It’s yet another urban myth.
“Ah, pure rainwater! It’s water from the Heavens! It must be pure, it must be the best water you can drink.”
Here’s a story from my personal experience that sheds some light on the nature of rainwater.
Back in the 80’s I was a pro fisherman. We launched our 18 foot dingy from the beach here in Byron Bay, and ventures nine miles out to drop fish traps on the very edge of the continental shelf, on reefs 300 feet down. It was a grand adventure for an ex-city boy and it was also a competition with the locals.. the old fishermen who resented a city boy taking their fish.
One day, we struck it big.
Trap after trap rose from the depths bloated with beautiful red snapper. We had 12 traps to pull and they all were loaded, so by the time we were ready to return to shore we were up to our ankles in fish. The boat was so laden that we couldn’t even get up to planing speed, so it was a slow voyage home.
Shortly after we began to return home, the heavens opened up and it rained for the hour it took to get to shore.
Once ashore, we loaded the fish into tubs, returned home to our 5 acre home to begin to long process of gutting the fish and prepping them for market. We were in high spirits. This catch would pay the debts we had already gathered with a string of empty trap days.
However...
The whole catch had ‘turned’ between catching them and shore. They were ‘off’. What had happened? The only thing different to any other day we had caught fish was.. the rain! The same rain we had laughed about, saying it would make our fish cleaning easy.
Why?
It was one of the old regular fisherman who told us. And of course he had to make us look like stupid amateurs in the process.
”If you weren’t such newbies,” said old George, you woulda spent a bit of time learning how to really fish.”
”Alright George,” I replied. “What did we do wrong?”
”Ya didn’t cover your fish, didja?”
”What are you talking about, George?”
”You let the rain soak ‘em, didn’t ya?”
”So what?” I asked, beginning to feel stupid.”
”So what? If ya’d learnt how before you started goin’ out onto our patch, ya wouldn’t hafta ask that. Rainwater is acidic. It washes the slime off of the fish. And the fish spoil.”
And that, readers, is how I learned the first big difference between rain water and water from your tap. As it falls, in its pure positive ionic state, it combines with CO2 in the atmosphere to become acidic.
And as my readers already know, acidic water is not the water we were made to drink. Can you imagine our paleo ancestors standing in the rain with their mouths open in order get satisfy their thirst? No. They always drank from water sources either from lakes, rivers, or springs. And in every case the water has passed through, or had contact with, the earth, which adds minerals to the water - most usually alkaline minerals like calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium, changing the water, and over thousands of years, laying down our own metabolic template for the best water for our evolution.
So.. why is most of our tap water. reticulated through pipes to our home, alkaline?
It’s nothing to do with nature. It’s to do with the need to counter further acidity caused by the acidic chemicals we use to kill bugs in the water.
Any standard water (think: reservoirs) allows bacteria, cysts and parasites to flourish.
They love still water, and as a result, the water we gather for processing in dams and reservoirs needs chemicals to kill these organisms. Chlorine and chloramines are commonly used, both of which cause the water to become more acidic.
The problem with that isn’t just the acidity itself.
It’d because acid water attacks pipeware, including lead pipes and copper pipes with brazen joins. The result? Lead and various heavy metals from the joins in the copper pipes. Imagine: you go to bed, and wake up some 8 hours later. Your copper pipe points have been bathed in acid water all night. Now you pour yourself a glass. The water in the glass is the same water that has been silently gathering heavy metals ever since the last use. You drink concentrated heavy metals to start your day.
There is no easy answer, and it’s a long term problem.
The more and the longer you drink tap water, the more possible accumulation of chlorine or chloramines, known carcinogens, lead, heavy metals .. and that’s just the beginning of a list of some 600+ newly identified contaminants finding their water into our water systems. Newer nasties include the ‘forever chemicals’ - (PFAs) so named by Erin Brockovitch, that have found their way into ALL water supplies worldwide, and accumulate in the body every time you drink water. And now we also have nanoparticles of plastics, with the latest studies estimating we are ingesting the equivalent of a credit card of plastic every month.
The only real answer involves investing in your future health in the form of a water filter that is able to remove all of the contaminants we’ve mentioned, and also bacteria, viruses, cysts, parasites and disinfection byproducts, a new form of carcinogen formed when chloramine reacts with organic matter in your water.
My Dad once said to me:
”Never be mean about spending on your health. Otherwise all the money you might have saved will be used twice over when you are old.”
And yet so many people think they can somehow sneak by the hazards we are faced with, save a little money and hope for the best healthwise. No-one exists without water, and water isn’t what it used to be. Every glass adds to the toxic load you must face some day.
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Thanks for reading! Please pass this on to friends you may think need to know.
