James F. Balch, M.D. and Mark Stengler, N.D.
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 Use only bottled water, not just for drinking but also fo • brushing your teeth. Do not add ice to your d inks, unless you've made the ice yourself with bottled water.
• Don't eat at any restaurant or other establishment that is obviously unclean. Street food vendors are best avoided.
• When eating a food that is new food to you, try just a little at a time. Even if it is clean and free of microorganisms, your digestive system may not be able to handle large quantities of unusual foods right away. |
Mary-Ann Shearer
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 Although bottled water is often rich in minerals, unfortunately these minerals are not present in a form that our bodies are able to easily use. Unlike the minerals in fresh fruits and vegetables, those in mineral water are easily deposited in our joints, muscles, and tissues, where they can cause stiffness, gall or kidney stones, premature aging of the skin, and even cataracts. Therefore, it is therefore important to make sure bottled water has a pH that is as close to neutral (7) as possible. Do not be alarmed. |
Brenda Watson and Leonard Smith
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 Restaurants in major metropolitan areas are boycotting bottled water to help mitigate the damaging effects plastics have in the environment, where they cannot be broken down. (In addition, as you'll soon learn, plastics give off toxic chemicals that you then ingest when you—or your babies—drink from a bottle.) There's nothing more powerful than a collective voice for change. And I'm thrilled to be witnessing finally a growing united effort and interest in reducing the level of toxins in our lives.
My mission in teaching people how to live in a toxic world is a personal one. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 This includes bottled water, juice drinks, and others. Drink out of glass or stainless steel.
Greatly reduce or eliminate your consumption of canned food products. Canned foods typically contain BPA due to the lining inside the can.
Avoid storing food in plastic containers. Instead, choose Pyrex or class containers (stainless steel is also acceptable). Also avoid using plastic sandwich bags or plastic wrap products, wherever possible.
Remember that if you are pregnant or nursing, BPA chemicals are passed through your bloodstream directly to your baby. |
Gabriel Cousens, M.D.
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 Because 20-40 percent of the bottled water in the U.S. is actually tap water (as noted by the Natural Resources Defense Council), this may not be as good a choice as the bottled water label suggests. Carbon-filtered water may vary from marginal to excellent.
Reverse osmosis filtering is good; it doesn't necessarily get all the TDS out or destroy the toxic patterns in the water, as does distilling, but bringing the reverse-osmosis-filtered water TDS level down to 200 makes it second best to mature distilled water. A TDS of 100 is good and 50 is excellent. |
Mary-Ann Shearer
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| Therefore, it is therefore important to make sure bottled water has a pH that is as close to neutral (7) as possible. Do not be alarmed. This does not mean that you should never touch bottled water—it is probably the best type of drink you could have in a social situation. If you have a choice, go for the non-carbonated variety, as the bubbles in sparkling mineral water are formed by carbon dioxide, a waste product that the body tries to eliminate. It doesn't make sense to force carbon dioxide into the body when it has gone to so much trouble to get rid of it in the first place. |
Brenda Watson and Leonard Smith
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| Popular brands of bottled water have tested positive for elevated levels of arsenic, bacteria, and other impurities. According to the Natural Resources Defense CouncU (www.nrdc.org), one brand of "spring water" whose label pictured a lake and mountains, actually came from a well in an industrial facility's parking lot, near a hazardous waste dump. It was periodically contaminated with industrial chemicals at levels above FDA standards (mind you, the botded water industry is largely unregulated in the United States). Simple solution: filter your tap water. |
KC Craichy
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 Several brands contain synthetic organic chemicals, such as industrial solvents, chemicals from plastic, or trihalomethanes, the byproducts of the chemical reaction between chlorine and organic matter in water, or inorganic contaminants, such as arsenic, a known carcinogen.25
Many people are increasingly concerned about the environmental and economic implications of bottled water. We are now paying between 240 and 10,000 times more per gallon for bottled water than we do for tap water. |
Jack Challem
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 If tap water doesn't excite you (either because of taste or contaminants in your community), consider using a Brita or Pur water filter. bottled water is also an option. You can improve the taste of filtered or bottled water by refrigerating it and by adding a wedge of lemon or lime when you serve it.
European brands of sparkling mineral water, again with a wedge of lemon or lime, make a sensible beverage with lunch or dinner. Perrier, San Pellegrino, and Gerolsteiner are among the best-known brands. They have subtle variations in flavor, resulting from differences in their mineral content. |
Nontoxic, Natural and EarthwiseDebra Lynn Dadd
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| Drink bottled water if you don't purify your watet.
