop special techniques to scrub organic residues from water prior to treatment with chlorine. There is nothing wrong with the organic substances themselves, it is chlorine that is at fault for turning them into the deadly THM and MX cancer cocktail. Reality is that the organic substances have been shown to be highly beneficial combined with pure drinking water in trace amounts.

The bottom line is this: when water treatment facilities remove these substances, they are throwing the precious baby out with the bath water, and the remnants that remain are turned into cancer causing agents by chlorination. To make things worse, it is certain that the fresh plant foods we eat similarly react with the chlorinated tap water we drink with our meals, creating toxins. This means that fresh fruits and vegetables, green salads, green tea, black tea, herb teas, soy products, vitamin pills and various health supplements, and even some pharmaceutical drugs, all can be implicated in combination with chlorinated water.

The deadly cancer causing agents which are produced are extremely toxic in infinitesimal amounts, so small and obscure that they are extremely difficult to detect. Very little chlorine is required. When the concentrations of phytochemicals are high, such as in concentrated health supplements, or even fruits and vegetables coming from more fertile soils, the deadly combination with chlorination intensifies.

It has been known by the water treatment and chemical industries for many years that chlorine reacts negatively with natural organic compounds. These industries call these compounds DBPs (disinfection by-products) which are known to cause cancer in populations whose drinking water contains them. THM, the most commonly known DBP, is known to cause a high incidence of bladder cancer and also to cause spontaneous abortion of fetuses.

The Environmental Protection Agency has continually tightened their restrictions on THMs in drinking water, and even tighter restrictions are just around the bend. Yet it is interesting to note that the many government agencies and chlorine industries have conveniently neglected to take a serious look at food, health supplement, and pharmaceutical drug consumption, preparation, and production relating to use of chlorinated tap water.

There is good reason for the public to seriously examine and question this entire issue. Many years ago laws were passed making chlorination of water mandatory. Now, the chlorine industry and government agencies must continue their existing policies, because if sudden or drastic changes are made, the legal liabilities would be staggering. Certainly some government or industry personnel have known or theorized about these problems and have been covering them up for many years. However, if anyone were to admit to it, the consequences could be disastrous. This predicament could make the tobacco industry scandal seem insignificant in comparison.

Another area needing thorough scrutiny relates to pharmaceutical drug safety studies normally performed on animals in the laboratory. It would be reasonable to surmise that good laboratory practices and procedures would require that such studies be performed using highly purified drinking water for animals. It would be reasonable to believe that drug companies would not take the chance of jeopardizing clinical studies using chlorinated tap water. Of course chlorinated tap water is a common denominator within the human environment. Educating people to the dangers of chlorine would be admitting to knowledge of the problem, which could invalidate past studies and certainly raise serious legal problems.

This whole chlorine issue should come as no real surprise to any biochemist. During the last century, chlorine has been combined with many other normally safe organic substances to form some of the most powerful deadly toxins known, such as dioxin, DDT, PCBs, etc. The bottom line is that the real culprit is chlorine, not the substances with which it reacts.

Although chlorine has essentially eliminated the risks of waterborne diseases such as typhoid fever, cholera and dysentery, there are many pathogens that are not controlled by chlorine. Other and better methods of water treatment exist. Many alternatives are already used throughout the world. Ever-tightening EPA regulations have forced the water supply industry in the USA to look into alternative methods for disinfecting water.

Chlorine will one day be exposed as a major cause and contributor to cancer and degenerative disease. Chlorine will also be found to be responsible for damaging the body’s immune and hormonal systems by mutating the food-based plant estrogens and phytochemicals that support those systems.

Sources:

RecerShizuokaPrefecturalUniversity, P; Water chlorine byproduct may be cancer risk; June 18, 1997; Associated Press.
Christman, RF; Kronberg, K; Singh, R; Ball, LM; Johnson, DJ; Report 259: Identification of Mutagenic By-products from Aquatic Humic Chlorination; North Carolina State University.
Rhomberg, L Ph.D.; Risk In Perspective: Are Chemicals In the Environment Disrupting Hormonal Control Of Growth and Development? April 1, 1996; Harvard Center for Risk Analysis.
Japanese data related to MX and the Shizuoka Prefectural University has been extracted from various abstracts published by the American Water Works Association (AWWA), and the National Institute of Health (NIH).
Plant phytochemicals and nutrient groups can be determined from information within the Organic Chemical Tables; Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society.
World Health Organization report.
British Department of the Environment report.

Storing water, plastics and dioxins

Urban legends surrounding plastics and carcinogens: http://www.snopes.com/toxins/plastic.htm

This is what Johns Hopkins has to say about dioxins and plastic water bottles:  http://www.jhsph.edu/PublicHealthNews/articles/Halden_dioxins.html I think the most important point of this article is to be aware of the source of the water. 

Joe Bassett of Toledo, Ohio, a member of the CHI Board of Trustees, is considered an expert in the Alternative Health field, having devoted over 30 years of study to it. Mr. Basset recalls that over one-third of the brands of bottled water on sale in Ohio had to be pulled from the shelves when the state passed a law requiring that bottled water meet the same minimum standards required of tap water in Ohio.

However, there IS mounting evidence of plastics causing or being connected to various forms cancer: http://www.procicaribe.org/oldproci/newsletters/apr01/news.htm,
http://bama.ua.edu/~cbrazel/CEN.htm,
http://www.agitprop.org.au/lefthistory/1988_gardener_cancer_and_agricultural_chemicals.php,
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1996/242/242p11.htm,
http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/~stacey/toxic.htm,
http://www.sensible-alternative.com.au/sensnews02.pdf,
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18302/story.htm.

The conclusion? Plastizers (plasticizers) do leach into water from plastics, and these plastizers are known to accumulate in the body, but no studies have been done on the long-term effects, therefore, the situation is allowed to exist and continue. 

Me, I’m storing my self-processed filtered water in glass.

Interesting facts about water

    Recently I talked about water and how much of it we should be drinking. Wow! Did I get feedback! Here are some of the related facts that people sent me:

75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. In 37% of Americans the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger. One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a University of Washington study.

Lack of water is the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue. Even MILD dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as much as 3%. A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.

Drinking adequate water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer. It can also significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.

The hidden dangers in the explosion of bottled water use

Bottled water -- a $22-billion industry -- is the fastest growing beverage industry in the world. Close to half of the U.S. population drinks bottled water on a regular basis, despite the fact that it can be up to 1,000 times more expensive than the tap.

With bottled water sales rising rapidly -- U.S. sales rose 11.5 percent in 2001 to reach close to $6.5 billion -- environmental and consumer groups are asking: is bottled water really a better option than tap water? http://www.mercola.com/2006/jun/20/the_hidden_dangers_of_the_explosion_of_bottled_water_use.htm.