January 16, 2006

You are currently browsing the daily archive for January 16, 2006.

Give me STEAM anyday!For the past 6 years, I have been producing my own pure water at a fraction of bottled water using city water. If you want to be healthy, you got to start with the quality of your water as it is essential for just about every bodily function.

Reverse Osmosis VS Distillation

For me, the choice was easy, the two leading methods of water purification are reverse osmosis and distillation. The main advantage to reverse osmosis is that it uses filters, which means you can produce water, as you need it. This is also a huge drawback because you need to keep buying these filters and my guess is that water quality slowly degrades as the filters fill up with gunk. The other method, distillation, uses no filters and simply captures the steam from boiling the water in an enclosed capsule. The huge advantage to this is you purchase it once without any ongoing expense other then electricity but the disadvantage is you may have to wait for the water (run it over night and this isn’t a problem).

If you review studies done on effective water quality of these systems, distillation is hands down the most efficient way to produce the highest quality water for you and your family. You can get this information freely by contacting a distilled water products manufacturer or distributor

Distilled water controversy

There seems to be a controversy regarding drinking distilled water, the main one is you ONLY have H2O (2 Hydrogen atoms and 1 Oxygen atom), everything is taken out - including minerals and fluoride. This is the reason why I bought mine in the first place! I want all that stuff out of my water! Since when is water considered as a way to supplement an inadequate diet? Toothpaste has fluoride by the way ;-)
I have also heard that distilled water is bad for your organs as it leaches out minerals from your own body, this is a property that all water types have - the hydrogen and oxygen molecules making up water hate being alone. Generally speaking, the purer the water, the more aggressive an absorber it becomes (both toxic and helpful ones to the body) BUT a healthy diet provides more then enough nutritional compounds for the body to offset this loss. If you want to start comparing leaching agents, alcohol and carbonated drinks are far more effective in the body at leaching then water. This is a fact often lost in the statistics and studies shown against the use of distilled water.

Distilled water also has a neutral ph. In other words, it has no effect (positive or negative) on the body’s chemical reactions; this is why science laboratories around the world use distillation as their preferred method of water purification. There is also evidence that distilled water absorbs CO2 from the air thus making is acidic; again a proper diet will easily offset this - if it where true. I have used a ph test strip after 3 hours of having the distilled water out (about how long it lasts here before making a new batch), I saw no change in ph. Again, this is a property that ALL water types have including many other liquids. You have to ask yourself why detractors hate distilled water so much yet make no statement regarding the acidity of carbonated drinks?

Distilled water is also blamed for disrupting the electrolyte balance of the body (sodium, potassium & chloride), true, distilled water lacks electrolytes but so what, since when is water your primary and sole source of electrolytes (much less minerals, vitamins etc.)? Eat food! If you are fasting or going without food for any length of time (ei: days), no matter the type of water you are using, you should supplement it by drinking something high in electrolytes. By the way, drinking regular water and even alcohol also reduces your electrolytes ;-)
Again, if all you do is drink distilled (or any other “type” of drink) without eating and/or a very poor diet to begin with, you will have health problems regardless. Pointing in the direction of distilled water as a factor in diseases like osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, hypothyroidism, coronary artery disease, high blood pressure (and the list continues) simply doesn’t hold water. If this was true, then why do people drinking “normal” water get these conditions as well? Mmmmm-.

Why are distillation systems so hard to find?

Simple answer is a 5-letter word that starts with G and finishes with D. Listen, if you could purchase 1 system and never need anything else for 10-15 years, those companies would go out of business. They push reverse osmosis (and other systems) for a reason; you need to keep coming in to purchase filters and equipment. If they try to pull this on you, go somewhere else - they don’t have your health in mind, only their bottom line.

One interesting fact you will notice is that the largest detractors of distilled water tend to have a vested interest in their own system or patents. If you want pure water, then get pure water - anything less is NOT pure water, it’s polluted.

Reading through distilled water detractors information you would think pure water was essentially a toxic substance and only “their” water was safe to drink. If they where so concerned about what you drink, why is there NO statement anywhere regarding the detrimental effects of alcohol consumption or to a far lesser extent, carbonated drinks?

