The title: Do I Need to Filter my Water and Berkey Giveaway kind of answers the question already.

But lets really look into the Question: Do I need to filter my water?

If this question was asked 20 years ago you would have a few people tell you that you can if you want to, but it’s no big deal. In the past few years, however, you would find that more and more people are becoming aware of the city treatment process, how it has changed, and other issues concerning city processed water.

3 Major Concerns:

1. Types of chemicals used to kill bacteria (and anything else) in the water
2. Pharmaceutical remnants and industry runoff left in the water after treatment.
3. Fluoride being added to drinking water

1) Types of Chemicals Used

• Calcium hydroxide (hydrated lime) (Ca(OH)2)
• Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
• Coagulant: Hydrated Aluminium Sulphate (Alum) (Al2(SO4)3)
• Coagulant Aid: Polyelectrolyte
• Sodium Hypochlorite (Liquid Chlorine) (NaOCl)
• Sodium Hydroxide (Caustic) (NaOH)
• Potassium Permanganate (KMnO4)

This is just listing a few of the minerals and chemicals that are commonly added to treat water. Some are added to collect the junk and help it sink so it can be filtered better, others are added to kill bacteria. These are important if we are going to clean our water and live in suburbs and cities as we commonly do. The frustrating thing is that there are ways to filter water and purify it without the use of chemicals. I’ve seen it done in Africa, and in large quantities.

Some of the issues listed by the EPA created by chemicals used in the water are: eye/nose irritation, stomach discomfort, anemia, increased risk of cancer, liver, kidney, and central nervous system problems, skin damage, increase blood cholesterol, decrease blood sugar, increase blood pressure 1

I’m not saying our water doesn’t need to be cleaned, I’m just putting it out there that there are other methods that are not being utilized and that we are consuming minute amount of highly toxic chemicals daily.

2) Pharmaceutical and Industrial Remnants

All of the above health concerns are also created by byproducts that are found in the water from industry: Arsenic, Asbestos, Barium, Lead, Cyanide, Mercury, and more. 2

These are some of the chemicals that the water treatment plants hope to illuminate from the water, at least in high quantities. You can get a report from your water treatment facility. Note that when you see “zinc” or other familiar terms, these are usually the inorganic runoffs from industry and are not good and natural minerals.

As for Pharmaceuticals in the drinking water, no one will deny that they are there (in every form you can imagine), but they will also tell you that it is such a minute amount in parts per million that it is not a concern. I approach this the same as I do all issues like this: If I’m getting it from everywhere, at some point those millions of bits are going to add up and my body is going to have a hard time dealing with it. If I can eliminate this risk, amongst others, by filtering, then it makes sense to filter. Some refrigerators have water dispensers built in but these will eventually need replacing.

3) Fluoride

Interestingly enough, every other chemical that is added to our drinking water is to treat the water and make it potable. Except fluoride. Fluoride is added in order to treat the people. You could even describe it as a form of mass medication.

There is no such thing as a fluoride deficiency. It is not a necessary mineral for our bodies to function properly.

Fluoride does occur naturally in the earth. It can be found in some well water, but is rare to be found in other waters (unless they are contaminated by fluoride producing industries). I have a friend working with teeth in Kenya. A group of people were getting excess natural fluoride in their water and their teeth had white splotches, were falling apart, and they had lots of other health issues (I will spare you the pictures he sent. They were fascinating, but horrible).

The Fluoride that is added to our water here in the USA is hydrofluorosilicic acid and sodium fluorosilicate. The story of how this started basically goes like this: some large industries had tons of toxic byproduct that they could not use or dump because of its toxcicity and they somehow convinced the public to BUY this byproduct so they could be rid of it…..Not Kidding…

These poisonous gases were previously pumped into the atmosphere. Most of us have heard the stories from the 50s and 60s about those communities near the phosphate plants and their health problems. Now, those gases are caught (with “wet scrubbers”), condensed, and sold to be put into our drinking water!!!

A lot of the hydrofluorosilicic acid and sodium fluorosilicate is now sourced from China. In 2010, a Amesbury, MA treatment facility noted that at least 40% of the fluoride from China was “not dissolving”, but creating a film over the water and health issues followed. Others have noted arsenic in the fluoride due to it’s lack of filtering or regulation of any kind.

I could go on and on about the lack of a need for us to swallow something that is claimed to help our teeth, but I think the above will suffice to cause a great big argument from some of you.

What Then?

What then? Well, you need to petition your community to stop fluoridating your water (like most places in the world) and then…get a filter! I’m sure there are a number of great filters out there, but we were given a Berkey water filter for Christmas a few years ago. My sister in law stated that she needed to be able to drink water at my house, LOL! It has fluoride filters, along with the other regular filters. I’ll admit that I am totally spoiled. I taste water elsewhere, like a restaurant, my mother-in-law’s house, etc. and I can barely choke it down. The chlorine scent is so powerful that it reminds me of all the above.

If you want to get one for the family, you really need to invest in one that’s a good size, like the one in the giveaway below. Ours is stainless steel and we love it. There’s a number of us and we only fill it 1-2 times per day.

Enjoy the Giveaway!

Black Friday Berkey Light Giveaway

The Berkey Light is easy to set up and install. It measures: Height x Diameter (inches) 26.5 x 9.25 (base included); The system can also be used without the base and stands 21?; Empty Weight 5(lbs); Holding capacity: Aprox. 2.75 Gallon
Configured with two Black Berkey® purification elements the system can purify over 4 Gallons per hour. The containers consist of shatter-resistant, non BPA, copolyester material.

This Berkey Light System is open to those 18 years of age or older who live in one of the 48 US Contiguous States. This giveaway starts on Friday, Nov. 28th at 5:00 am (MST) and ends on Friday, Dec.5th, 2014 at 5:00 pm (MST). The winner will be notified by email and will have 24 hours to respond. If we do not hear back from said winner in the designated time period of 24 hours we will choose another winner and they will have 24 hours to respond from the time the notification email is sent.