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SOLUTIONS TALK #1: Stop drinking poison water! Distilled water vs Berkey Filters
449 Plays3 years ago
Learn how to protect yourself and your family from the toxic exposures in the air, water, food, household products and more with my video course Detox Workshop. Covers diet, supplementation, toxin reduction, natural ways to support your detoxification system and much more (including some of the best legit detoxes you will find - no gimmicks, only solid and practical education). Check it out here, you will learn a ton of useful things, guaranteed: https://members.christianyordanov.com/detox-workshop
Chronic “subclinical” dehydration (or “hypohydration”) contributes to the aging process. Too many people still use Brita filters thinking they are protected from the hundreds of toxic chemicals and metals in the municipal water supply.
In this episode I discuss two fast and relatively easy and inexpensive ways to clean up the water your family drinks and cooks with. Yes, there are other options, but for most beginners this will be sufficient to greatly reduce their toxic burden.
The water distiller company I use: https://www.makewaterpure.co.uk/?cmid=THVmWlZFWFJYRVk9&afid=MysrUHdzdEtUYTA9&ats=bGVNSStaaCs3Wmc9 (affiliate link)
Links to my book Autism Wellbeing Plan: How to Get Your Child Healthy:
US Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Autism-Wellbeing-Plan-Child-Healthy/dp/1916393004
Website: https://christianyordanov.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Solo Episodes on Health
00:00:01
Speaker
Hey, welcome back to the podcast. My name is Christian Jordonov. Thanks for tuning in. And this is something I've been wanting to do for months now is start solo, doing solo episodes on various topics related to health. And obviously one of the most fundamental things, parts, components of health is our water intake and
00:00:29
Speaker
depending on how sufficient and optimal and clean our water intake is, that has great implications for our
The Importance of Water Intake
00:00:39
Speaker
health, right? So the idea with this kind of solo episode series is I'll cover obviously much more complex and important topics, not more important, but much more complex topics other than water in the future. But I wanted to kick off with something relatively simple.
00:00:58
Speaker
that is very often overlooked, right? So a lot of folks listening right now, including yourself, potentially you might be drinking poison water on a daily basis. Now, I think most people are awake enough that they know that the municipal water supply, the stuff coming out of the tap is bad. You can't just drink it.
Understanding Water Filters and Contaminants
00:01:24
Speaker
But what
00:01:25
Speaker
Too many people still falsely believe is that if you just buy a Brita water filter, those popular ones that are sold everywhere in the supermarket with that carbon filter, people think that just because you filter your water with one of those,
00:01:44
Speaker
It's now suddenly all fine and dandy. Unfortunately, it's not. Those activated carbon filters, of course, they filter sound. They definitely improve the taste. You can really tell the difference. So they filter chlorine. What are known as VOCs. VOC is basically Volatile Organic Compound.
00:02:13
Speaker
So a lot of chemicals and stuff like that, they do filter them out, but not all. And definitely not all other stuff like heavy metals and bacteria, this kind of stuff now.
Common Misconceptions on Health and Water Quality
00:02:38
Speaker
So I suppose the reason I wanted to put this podcast or this episode out is for folks that want to pull the trigger on improving the water that their self and their whole family drinks, but are not exactly sure what to do. And because they're not sure what to do, they just
00:03:00
Speaker
just continue to ignore the problem. And unfortunately, we know that months and years of ignoring certain things like eating conventionally grown non-organic food full of pesticides and herbicides, drinking, you know, poison water, which is, it is poison water, right?
Improving Family Water Supply: Berkey Filters and Distillation
00:03:18
Speaker
Over months and years and decades, these things compound and then we develop disease and various conditions. And we think it's a part of the aging process
00:03:29
Speaker
or it's genetic and stuff like that. So I'm hoping to give you a little bit of a primer on the... The idea here is the fastest and I suppose the path of least resistance to improving your family's water supply, it's not necessarily going to be the... Your water won't be the cleanest.
00:03:51
Speaker
or the best water you can get. There are definitely some systems that can run in the thousands of euros or dollars that are super awesome, like whole house filtration systems.
00:04:08
Speaker
They're super awesome, but unfortunately, most people won't invest in those that don't have the time, money, or enthusiasm to do that. So I'm going to discuss the water distillation, getting a home water distillation unit, one of those small units.
00:04:23
Speaker
or some type of gravity-fed countertop filter like the Berkey systems. So I've got both. I've had the Berkey, we've had that for more than a year and a half and it's great. And I'll get into the pros and cons of that and distillation. So just to kind of give you
00:04:51
Speaker
I have some notes here, I've been scribbling some stuff down.
