Hey guys, this Top 10 list comes from the producers of the documentary film Tapped the Movie, a critical examination of the bottled water industry:

1. Write to your U.S. Senator now . . . Email your U.S. Senator to voice support for the proposed federal ban on BPA in food and drink containers.

2. Donate to the Breast Cancer Fund.

3. Skip bottled water and use your own unlined stainless steel water bottles. Carefully choose a stainless steel water bottle, and make sure it’s unlined — some metal water bottles contain a plastic liner that may contain BPA.

4. Limit canned foods and beverages. The epoxy liners of metal food and beverage cans most likely contain BPA. Especially avoid canned foods that are acidic (e.g., tomatoes, citrus products, and acidic beverages, like colas) and canned alcoholic beverages, since acids and alcohols can exacerbate the leaching of BPA.

5. Skip the water cooler. Those hard plastic jugs that many companies use to provide their employees and customers with “pure” water are usually made with BPA. Drink filtered tap water instead.

(You can also ask your employer to invest in an eco-friendly bottle-less water cooler for your office.) 

6. Store foods in glass. Just be sure to wash the lids, if made of plastic, by hand and not in the dishwasher.

(Glass bottles are also safer than plastic when it comes to storing beverages, especially acidic beverages like many juices.)

7. Use your own unlined stainless steel travel mug. Heat helps toxins from leach into your beverage. Instead of accepting a polystyrene “to-go” cup for your hot beverage purchases, use a unlined stainless steel travel mug.I use a good ol’ cast iron skillet along with stainless steel cookware!

8. Avoid Cooking in Non-Stick Pans and Eating Foods Packaged with Non-Stick Plastics. Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) are carcinogenic chemicals that make materials stain and stick resistant and persist in our bodies long after the packaging from such products like microwave popcorn or pizza is disposed or the non-stick pan is put away.

 (I use a good ol’ cast iron skillet along with stainless steel cookware.)

9. Minimize hard plastics in your kitchen. Hard plastic stirring spoons, pancake flippers, blenders, plastic cutting boards, measuring cups, and colanders regularly come into contact with both food and heat. Replace these items with wooden, metal, or glass alternatives.

10. Join an advocacy group. Food & Water Watch and Environmental Working Group will keep you up-to-date with current research and legislation regarding plastics and food and water safety.

Thanks to the work of people like the folks who produced Tapped the Movie, the bottled water industry is losing ground. One popular bottled water company recently reported a 24 percent loss in annual revenue. Keep up the good work, people!

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that my skin was really dry. We’ve had some uncharacteristically cold weather around Atlanta this year. Cold, dry air + artificial heat = dry skin.

I took two steps to clear up my dry skin problem: I started drinking more filtered water (including a full glass after breakfast), and I started taking one of my girlfriend’s fish oil supplements with that glass of water. Fish oil is rich in omega-3 fatty acids that contribute to skin health.

And, as Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com recently explained, clean water is essential for skin health, too: “Far too many consumers are chronically dehydrated, and as a result they suffer systemic dehydration of their skin, which makes it look older, more wrinkled and less smooth. Drinking adequate water is crucial for supporting your skin health, but you’ve got to drink clean water to accomplish this, not tap water.

“The cleanest water, of course, is natural spring water. If you’re lucky enough to live near a spring, bottle up your drinking water from it (test it for contamination first, of course), and consume that. Don’t buy bottled water as it creates a mountain of waste (plastic bottles). Furthermore, the Bisphenol-A in the plastic bottles has been proven so toxic that it was recently banned from baby bottles in Canada.

“So what’s the next best choice for your drinking water? Bottle your own. Get yourself an Aquasana water filter, which is, in my view, the No. 1 consumer water filter on the market today.”

Great info, Mike! We here at Ambrosia Water Filters agree that the Aquasana water filter is the best value for home water filters.

Shower water filters also help dry skin by removing chlorine and other irritating chemicals from water. If you’ve ever spent a few hours in a chlorinated swimming pool, then you know how badly chlorine can dry out the skin!