• Eat less meat or switch to a vegetatian diet. This can save mote water than any other single act.
Bottled Water
There are too many good bottled waters on the market to include a list of recommended brands here, but if you know what to look for, you can choose more wisely.
Bottled water is denned by the Food and Drug Administration as simply "water that is sealed in bottles or other containers and intended for human consumption. |
Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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 Instead, the Big Apple signed a $166 million deal with Snapple, a division of Cadbury Schweppes, to be the exclusive beverage vendor for the city's 1,200 public schools, with rights to sell all-new 100% juice blends and bottled water in vending machines. The five-year deal brings $8 million to city school coffers.
Consumer advocates and well-known New York Times journalist Marian Burros greeted the move with skepticism, if not outrage, because the new high-fructose-corn-syrup-containing Snapple drinks aren't much different than HFCS-filled, noncaffeinated sodas. |
| She finally allowed bottled water to be stocked instead.
Now, hundreds of educators, parents, and even federal agencies want to learn Dr. Butler's secrets. Her company Ennovy (www.ennovyinc.com) now offers nutrition and fitness coaching to institutions such as Denver, Colorado, schools; her alma mater, Jackson State University; Meharry Medical College; and Morehouse Medical School. |
Elson M. Haas, M.D.
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 In a 2001 survey, the World Wildlife Fund estimated that people all over the world drink about 89 billion liters of bottled water a year. This is worth about twenty-two million in U.S. dollars. Americans drink about thirteen billion liters of bottled water a year. A 2000 report conducted by Yankelovich Partners of the Rockefeller University discovered that 2.3 eight-ounce servings of the total 6.1 servings of water that are consumed daily per person are bottled water in the United States.
And just as with water intake, coffee consumption is on the rise. |
| Sales of bottled water in the United States has continued to experience a huge increase; in 1998 alone, sales grew by 10.1 percent to 3.6 billion gallons. In a 2001 survey, the World Wildlife Fund estimated that people all over the world drink about 89 billion liters of bottled water a year. This is worth about twenty-two million in U.S. dollars. Americans drink about thirteen billion liters of bottled water a year. A 2000 report conducted by Yankelovich Partners of the Rockefeller University discovered that 2.3 eight-ounce servings of the total 6. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 I'll take my chances with filtered water or bottled water, such as the pristine Artesian waters, or even some reputable American brands like Dasani. Are there unscrupulous companies selling stuff that's probably no better (or worse) than tap? Sure. Is the "good stuff expensive? Yup. But compared to a drink at an upscale bar or hotel, or a day's worth of lattes at the local coffee emporium, the best bottle of water in the world is cheap. Doubly so for the peace of mind it buys me. |
Gary Null and Amy McDonald
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 Cut out those vitamins as well as bottled water packaged in bottles with aluminum across the top.
Dr. Hodes suggests a brain and body detoxification program, which should include a supervised fast. "Now don't attempt to detoxify on your own," he warns. "You must have holistic physicians or practitioners who are knowledgeable, competent and experienced in these practices, because if you attempt it on your own you may come up with some upsetting surprises."
Raw juice therapy helps flush out the toxins and supplies enzymes as well as raw vitamins and minerals, Dr. Hodes says. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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| He gently suggests that folks like me who spend all this money on bottled water might be being, well, a bit silly.
Here's my answer.
Politics Can Get in the Way of Safe Water Standards
There are hundreds of chemicals, pollutants, and toxic metals (mercury, arsenic, etc.) that have the potential to wind up in our water; the government determines what an appropriate or acceptable, "safe" level of these compounds is. If the water has that amount (or less), it is deemed safe for drinking. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 So I wouldn't drink from the public water supply in the first place, but neither do I rely on bottled water. I use a water filtration system to clean tap water before I drink it. (Coincidentally, this is similar to what PepsiCo does when creating Aquafina water, except PepsiCo uses plastic bottles, where I only drink out of glass or stainless steel.)
You can get clean public water in places like Hawaii, Oregon and anywhere that's close to the mountains, but most folks in first world nations are getting tap water that's far from pristine. The public water infrastructure in the U.S. |
KC Craichy
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| We are now paying between 240 and 10,000 times more per gallon for bottled water than we do for tap water. A major shift to bottled water as a means of combating tap water contaminants raises serious equity issues for lower income individuals and families. In addition, the manufacturing and shipping of billions of bottles cause unnecessary energy and petroleum consumption, leading to landfilling or incineration of bottles, which can release environmental toxins.26
Remember, all plastics break down under extreme conditions. |
Jack Challem
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 Granted, people pay a premium for bottled water, and the empty bottles fill landfills (if you don't recycle them). But in terms of your health, nothing could be better than simple water.
