With a huge population on the planet, increasing use of
chemicals and pollution, good healthy drinking water is becoming increasingly
rare and many humans are managing with less than the best of drinking water
just as they are managing with less than the best of good air to breathe. While
with the help of modern medical intervention one may increase compromised life spans, the
best quality of life becomes a far cry when humans miss out on sunshine, pure
air, water and food. Perhaps the only way for humans missing out on sunshine and
good quality air is to change their life styles and place of living. The best
quality food may be obtained when one prepares one’s food from basic
ingredients (as opposed to factory processed food) that are organic or near
organic and well washed in case of fruits and vegetables. It is also possible
to get good quality drinking water if one knows how to. Just a few simple steps
will do. That is the focus of the present note.
It may be mentioned that the best of drinking water does not cost money, it requires the right knowledge. In fact it is some of the rich that end up compromising their health with expensive bottled water in some cases that even lead to various cancers. There was a time this blogger rushed a note to one of the richest men in the world - Warren Buffet - when he ended up with one with a suggestion for a speedier cure. Just purchasing mass produced bottled water does not always help. This is because bottled water may make use of chemical agents such as iodine salts, chlorination or ozonation and these may become harmful or produce harmful compounds such as dioxins.
It may be mentioned that the best of drinking water does not cost money, it requires the right knowledge. In fact it is some of the rich that end up compromising their health with expensive bottled water in some cases that even lead to various cancers. There was a time this blogger rushed a note to one of the richest men in the world - Warren Buffet - when he ended up with one with a suggestion for a speedier cure. Just purchasing mass produced bottled water does not always help. This is because bottled water may make use of chemical agents such as iodine salts, chlorination or ozonation and these may become harmful or produce harmful compounds such as dioxins.
Grading Potable Water
Potable water is defined as water that is good enough and
healthy for drinking and cooking. However as mentioned at the outset because of
a general deterioration of good quality potable water on the planet, the time
has come to grade potable water as Grade I and Grade II or Alpha potable water and Beta Potable water
Beta Potable water: This is potable water that is good enough to
cook in but not good enough to drink because it may contain harmful bacteria
that die in the process of cooking
Alpha Potable Water:
Is potable water that does not contain harmful bacteria and therefore is good
to drink, wash vegetables for salads or to add without cooking to cold soups
etc.
The attempt should be to first access beta potable water
that is good for cooking and then convert it to alpha potable water for
drinking through simple steps that shall be presently described.
Obtaining Beta
Potable Water
The majority of humans on the planet still have access to
water that does not contain any major inorganic or organic impurities but may
just contain soil, sand, grit and bacterial impurities. In this case filtration
is required in order to get rid of sand and grit. Such a filtration at domestic
level may be done through layers of cloth or vessels containing sand or
commercial filters. Filtering through sand beds is a slow process but it is
carried out easily by letting it happen slowly and collecting the filtered
water in a separate pot. At larger community level the water may be made to
pass through a series of hydrocyclones first to remove larger particles
In case the water contains serious dissolved impurities such
as fluorides, excess salt, nitrates, pesticides etc. then simple filtration is
no longer sufficient and processes such as ion exchange, distillation,
filtration through activated charcoal bed, reverse osmosis etc. would be
required
It may be mentioned that rain water or that from freshly
melted snow does not usually contain major dissolved impurities and can be
easily made beta potable through simple filtration. However its major defect is
that it may be much too soft for the best of health. On the other hand, water
from wells and underground sources may be too hard for good health and mixing
the two kinds is a feasible option. In case ground water contains serious
dissolved matter such as nitrates, pesticides, fluorides etc. then as already
mentioned more complicated techniques are required for purification.
Converting Beta Potable Water to Alpha Potable Water
If you are lucky you already have a community level supply
of beta potable water on tap in your home and you may then use it safely for
cooking. A few more steps will convert this beta potable water to alpha potable
water as explained next.
Boil:
In a large pot boil beta potable water and keep it on
boiling for a few minutes. On cooling you shall have a pot full of alpha
potable water. However do note that it does not take long for alpha potable
water to revert to beta potable water on keeping, transmission and storage
unless some further precautions are taken.
The further necessary steps to prevent bacterial growth is
either to store water overnight in a copper vessel (or better silver if you are
a king) and drink it the next day or for
longer storage transfer to clean glass bottles that are kept near a window and
exposed to sunlight during the day. You may keep a few of such exposed bottles
in the fridge for a day or so at a time.
Do not store for too long in a copper vessel, no more than a
day for sure, because while some copper ions kill bacteria and are good for
health, too much of it may be poisonous. On the other hand keeping in a silver
vessel for too long may give you blue blood best avoided. Those using copper plumbing in their homes when returning from a visit away from home for longer than a day must let the water run for about two to five minutes before filling up for drinking. Those living in places with rationed and interrupted supply must also let the water run for about fifteen minutes before collecting for drinking because impurities would have leaked in during the time the supply was shut down, but do not waste that water, use it for washing etc.