Hydration and Health Benefits
00:04:57
Speaker
Before we actually talk about the Berkey versus water distillation, what I like about each and what I don't like about each way of cleaning your water, I just want to cover a couple of basic things that
00:05:13
Speaker
you know, you think everybody understands how you need to be hydrated, your body's whatever 70, 60, 70% water, and you know, we need to drink water, blah, blah, blah, everybody gets it, like, or they think they know it. And you know, all this common knowledge, as one, one really wise man once said, common knowledge is not common practice, right? So you might know you need to be hydrated, but you don't actually
00:05:42
Speaker
Like I would guarantee you that eight to nine out of 10 people listening to this right now are actually not well hydrated right now. There's some type of dehydrated, whether it's five, 10, 20% God knows, but most people listening to this right now are not well hydrated. And that leads to health problems over time. So just a quick,
00:06:11
Speaker
Because this episode is going out to my other podcast, Autism and Children's Health, where I cover obviously the topic of children's health and autism and various strategies to improve the health of children, younger kids. I just want to discuss the
00:06:36
Speaker
the daily water requirements for various ages and stages. So for infants, it's point, and I'll do this in liters, you just multiply by 2.2 in your head, roughly by two to get the weight that's pounds, my bad. Sorry.
00:06:54
Speaker
It's roughly equivalent to quartz. It's a little bit more in quartz terms if you're in the States or use the imperial system. Anyway, so infants, it's 700 to 800 milliliters per day. Children, one to three years is 1.3 liters.
00:07:20
Speaker
children four to eight years of age is 1.7 liters. And then we'll just cover adult males.
00:07:29
Speaker
It's 3.7 liters for like a, that's basically a gallon if you're in the States, almost. For a male, 3.7 liters. For females, adult females, it's 2.7 liters. And during pregnancy that goes to 3 liters and during lactation it's 3.8 liters.
00:07:52
Speaker
Just to give you an example, children 4-8 years, their daily water requirement is roughly 1.7 liters. I know adults
00:08:07
Speaker
like adults that don't drink that much water in a day, right? And then people are suffering from gut problems, constipation, headaches, that's a big one, headaches.
Critique of Medical Practices on Hydration
00:08:23
Speaker
A lot of these things start with dehydration. Another one, high blood pressure. So many folks in there like
00:08:30
Speaker
mid to late 40s, 50s, 60s, they're on blood pressure medication, right? Or with some type of hypertension, with a risk of heart attacks and whatever, so they might be on, or stroke, they might be on blood thinners, warfarin, whatever. These people take like four, five, six, 10 drugs a day,
00:08:58
Speaker
But their doctors never actually told them, oh, you know what, maybe you need to hydrate yourself better. I tell you, a lot of people that are in the early stages of high blood pressure, a lot of those people, if they normalize their
00:09:14
Speaker
Hydration levels, if they get themselves hydrated, they keep themselves hydrated, I would venture to say a lot of those problems will improve if not completely diminish.
Effects of Chronic Dehydration on Aging
00:09:26
Speaker
But that's how doctors hook you, right? You go there, you're chronically dehydrated, so your blood volume is lower, so you have high blood pressure.
00:09:35
Speaker
And then they put you on a drug and that causes other problems. You're still dehydrated now on a drug causing side effects. And so the vicious cycle has begun. And then by the time you're 60, you're on eight different drugs. And, you know, oh, thank God at least the doctors continue to try to help me. Anyway, little rant over there.
00:09:55
Speaker
So that's one thing. Now I got another thing I got to tell you just to kind of back up. This is information I got from the textbook of natural medicine, which is my, if I was ever on like an island and I could only take one book, it would be this book. It's a $250 two volume, almost 2000 page book.
00:10:21
Speaker
with all the natural medicine wisdom you could think of crammed in there. So they have a chapter on water and I got some of the information that I'll discuss from there. And here's a quote from the book now. So they say, chronic quote unquote subclinical dehydration or hypo hydration contributes to the aging process.
00:10:46
Speaker
In its struggle for survival, the body shifts precious resources away from processes that increase longevity towards those needed for short-term survival. Okay, so subclinical, it's like, just to give you an example of what subclinical means, not something that your doctor can't diagnose you and treat you with, right?
00:11:11
Speaker
So, you could have a subclinical vitamin or mineral deficiency. For example, you could be within the range or slightly below the range. Let's say you're at the bottom of the range for B12 or whatever.