Other tips for skin health in the winter:

Use warm water instead of hot water in the shower. Hot water tends to dry out the skin. As soon as you get out of the shower, apply natural skin lotion; this will seal in the moisture.

You may want to consider getting a humidifier, too. Humidifiers restore moisture to dry air. If you get a humidifier, be sure to use filtered water or distilled water. If you use regular tap water, the humidifier will produce a mist that contains tap water contaminants.

In a lengthy investigative piece about water quality, The New York Times reports that the 35-year-old Safe Drinking Water Act regulates only 91 contaminants, but there are over 60,000 chemicals used in the United States.

Over the past few years, researchers have identified hundreds of unregulated chemicals that cause cancer and other diseases at small concentrations in drinking water. Are some of these chemicals in your water? Most likely. But it’s impossible to say since they’re not regulated.

Since 2000, not a single new chemical has been added to the list of those regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act. It’s as if industries are getting a free pass to pollute our waters. And even when they are caught polluting the water supply with regulated chemicals, punitive fines are usually light or totally absent.

Even though federal guidelines on water quality are lax, they are still not followed. Since 2004, more than 62 million Americans have been exposed to drinking water that did not meet federal guidelines for safety.  But in most cases this contaminated water was technically “legal” because many federal guidelines have not been incorporated into the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Your tap water may contain enough arsenic to cause cancer in 1 out of every 600 people who drink it – and it would still be perfectly legal. In terms of cancer risk, drinking water with this legal level of contamination would be the equivalent of receiving 1,664 x-rays.

“People don’t understand that just because water is technically legal, it can still present health risks,” explained Dr. Pankag Parekh of the water quality division for the city of Los Angeles.

“For years, people said that American has the cleanest drinking water in the world,” said William Reily, former head of the EPA. “That was true 20 years ago. But people don’t realize how many new chemicals have emerged and how much more pollution has occurred. If they did, we would see very different attitudes.”

“There chemicals accumulate in the body tissue,” explained Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. “There’s growing evidence that numerous chemicals are more dangerous than previously thought, but the EPA still gives them a clean bill of health.”

On the front of water regulation, it’s Big Business vs. Your Health – and Big Business is winning this battle

But you don’t have to lose the war. You ultimately have the power. You can ensure that your drinking water is free of chemical contaminants.

Home water filters remove dangers chemicals like arsenic from your water. Don’t leave your health in the hands of regulatory agencies. Take action today.

I don’t want to get into the controversial issue of whether or not man-made global warming is a real phenomenon. But one thing is certain: Rainfall has been increasing over the past few decades.

A few days ago I watched Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN as he explained how this increase in rainfall will affect our water quality. Here’s part of the transcript from CNN.com:

Dr. Gupta: NOAA data showed a 7 percent increase [in rainfall] annually since 1970. And this is from NOAA data, from the National Climactic Data Center. About a 7 percent increase annually overall. And also 14 percent increase with big rainfalls. Two-plus inches. So it’s raining more and it’s raining harder.

The problem, Brooke, is that you also have 1970s infrastructure as far as dealing with the extra water. So you have sewage pipes and storm water drains all sort of combining. And you can kind of see the problem there. You can get, you know, bacteria, parasites, viruses, all sort of into the drinking water.

And this isn’t just theoretical. It happened in Milwaukee where you had a huge rainfall like that and then the drinking water got contaminated. Four hundred thousand people got sick, 69 people died. So, you know, this is what happens when you have that sort of much water all mixing together.

CNN Guest Anchor Brooke Baldwin: So how do we protect ourselves from the nasty stuff, the bacteria? The diseases that you just mentioned? Because we need water.

Dr. Gupta: Yes, we need water. And I think part of this is going to be a message that, you know, our infrastructure has to improve over the last 40 years to deal with the extra water so we don’t have the co- mingling, if you will, of sewage and storm water. But you know, I think for the average person, there’s little things that they can think about. Heed warnings, for example, when it comes to, you know, swimming at the beach or a lake or something like that.

