In the wake of the theorized gluten problems I had for a few months, I’ve been reading quite a bit about human diets and the effects it can have on our short and long-term health. Some of the stuff I already knew: eat healthy, get exercise, etc, etc. But I’ve learned quite a few more details than I ever knew before. I mean, sure, I knew we need certain nutrients like iron and various vitamins to be healthy. But I never knew about ideal iron intake. I never knew about other important nutrients like magnesium and their effect on our health. It’s both a fascinating and confusing field. It seems like there’s a new report or study released every week … many of which either reverse or alter previous theory. It’s hard to know what to believe. But just having more knowledge is very important and I encourage everyone to read up on human nutrition needs and ideals. It could really pay off in the long run.

Anyway, in the process of reading about all of this stuff, I came across a bunch of information about the problems with water supplies. Many people who drink tap water are taking a major risk. That includes people in more developed countries such as the US or UK. Many municipal water supplies contain chlorine and other potentially harmful chemicals (I know, the chlorine is there to kill other potential harmful things and is a net benefit). While small amounts of chlorine probably won’t cause a problem for you, there are many other things that can get into water supplies which can be very harmful. One case in point is the Camp Lejeune study that was just released. Sure, the study says that years of drinking trace amounts of deadly chemicals didn’t adversely affect health. But there are also many indications that the study wasn’t done thoroughly enough. What it really comes down to is whether you’re willing to risk your long-term health on the chance that your local municipal water supply is looking out for you. And that the pipes all the way to your faucet are in good shape. It’s a definite risk.

So anyway, I decided to buy a water tester. It doesn’t really tell me that much. But it does tell me the parts per million (PPM) of substances in water. I don’t know what those substances are. And it can be misleading because there are some trace nutrients like magnesium that can be effectively delivered via water. But it does give me a good idea of the purity of the water. Which gives me a rough idea of the quality of the water for my overall health. So I’ve done a bunch of tests so far. In the suburbs of Philadelphia, the tap water is 230ppm. The filtered water coming out of my parents’ fridge is 200ppm. Dasani is 30ppm (they advertise that they add things like magnesium and potassium so it could be that all of the substances in Dasani water are actually helpful). Then I flew back to Cayman. I tested the bottled water that I get delivered from a company called Le Bleu. I put the water tester in it and it read out 0ppm. I was like… is this thing broken? I kept waiting for it to move up but it never did. Just to make sure it was working I put it into some tap water and it instantly jumped to 175ppm. I was pretty floored. To put it mildly, Le Bleu is not lying when they say that their water is ultra pure.

In the end, I think the best thing to do is to drink the purest water possible and get trace nutrients from other sources. While some 200+ ppm tap water might be mostly good things, you’re taking the chance of drinking something that will cause major problems for you down the line. Anyway, feel free to do whatever you want but I figured I should post what I’ve figured out so far. I’m sure some experts in this area will explain to me about all sorts of other tests I should be doing on the water so I’m curious to see the comments.

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4. Back in the US
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