00:11:32
Speaker
You can't really be diagnosed with anything there or your iron is right at the bottom of the range, but you're still within the range for your age group. So doc, most doctors, conventional doctors will, you know, won't do anything about it. So that's subclinical. So there's a term hypo hydration. So you might be 1% dehydrated.
00:11:55
Speaker
And what the body does is when there's a, let's say there's protein, your protein is low, that's coming in from your diet or your vitamin B or your zinc or any nutrient really, including water, let's say it's not optimal. It's let's say 80% or whatever, 90%. So the body does a triaging process where it will divert those resources
00:12:25
Speaker
to the most important survival functions. Let's say it's energy. We're talking about just pure energy. Let's say you're not eating enough calories. So the most important energy requirements are, of course, the brain, the heart, and so on. So there's a chain of hierarchy.
00:12:54
Speaker
So of course the brain will get, you will continue to divert those resources to the brain, the heart and other things like so, you know, a lot of people that said that are chronically malnourished, you know, you can tell
00:13:09
Speaker
And their skin starts deteriorating, many things. Some people's hair starts falling out. So these are non-crucial to survival type things that the body allows to basically take a back seat to the more important things. So it's the same story with water. And here's, I continue to quote from the textbook of natural medicine.
00:13:34
Speaker
Gradual total body dehydration is a hallmark of the aging process and occurs in 20 to 30% of older adults. In addition, the preponderance of body water shifts gradually from age, from cell interiors to cell, to the exterior connective tissue, and a decline in fat-free mass and muscle reduced to fluid reserve from these tissues. Kidney function also declines,
00:14:01
Speaker
limiting the ability to concentrate urine and retain fluid. Even death itself is frequently linked to dehydration.
00:14:18
Speaker
Long-term chronic disease eventually wears the body down to the point where patients can no longer ingest water and food, ultimately succumbing to dehydration. To make matters worse, our sense of thirst declines with age, though the reaction to thirst does not. Researchers have concluded that after water deprivation, there is a deficit in thirst and water intake in healthy elderly men,
00:14:43
Speaker
compared with younger men. Okay, the rest is not so important. So just to reiterate, so gradual total body dehydration is a hallmark of the aging process and occurs in 20 to 30% of older adults. That's bad, okay, right? We can see that's bad. So how, what are like, you know how you have these experts
00:15:14
Speaker
I take a sip of distilled water. You have these experts that go on these cool podcasts that you might listen to, the Bulletproof podcast or the Ben Greenfield podcast. And these experts are asked like longevity experts, how can we live longer? They talk about all these awesome supplements and things you can do and saunas and whatever.
00:15:37
Speaker
But here's one that's next to free that you need to do in any way. You might as well do it a bit better and that's drink more water. Stay better hydrated, right? You live longer. All things equal. All things being equal.
00:15:56
Speaker
and let's say you're 1% dehydrated chronically most of your life and you get that to being let's say 0.1% or let's say you get that 90% of the way towards that 1% improving.
00:16:13
Speaker
towards more optimal hydration, you will live longer. Your body will function better. And actually just a little fun fact, I guess not so fun fact, but according to the principles of traditional Chinese medicine, the consumption of cold food and drink is a bane of optimal health and wellness among Western people. So the interior temperature of the body is higher than oral, auxiliary or rectal temperature.
00:16:39
Speaker
Basically what I'm trying to, I won't read the whole quote, but what cold water does is it needs to be heated up by the body so that it can be utilized, right? So as they say in the textbook of natural medicine, they say, the ingestion of large amounts of cold food and beverages tends to inhibit various
00:17:06
Speaker
physiological functions and biochemical processes that sustain life. So it inhibits these processes, right? And cold water also dampens or inhibits thirst much better than hot
Optimal Water Temperature for Hydration
00:17:26
Speaker
water. So like in the summertime, if you take, let's say a cold glass of water, ice water, you will
00:17:35
Speaker
feel like your thirst will go away much more than if you just drink a room temperature glass of water, right? So this actually can lead to you not drinking enough water when you need to be drinking more water because the cold beverage inhibits that thirst, right? So point being is
00:18:01
Speaker
We need to drink beverages at room temperature or warmer. That is the most prudent thing to do long-term. I know in the summer, if you're out at a bar or a restaurant and you get a cold beverage, it's a different thing. But ideally, you want to drink warm beverages. That is the most ideal way to hydrate yourself.
00:18:28
Speaker
And then just before I get into the actual topic, talking about Berkey and my experiences with distillation and Berkey, I'm gonna discuss one more thing, a table from the book, textbook of natural medicine, multiple organ system effects of chronic subclinical dehydration. So they say the insidious effects of chronic hypo hydration
00:18:56
Speaker
are wide-ranging and staggering. Consider the following effects. Disintegration of cellular structure, impaired flow of nutrients into the cell as a result of compromised membrane protein channels in insufficient carrier solvent, aka water.