People can get pretty sick from swimming in contaminated water. Also use phosphate-free products. That’s fertilizer. Based on that same thing I was just talking about, that can wash into your ground water and cause real problems. Filter your water.

Baldwin: I was going to ask you. I got my water filter, am I safe?

Dr. Gupta: Yes. Yes…

Are you safe? Do you have a home water purifier? If not, invest in a home water filtration system today – just in case the infrastructure in your area breaks down and contaminates your drinking water. Be prepared, and be safe.

Today The New York Times reports that more than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Wate Act over the last five years, and since 2004 “the water provided to more than 49 million people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substance like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage.”

Fewer than 6 percent of the water treatment systems that broke the law were ever fined or punished by state or federal officials.

Your water quality is in your hands. You cannot rely on regulatory agencies to deliver clean water to your tap. If you care about your health, start looking at home water purifiers.

The NYT analysis of data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows that Safe Drinking Water Act violations have occurred in every state in the past five years. To cite one example, drinking water tests in Ramsey, NJ, have shown illegal concentrations of arsenic (a known carcinogen) since 2004.

“Those figures are particularly worrisome, say researchers, because the Safe Drinking Water Act’s limits on arsenic are so weak to begin with. A system could deliver tap water that puts residents at a 1-in-600 risk of developing bladder cancer from arsenic, and still comply with the law.”

In some areas of the country, the amount of radium detected in drinking water was 2,000 percent higher than the legal limit.

Why are American citizens drinking chemicals that cause cancer?

Carcinogens aren’t the only problem. In New York state, over 200 water treatment systems have been delivering water with illegal levels of bacteria since 2004. Only 3 of those systems were penalized for their violations.

Government officials say that enforcing the Safe Drinking Water Act is simply not a high priority.

“There is significant reluctance within the EPA and Justice Department to bring actions against municipalities, because there’s a view that they are often cash-strapped, and fines would ultimately be paid by local taxpayers,” said David Uhlmann, former head of the environmental crimes division at the Justice Department. “But some systems won’t come into compliance unless they are forced to, and sometimes a court order is the only way to get local governments to spend what is needed.”

An anonymous enforcement official from the EPA said, “I proposed drinking water cases, but they got shut down so fast that I’ve pretty much stopped even looking at violations. The top people want big headlines and million-dollar settlements. That’s not drinking water cases.”

Scientific research shows that each year 19 million Americans become ill due to parasites, viruses, and bacteria in drinking water. Research also indicates that the increase in breast cancer, prostate cancer, and other cancers are tied to the pollutants in drinking water.

An entire chapter in Sarah Palin’s new book is devoted to her rally cry “Drill, baby, drill!” But as more Americans learn how drilling for oil and natural gas can affect their water quality, the drilling initiative is quickly losing support across the nation.

In the past, most drilling has been done in rural areas without much protest, but as CNNMoney.com reports, energy companies are increasingly at odds with wealthier, better educated populations near big cities. Last week in New York City, for instance, a hearing on drilling was interrupted by protestors.

The Marcellus Shale, which lies just north of New York City, is thought to hold up to 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. But drilling for the gas would involve breaking the shale rock with a mixture of chemicals, water, and sand shot down a well. The process is known as hydraulic fracturing, and it’s never been used near a major city. Hydraulic fracturing can result in contaminated water. In some instances, drilling operations have even caused tap water to become flammable and houses to explode! Flammable water can’t be good drinking water. Drilling has also contaminated water with radon, which is found in naturally occurring rocks.

Just what kind of chemicals are used in the hydraulic drilling process? Well, we don’t know. The chemicals are considered trade secrets. The EPA claims to be reviewing the drilling process to see if the chemicals have contaminated drinking water – but that’s not good enough for many New Yorkers.

“I consider it a grave threat to our resources,” said Joe Lavine, an architect in Brooklyn. “Nobody knows if the chemicals are migrating.”