Make use of Silver
For large and long term storage of water drop a silver spoon inside the storage tank or get one coated with microdyn. For use of silver see:
http://www.thesilveredge.com/cs_developing_nations.shtml#.VXqGJfDhWYc
Also see:
http://www.discoverynews.us/DISCOVERY%20MUSEUM/SciencePavilion/Colloidal_Silver.html
Riding on the silver fad nowadays a lot of processes and devices are floating on the internet such as colloidal silver, optical silver and so on. Some of these have an element of commercial gimmickry in them and none of them have been thoroughly researched and some may be unsafe. It is simply not worth the while of the modern drug industry to do research on something that has been around for billions of years and cannot be patented for profit. The best way to make use of the excellent antibiotic properties of silver is the ancient time tested one of using an object of pure silver (not sterling silver) placed in a storage vessel since an entire vessel of silver is too expensive now for all but royalty. Just choose an object that is large enough such as a spoon that cannot be swallowed by mistake. Soak it for about eight hours in lemon juice (alternately dissolved citric acid powder solution). Remove, scrub and clean thoroughly with fresh water and place in your water storage vessel. Leave it in there as you refill. You may repeat the citric acid treatment once a month. Please do note that these ideas on silver are presently the author's opinion albeit a considered one. More research is required to confirm them.
One report on BBC suggested that this plastic might be
from the caps of the bottle. Upon reflection this author immediately tweeted
under the hash tag of bottled water and to the twitter handles of Nestle and
Pepsi to explore use of some edible paint on the inside of these caps or their
replacement with thin metallic caps on plastic bottles. The solution may in fact be even simpler, placing a small paper or foil insert inside the cap so that the liquid does not come in contact with the cap material. Yet another possibility is coating the caps with edible grade linseed oil and curing. All these possibilities however need further study by industry and others.
This was an idea in public interest and therefore shared publicly and not for profit with these leading lights of the bottled world with a request that they acknowledge it. They did not. It seems the corporate world is ruled by profit, not good human values but if this tweet results in improvements even because of the profit motive, it shall be worth it for the lives of billions on the planet. The sentiments of one individual author from their response or lack of it is of little consequence. If they do not do this replacement, others will and they shall be obliged to follow suit or wind up their business
Make use of Silver
For large and long term storage of water drop a silver spoon inside the storage tank or get one coated with microdyn. For use of silver see:
http://www.thesilveredge.com/cs_developing_nations.shtml#.VXqGJfDhWYc
Also see:
http://www.discoverynews.us/DISCOVERY%20MUSEUM/SciencePavilion/Colloidal_Silver.html
Riding on the silver fad nowadays a lot of processes and devices are floating on the internet such as colloidal silver, optical silver and so on. Some of these have an element of commercial gimmickry in them and none of them have been thoroughly researched and some may be unsafe. It is simply not worth the while of the modern drug industry to do research on something that has been around for billions of years and cannot be patented for profit. The best way to make use of the excellent antibiotic properties of silver is the ancient time tested one of using an object of pure silver (not sterling silver) placed in a storage vessel since an entire vessel of silver is too expensive now for all but royalty. Just choose an object that is large enough such as a spoon that cannot be swallowed by mistake. Soak it for about eight hours in lemon juice (alternately dissolved citric acid powder solution). Remove, scrub and clean thoroughly with fresh water and place in your water storage vessel. Leave it in there as you refill. You may repeat the citric acid treatment once a month. Please do note that these ideas on silver are presently the author's opinion albeit a considered one. More research is required to confirm them.
UPDATE: Bottled Water, March 20 2018
Aside from what has been said about bottled water at the beginning of this note a new issue has surfaced.
With increasing population and increasing pollution of earth’s natural resources, much of the rich population of the world has come to be increasingly dependent on bottled water in the hope of avoiding water related health issues. Unfortunately, a recent study released a few days ago has shown that this water contains a large amount of plastic particles. 90% of tested samples from across some of the most well known brands were found contaminated. The precise impact of this contamination on human health remains to be researched. Perhaps some of it passes through the human system without causing any major issues but some may get absorbed in the blood stream and accumulate in the system and it would not be surprising if it is found that this leads to kidney damage, liver problems, cancers, blockages in the urinary tract and other issues through long term use. Soft drinks have not been tested but it would be surprising if it does not suffer from a similar issue. The matter is under a health review by WHO
With increasing population and increasing pollution of earth’s natural resources, much of the rich population of the world has come to be increasingly dependent on bottled water in the hope of avoiding water related health issues. Unfortunately, a recent study released a few days ago has shown that this water contains a large amount of plastic particles. 90% of tested samples from across some of the most well known brands were found contaminated. The precise impact of this contamination on human health remains to be researched. Perhaps some of it passes through the human system without causing any major issues but some may get absorbed in the blood stream and accumulate in the system and it would not be surprising if it is found that this leads to kidney damage, liver problems, cancers, blockages in the urinary tract and other issues through long term use. Soft drinks have not been tested but it would be surprising if it does not suffer from a similar issue. The matter is under a health review by WHO
This was an idea in public interest and therefore shared publicly and not for profit with these leading lights of the bottled world with a request that they acknowledge it. They did not. It seems the corporate world is ruled by profit, not good human values but if this tweet results in improvements even because of the profit motive, it shall be worth it for the lives of billions on the planet. The sentiments of one individual author from their response or lack of it is of little consequence. If they do not do this replacement, others will and they shall be obliged to follow suit or wind up their business
The image (modified here) was taken through wikipedia commons from the Geograph project collection.
See this photograph's page
on the Geograph website for the photographer's contact details. The copyright
on this image is owned by Adam Ward and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0
license.
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