00:19:13
Speaker
local tissue resistance to endocrine hormones caused by faulty integrity and responsiveness of membrane receptors. So basically your cells are not able to accept the circulating hormones and you know, we're talking cortisol, testosterone, estrogen, all these things. So they're not able to accept them and utilize them.
00:19:40
Speaker
Chronic fatigue resulting from the lack of enzyme catalyzed energy production, just chronic fatigue, let's say, free radical damage to cell structures, including DNA, is a result of reduced enzymatic free radical scavenging, inadequate repair of DNA damage, resulting from faulty enzyme repair activity,
Dehydration's Impact on Heart Health
00:20:00
Speaker
reduce production of key bioactive compounds such as hormones, digestive enzymes, neurotransmitters, accumulation of toxins within cells,
00:20:15
Speaker
increased synthesis of histamine within the central nervous system, chronically elevated levels of certain hormones, for example, antidiuretic hormone, chronically elevated levels of cortisol, which is a stress hormone probably, with adverse effects on bone integrity, muscle mass, connective tissue, blood pressure, and immunity.
00:20:38
Speaker
development of chronic kidney disease exacerbated by increased vasopressin release, cortico-aldols, okay, never mind, never mind the rest of this, right? But that should be enough. If that doesn't scare you,
00:20:53
Speaker
I don't know what will. If that doesn't compel you to drink more and better quality water, I really don't know what will. One final thing I'll add from the book. According to the researchers,
00:21:09
Speaker
Failing to drink enough water can be as harmful to heart health as smoking. Let me repeat that. According to the researchers, failing to drink enough water can be as harmful to heart health as smoking. Just by increasing pure water intake, one can reduce the risk of death from heart attack by one half.
00:21:31
Speaker
This amount of benefit is greater than that gained by ceasing smoking, reducing cholesterol, exercising or maintaining ideal body weight. Thus increasing one's intake of pure water could be the cheapest and simplest imaginable method of reducing fatal heart attack risk.
00:21:59
Speaker
Okay, so it's always the simple little things that really fuck us up, excuse my French, like chronic hypo hydration or just being have subclinical dehydration, you know, not drinking enough water.
00:22:18
Speaker
or breathing too much. That's another topic I've covered on my podcast before with Patrick McKeown, the breathing expert. Just a lot of people breathe too much or breathe through the mouth, which you shouldn't do, right? So these little things,
00:22:42
Speaker
like that, they really mess us up over the long term.
Berkey Filters: Benefits and Maintenance
00:22:47
Speaker
So let's talk solutions, right? So I already discussed the two kind of what I believe are two of the fastest, easiest and relatively cost effective ways to improve your family's water supply, right? So the first one I'll discuss briefly is the Berkey water filters.
00:23:12
Speaker
I have no affiliation with the company. I got the Berkey water filter last year, but we've had it for more than a year and a half. And what it is, it's a countertop filter and it comes with two filter elements. They're these kind of long cylindrical black carbon-y looking elements.
00:23:33
Speaker
You can just see by the size of these things that there, of course, are going to be a much more serious filter than the little tiny filters that come in those Brita water filters, right?
00:23:45
Speaker
Don't get me wrong, I used Brita water filters for a long time before I actually made the move to the Berkey. In fact, it took my wife getting pregnant for me to actually pull the trigger. So I completely understand why folks don't pull the trigger on this kind of stuff.
00:24:06
Speaker
It takes the mirrors and in the meantime, we're poisoning ourselves and I've been there and I understand you if you're in this position. I'm not judging you. I'm just giving you the tools to do something about it. When you decide to do, of course, I'm not your pop. I'm not your dad. I'm not going to tell you and force you to do this. I'm just sharing my experience in the hopes I can help other folks.
00:24:29
Speaker
So yeah, so it took my wife getting pregnant for me to actually pull the trigger. And I was very happy to do that because it's a great little unit. They've gone up in price over the last couple of years, but for like $300, $400, you get the unit with the filters. It's a top chamber you pour the water in.
00:24:52
Speaker
bottom stainless steel chambers where there's a spout and you just pour the water in and it's very simple. I'll have a link in the description for you to check them out.
00:25:04
Speaker
And yeah, it's a great solution, right? It's great, but what one, I gotta say, oh, the filter, each filter unit lasts, I believe they say 3000 gallons, which, you know, in liter terms, it's closer to like 12,000.