New Yorkers aren’t the only ones concerned about their water quality. Concerned citizens in Texas, Michigan, Arkansas, Ohio, and other states are beginning to question how drilling affects their water quality.

If you live near a drilling operation, consider investing in a home water filter.

A scientific study titled Household Water Treatment in Developing Countries was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology last month. The study found that ceramic filters work better than other water treatment systems offered in developing countries.

In terms of reducing disease, ceramic water filters are much more effective than chlorine water treatment systems and sand filters commonly used by individuals in third-world countries. The researchers concluded that disinfection-only interventions such as chlorination appear to have little if any affect on public health, while ceramic filters significanlty reduce water-borne diseases in the long-term.

A ceramic water filter removes disease-causing bacteria as well as parasites, and it’s very cost-effective and easy to use. Plus, the filter does not contaminate the water with chemicals, and it leaves natural minerals in the water. A ceramic filter can be easily cleaned and reused when it becomes saturated.

Don’t let the title of this post fool you: There’s not much of a chance that the seasonal flu virus or the H1N1 flu virus would survive conventional chlorine-based water treatment. You probably cannot get the flu from drinking tap water.

However, Environmental Health News reported earlier this year that arsenic, a common drinking water contaminant, could make you more vulnerable to the flu.

In a recent experiment, low-dose exposure to aresenic compromised the immune system to mice and made them more vulnerable to the flu virus. The metal contaminant altered the function of certain immune cells. The results suggest that people exposed to arsenic in drinking water may be more susceptible to illness and death when infected with the H1N1 swine flu virus.

Arsenic is a naturally occurring metal that leaches into ground water. U.S. Geological Survey maps show high concentrations of arsenic in the ground water in Texas, Nevada, California, Oregon, Montana, North Dakatoa, South Dakota, and Minnesota.

Home water filters will remove arsenic from your drinking water to bolster your immune system and protect you against the flu.

Here are some other common-sense flu prevention tips: Exercise daily, eat nutritious foods (including organic fruits and vegetables), drink plenty of filtered water, and get plenty of rest. Avoid touching your face, and frequently wash your hands with soap and hot water.

Fasting, or abstaining from food for a set period of time, continues to grow in popularity as a pathway to weight loss as well as general health enhancement. There are all different kinds of fasts. A fast may last from just a couple of days to 40 days. People often do a pure water fast, where they only drink water, or they may do a juice fast or fruit and vegetable fast.

Fasting allows the body to detoxify and heal itself. It also promotes weight loss and lowers blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar. I’ve fasted a few different times, and each time, once I got past the first few days, I felt a tremendous increase in energy. (I’ve only fasted for a week at a time; longer periods of fasting can zap your energy.)

If you’re planning to fast for health, you must drink plenty of pure water. Your body needs even more water when you’re fasting. The water will flush out toxins and waste. If you’re drinking polluted water (like tap water or most bottled water), then you’re only adding to the body’s toxic load. Get a home water filter before you begin your fast.

Always talk to your doctor before starting a fast. Fasting can be difficult. You will get hungry, and you may experience headaches and other symptoms of detoxification. Drink plenty of water to reduce these symptoms.

Since a pure water fast can zap your energy and cause unwanted side effects, Dr. Jeffrey Cartwright and Dr. Doug Pray developed the Novolife Cleanse Kit to help you during a fast. The system combines an herbal ultra cleanse to help your body eliminate toxins, meta boost capsules to enhance your body’s fat burning, and a protein meal replacement. The Novolife system also comes with a detailed plan for a 7-day fast. Well, it’s not a total fast because you’re allowed to eat at certain times; it’s more of a a strict cleansing diet that offers all of the benefits of a fast without the unwanted symptoms. I lost five pounds in one week when I did the Novolife cleanse!

Remember, talk to your doctor before you start a fast and make sure that you have a source of purified water.