The research on coffee and diabetes risk is contradictory. Nearly all of the studies showing that coffee either increases or decreases the risk of developing diabetes have been observational, not controlled, so other variables may have influenced the findings. |
Brenda Watson and Leonard Smith
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| Other independent studies have discovered fluoride, phthalates, trihalomethanes, and arsenic in bottled water, coming either from the bottling process or from the bottles themselves. Environmental groups are also concerned about the amount of waste that these plastic bottles create. |
Mark Hyman, M.D.
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 Consider bottled water when traveling away from home. You should also investigate the quality of your bottled water. For more information, read what water expert Dr. Mel Suffet, professor in the Environmental Science and Engineering Program at UCLA, has to say at www.ioe.ucla.edu/publications/report01/ BottledWater.htm.
• Avoid drinking bottled water stored in a cloudy plastic container; the plastics leach into the water, especially when stored in hot conditions. |
Dr. Edward F. Group III, DC, ND, DACBN
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| The council also estimates 25% of the bottled water on the market is actually bottled tap water. Misleading labels fool the public into believing they are drinking pure water when this could not be further from the truth.
Did You Know?
The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) observed a particular brand of bottle water with mountains and a lake on the label, which advertised its contents as "spring water". The water source for the manufacturing plant was actually a public water line located near a hazardous waste site! |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| The widespread shift towards bottled water products is increasingly causing consumers to lose faith in public water infrastructure, which ultimately leads to public reluctance to support investment in public water supplies. This concerns many cities who are worried that a lack of public support will cause funding for water infrastructure to erode.
These people tend to describe treated municipal water as remarkably pristine and safe for human consumption. |
| CAI pressures PepsiCo to tell the truth
PepsiCo only agreed to tell the truth on their bottled water labels after being pressured by Corporate Accountability International (CAI), a non-profit organization that helps protect consumers from corporate abuse. See their website at http://www.stopcorporateabusenow.org
CAI rallied consumers from around the world to complain to PepsiCo about the current labeling of Aquafina, and thousands of consumers slammed PepsiCo's phone lines so hard that the company was forced to shut down call center operations. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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| Throw a few tablespoons of organic almonds into a blender with a cup of bottled water, and you're good to go. If you need it sweeter, use some raw unfiltered honey, or some powdered Xylitol (available at www.jonnybowden.com).
Brazil Nuts
Brazil nuts have the highest selenium content of any food I know of, and for this reason alone belong among the world's healthiest foods. Selenium is an essential trace element that, in tons of research, has been shown to have a protective effect against cancer. |
David Steinman
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 New Hampshire-based manufacturer of natural and organic yogurts and ice cream, enjoys a strategic partnership with Groupe Danone (Danone), the France-based consumer products company known for its sales of bottled water, dairy products, and biscuits. Stonyfield is the largest organic yogurt producer in the world and the third largest yogurt brand in America. Over the last decade, Stonyfield has enjoyed the fastest compounded annual growth rate (24.3 percent) of any U.S. yogurt brand. |
Lester A. Mitscher and Victoria Toews
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 PREPARING THE BREWING WATER
Always use fresh bottled water for brewing tea. Tap water contains chemicals that can alter the taste of a brew. Heat water for brewing to the temperatures suggested below, depending on the tea you are using. Never reheat water left in the kettle. Reheating water results in a flat cup of tea. It may seem terribly odd to be giving you directions for boiling water, but the correct steeping temperature is critical for certain teas, so please read on.
Green Teas and Light, Flowery Herbals
Steep in water in the first boil. |
Dr. Edward F. Group III, DC, ND, DACBN
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| Other products, such as bottled water, infant formulas, and even vitamin supplements, now contain fluoride! In 2002, nearly 90 percent of the U.S. population was supplied water via public water systems, and around 67 percent of that number received fluoridated water. This occurred in spite of the fact, "No statistically significant differences were found in the decay rates of permanent teeth or the percentages of decay-free children in the fluoridated, non-fluoridated, and partially fluoridated areas."76
Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) typically label sodium fluoride as "... |
| However, our colons need pure water, and we just can't count on bottled water companies or our government to provide us with clean water. It's up to all of us to do something. Without public outcry, this practice will continue on and on, so please write to your state representatives, city council members, the FDA, and the president. Ask them to support a clean environment by outlawing toxic chemicals in our water and environment. |
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