The Bottom Line

If you want pure cheap water, get a distillation system. They range from a few hundred to a few thousand depending on the quality you need. For one person, a counter top version produces more then enough for cooking and drinking. Nothing comes close to the quality of water it produces short of mixing hydrogen gas with oxygen gas. From all that I have read, I have come to the conclusion with a good diet, distilled water is superior to “polluted” water in every way except one, the profit margins for other companies.

Additional Information
I have not cited any scientific studies regarding the effects of distilled water on the body, I consider them flawed and to narrow in scope as they do not take into account diet (before, during or after the study), exercise (amount or type) and medical history of the people involved. This is a HUGE and glaring hole in their methodology, enough to make them worthless in my opinion.
“No to distilled water” camp
Lenntech_Water treatment &_Air Purification
Dr. Joseph Mercola
Dr. Rona Zoltan
“Yes to distilled water” camp
Durastill Export
Living Nutrition
Dr. Ron Kennedy

Home Sweet HomeTime doesn’t wait for people who have passions in life. Thank God the average lifespan has almost doubled in the past 100 years, because the blink we exist within already goes way too fast! My father told me last summer he couldn’t believe how fast life goes… we both seem to suffer from the same condition!

The more involved you become with your life, the faster it seems to go. Exercise, business, relationships and even studies all have the ability to make the limited time you have- go even faster. This is not a bad thing, life is meant to be lived, but one side effect of enjoying life is that you have less time to contemplate on what has happened thus far. This is why daily, monthly and yearly plans in life are so important, it’s so easy to delay or forget things until it becomes too late to change course.

Plan your life before life plans you

You have two choices in regard to the limited time you have in your life. You can decide to take control over it or you can let events in your life take control over you. So much of our life is in the hands of others but in the end, you control either directly or indirectly where you end up in life. If you play an active role in your life, I believe your chances of ending up where you want to be instead of where others want you to be are much higher.

How to take control of your life?

Makes notes and checklists
I myself do a daily plan before going to bed at night, deciding what I want to accomplish the next day - a checklist. I find if I don’t do this, the next day easily goes bye without achieving much of what I wanted to do. I also do this for a monthly, quarterly and yearly so I am always heading towards what I want in life. Like Santa Clause, check them twice ;-)
The fortress of “ME”
If you believe in yourself, your abilities, genius and skills you will easily be able to fend off people and circumstances that can make your life plan go haywire or in the wrong direction. If you have friends who prefer to party or gossip and your goal is to one day be the CEO of a company, don’t participate in it. If they try to drag you into things, be strong enough to not only resist but say “NO”. Remember, you are always in control of yourself - don’t let others wrestle this away from you.

Develop kin relationships
You are what you hang around with - don’t waste your time doing things with people who do not have the same aspirations as you in life. There is a reason why lawyers hang around other lawyers, entrepreneurs with their kin and same goes with many other professions. It is because they all want to become the best at what they do and realized early on that you can’t do this by hanging around losers or people who do not share the same passion in life. I believe that quality friends and associates is far more important than quantity. Cut your losses with people who provide no benefit or means of helping you achieve your goals.

Focus
It is so easy to loose focus in life, planning ahead of time does help a lot but if those goals are all over the place, it\s just as useless as having none. If your goal is to be the best XYZ in the world, immerse yourself into it. You need to eat, sleep and drink your future self. If you focus on being NOW on who you want to become later, then later will come faster.

Fix boredom before it becomes depression
Boredom is an insidious condition caused by the inability of the mind to expand beyond itself. The brain is an incredible machine that has the ability to continually grow but if you always feed it the same information, I believe it begins to loose some of this ability. Scientists use to think the brain stopped becoming resilient shortly after adulthood’ termed “hardwired”. This has been proven to not be the case. If you find yourself bored with life, there is something you need to fix ASAP before depression sets in.

Contemplate
Time on is as important as time off - if you focus 100% on your future but don’t take some time off to review what you did for revisions or even better - completely away for a few days, you will go nuts! Focus takes it toll on you, be sure to take a breather every once in a while.

The Bottom line

You are in control of your lot in life. Develop contacts and circumstances that will allow you to reach your destiny and drop those that are dead weight before they drag you down.