GOOD magazine recently published an article titled “Paging Erin Brockovich” in which they examined some America’s biggest cover-ups of poisoned water supplies. For example, for years, U.S. health officials have said that the drinking water at North Carolina’s Camp Lejune is contaminated but poses no danger to Marines or their families. In April, the officials reversed their position, saying that their assesments contained “inaccuracies” and that a million people may have been exposed to the carcinogen benzene in their water. Over 1500 former Marines, many of whom now suffer from rare blood cancers, have filed lawsuits seeking more than $33 billion.

Here’s a rundown of other poisoned water cover-ups in American history:

Brooklyn, New York – 1800s to 1950s: In the largest petroleum spill in American history — three times bigger than the one caused by the Exxon Valdez — between 17 and 30 million gallons of oil and waste were gradually dumped from Brooklyn’s once-bustling refineries into Newtown Creek, an estuary dividing Brooklyn from Queens. In the decades since, the spill has seeped into the groundwater and now gurgles under a 55-acre swath of the Greenpoint neighborhood. While the area’s drinking water comes from distant reservoirs, benzene-laced sludge is slowly making its way to the surface. The cleanup remains only half complete.

Niagra Falls, New York – 1950s to 1970s: Why would Hooker Chemical sell the charming Love Canal neighborhood to the city of Niagara Falls for just $1? Perhaps because Hooker had used the canal as a dumping site for 20,000 tons of its waste. When the city built low-income housing and a school on the buried canal and its surrounding land, it failed to warn citizens about the mountain of poison beneath them. Soon, children were coming home with chemical burns, women passed poison on to their children through breast milk, and neurological problems and cancer rates rose sharply. In 1979, the EPA called the town’s miscarriage rate “disturbingly high.” Eventually forced to intervene, the federal government relocated all 800 Love Canal families.

Woburn, Massachusetts – 1964 to 1979: In the mid-1970s, when children in East Woburn began dying of leukemia at unusually high rates, parents correctly feared tainted groundwater. Since the 1960s, workers at a W. R. Grace & Co. Cryovac food-packaging facility had been dumping waste trichloroethylene, a toxic solvent, onto the ground behind the plant. And Beatrice Foods, which owned a local tannery, was storing 55-gallon drums of waste near the Aberjona River. Seven families sued, and a notoriously loopy trial (documented in the book A Civil Action) saw Beatrice acquitted and Grace fined only $8 million, most of which went to legal fees.

Hinkley, California – 1970s to 1980s: A small town near natural-gas pipelines in the middle of the Mojave Desert, Hinkley was the perfect place for one of Pacific Gas and Electric’s compressor stations. The company began storing cooling-tower water in unlined ponds, assuring residents that the hexavalent chromium added to the water to prevent rust was safe for consumption. But when the chromium leached into the groundwater, Hinkley citizens began experiencing a number of ailments, including cancers and birth defects. In 1993, with the help of a legal clerk named Erin Brockovich, the townspeople sued and won $333 million in damages.

Washington, D.C – 2001 to 2004: Washington’s Water and Sewage Authority became aware that dangerous amounts of lead had seeped into the city’s drinking water. The water authority hid its findings until a 2004 Washington Post article exposed the elevated lead levels. Along with many others, a father of twin boys exposed to the contaminated water is now suing the WASA for $200 million, alleging that problems associated with his sons’ lead poisoning costs his family upwards of $40,000 per year.

Don’t be a victim of the next big poisoned water cover-up. Invest in a home water filter today!

By the way, the real Erin Brockovich recently commented on a new book about genetically modified foods and how they’re making people sick, The Unhealthy Truth by Robyn O’Brien: “In the absence of the truth, all of us stand helpless to defend ourselves, our families and our health, which is the greatest gift we have. Robyn O’Brien’s courageous pursuit of The Unhealthy Truth is an example of how we can all do our parts to protect the health of our families.” I actually interviewed Robyn O’Brien a few months ago! If you’re interested, you can read the interview here: How One Mother Uncovered the Unhealthy Truth about Our Food.