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Forward by Tracy Southwick:
As many of you already know, water quality is a big concern for me and the health of my
clients. The water we drink and bathe in can be a great source of health and healing or a great source of toxicity. In my opinion, most public water supplies are very toxic. To check out your water supply, go to https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/ and enter your zip code. Unfortunately, a refrigerator or pitcher filter can only remove a small portion of these toxins. It is better than nothing, but there are much better options.
I highly recommend a whole house unit, if at all possible, as you are bathing, washing and
cooking with toxic water if you do not filter the whole home. (Think: holiday gift for yourself or
family?!? ) All that said, we asked Macdonald Filtration to write our article this month to help us all learn more about the importance of an effective water filtration system. We hope you enjoy Alan's article.
Love, Tracy
Guest writer:
Alan McDonald, Founder
Most of us grew up thinking that municipal water was safe to drink. We did know that drinking out of a garden hose did taste pretty funny but we soon learned that we had to let the hose run for a while to get rid of that plastic taste. Decades later we found out that this awful taste was phthalate, a known endocrine disruptor.
A Brief History of Water Treatment
Most civic officials involved in the distribution of municipal water only focused on the microbial health of the water and by treating it primarily with chlorine they could kill bacteria and viruses and protozoans (except for a few things like cryptosporidium and Giardia) and generally make the water safe for consumption.
When the federal government studied cancer clusters near Baton Rouge in the early 1970s, they discovered that the by-products of chlorination were actually causing more cancer than the chlorine itself and it led to a real tightening of the regulations for chlorinated by-products and also at the time it focused on a number of petrochemicals that were in the Louisiana water that were contributing to poor health.
Gradually this situation raised the awareness of water quality throughout the nation and homeowners started realizing that there are many things in their water that they weren't aware of before like arsenic, herbicides and pesticides, fluoride, chromium and mercury which led to new advancements in whole-house water filtration.
My Journey
With my background in chemistry and polymers, I developed a whole-house water filtration system designed for people with compromised immune systems such as cancer patients and those with chemical sensitivities. As I learned about more chemicals in our municipal water that weren't being removed by typical activated charcoal, I started adding different filtration media such as Zeolite, KDF, and AA and was offering a multi-stage filtration system by 1997.
What about Particulates/Sediment?
The typical industry standard for removing sediment (including dirt and clay from Lake Houston which is the main source for the city of Houston's water supply) is to have a back-flushing filter that backflushes every night but that has some drawbacks. It's crude and inefficient; it doesn't get the small particles out and when it's in the back-flushing mode there's no filtration going on in the house. Unfiltered water enters the home during this 2-hour nightly procedure.
So, we rejected back-washing and basically captured all of the fine particles in our system by using very fine filters. Our first filter is a 1-micron filter. By contrast, a typical human hair is 72 microns thick. By utilizing these very fine particle sediment filters we can remove this clay as well as other dirt and fine contaminants.
We keep all the minerals and it’s beautiful too! One very interesting result of this fine sedimentation removal is that when you fill your bathtub expecting to see clear water which used to be slightly yellow, now with our filtration system when you fill your bathtub it's Aqua! Almost reminiscent of being in the Caribbean. This beautiful color of water is the result of filtering out all of the harmful particulates yet leaving the good minerals in the water such as calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium. (Other systems (IE: reverse osmosis) remove all these beneficial minerals in the filtration process and the only remedy is to artificially add back deleted minerals to your drinking water.)
The system I ultimately developed includes 8 stages of filtration that not only removes chlorine and chloramine but also: volatile organic compounds (VOC’s), herbicides, pesticides, heavy metals, fluoride, ammonia, arsenic, radioactive alpha particles and bacteria and most, but not all, viruses as well as Oocysts like Cryptosporidia. Note: Many people do not realize that Houston’s water supply contains radioactive elements. I am unaware of any other system that removes radioactive alpha particles but ours does.
The water tastes wonderful; it is alkaline and you can drink from every faucet in the house. Remember if the water coming into your home is not filtered, and you take a 15-minute shower, your body will have absorbed as much chlorine as if you just consumed 1-1/2 gallons of unfiltered municipal water. So, it's not just a matter of drinking pure water but the water you're bathing and showering in is equally important.
Air Quality too?!?
Be aware that even when you flush the toilet or turn on the shower using unfiltered water, you're releasing volatile organic compounds into the airspace in your home. So having a filtration system that removes all these chemicals prior to entering your home not only provides healthy drinking water but it improves the air quality by eliminating the possibility of your family breathing carcinogenic chlorinated by-products.
If you would like to learn more about our affordable, superior water filtration system, you can call me at 713-539- 9988 or visit our website: https://mcdonaldfiltration.com/
Please let me know that you were referred by Tracy at Heights of Health.
Many thanks,
Alan McDonald, Founder
Tracy's postscript:
off) this month to help your water become even healthier:
ReHydration - This great homeopathic remedy that you can drop in your water helps to remind the body how to get water into the cells and waste out. It also supports communication in the body and is great for all ages.
SpectraMin - Wanting to uplevel your minerals? These drops are easy to add to your water and are in an ionic form that can pass easily into the cells for great uptake and improved health!
If you are looking for some electrolytes to help build muscle, look no further than Body Health
Perfect Amino Electrolytes. They have a special blend of amino acids that promote muscle--
building while replenishing essential nutrients depleted through exercise. They come in several flavors: mixed berry, orange and strawberry. Just mix with pure water and enjoy!
Finally, speaking of clean water, if you are on the run and do not have access to clean water, we love the Sport Berkey Water Filter Bottle. We recommend taking it with you when you travel, and you will save so much money on bottled water and not have to worry about the plastics or purity of any water source. In fact, I also put my bottled water in my Sport Berkey Water Filter Bottle when bottled water is my only source of water.
Incidentally, the 10/29/23 Houston Chronicle front page reported that “dozens of HISD schools are reporting high levels of lead in the drinking water”. This was first discovered 7 years ago but was never addressed. (Maybe your children need to take Berkey Water bottles to school.)
If you have any questions about your own healthy water needs, please contact your Heights of Health Practitioner to learn more about what’s right for you.
To your health,
Tracy
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