00:25:27
Speaker
leaders or so that it can filter. Don't quote me on that. I forget now the exact numbers, but it's a lot of water that you can filter with just one set of filters. I believe from some other research I've done, I believe these filters will last you at least three years for like a normal family, like two, three, four people.
00:25:55
Speaker
at least three years. So it's quite cost-effective and you don't need electricity. So that's a pro for these Berkey filter units is you don't need electricity, it's gravity-fed and they're portable. So you can move it from one place of the house to another. If you want to, let's say go camping or whatever, go somewhere for a few months, you can take it with you.
00:26:24
Speaker
And it's always with you. It can always be with you. You have to clean the filter elements. They do get clogged up. So every month or two or three, you need to kind of take the unit apart and wash it.
00:26:43
Speaker
need to kind of in my case I need to scrub the units quite quite a lot because they seem to get really clogged up in my area which is actually one thing that so the the nice thing about the filtration you know the filter units or the the the what you call them the filters I suppose is they filter on the box it says all the it shows you all the testing they've done on the various chemicals and bacteria and
00:27:13
Speaker
heavy metals and stuff like that. So it will filter like hundreds and hundreds of different horrible compounds that you don't want in inside your body or your children's body. But it also lets through your regular
00:27:30
Speaker
nutritional minerals like calcium, magnesium, stuff like that. So that's good. However, my experience here where I live in the south of Portugal has been that we have a lot of calcium in the water because there's hills and mountains, it's got to get through.
00:27:46
Speaker
to get to us from the springs up there in the mountain. It accumulates a lot of calcium. Unfortunately, the Berkey allows a lot of calcium through, so we still get a lot of calcification on our keto and stuff like that.
00:28:10
Speaker
So in my case, that's not optimal. But if you're not in a hard water area, that probably shouldn't be such a problem. These filters, they have gone up in price as well over the last couple of years due to demand and all that stuff.
00:28:31
Speaker
So the unit is still, I believe, it's affordable because you buy the unit once and then you change your filters depending on your consumption. Basically, how to know when you need to change it is when the water just slows down to a trickle from the unit even after cleaning the actual filters periodically. That's how you know they've gotten so clogged up it's time to replace them.
00:28:57
Speaker
Well, I've been using one set for a year and a half so far and it is a bit slow. I've just been a bit lazy to clean it because it is a bit of a job, but you can still do it in 10 minutes. It's more getting over the mental hurdle than anything else. It's not such a big hassle.
00:29:14
Speaker
So that's the Berkey. I would probably, if someone asked me what's the fastest way to clean up my water, like a client or whatever, I would say just get a Berkey. If you're in Europe, there's a couple of websites. One is in, obviously if you're in the US, it's easy enough to get it. In Europe, there's two websites. One is in Holland, one is in Ireland.
00:29:42
Speaker
Sometimes i've noticed the one in because i wanted to get a unit for my mother the one in Holland often would be out of stock so it is one of those things that are in quite high demand at the moment so you may you may need to wait they don't have a waiting list you just have to keep an eye on the website and
00:30:02
Speaker
But the Irish one is eventually where I got my mother's unit and they seem to be fully stocked up. In fact, they also have shower filters that I think were about 95 euro when I got a few of those. So these shower filters, you just attach it to your shower head before the shower head, there's a connection.
00:30:24
Speaker
You screw it in and it's a great way to filter your shower water from chlorine, right? And if you haven't done this yet, please, please, please, just either get that one or go to Amazon, like you can even find shower filters for like 50, $50, 50 bucks, 50 euro, whatever. It's the same thing nowadays, roughly. Please do that, especially if you have small children.
00:30:53
Speaker
right? The amount there's
00:30:58
Speaker
so much chlorine in tap water. And chlorine, when we shower or bathe with chlorine in the water, not only are we absorbing it through the skin, but you're also breathing it because it's a volatile compound. So when the shower water hits the bathroom floor or the shower or bath floor,
00:31:27
Speaker
Even if it's just a bath, it just evaporates out of the bath. And you were breathing this poison, it's poison. That's why I'm saying we're drinking poison water, we're bathing in poison water.
00:31:42
Speaker
And it's not that much effort and expense to fix
Exploring Water Distillation
00:31:48
Speaker
this. This is a fundamental thing. It's a fundamental thing we have to get sorted now. Okay, so that's the Berkey filter. Now the other option that I would recommend is to get a home water distiller unit. They run at the moment between 100 and 200
00:32:11
Speaker
euros or dollars from what I've seen on Amazon with some accessories like the collection jug, carbon filters, spares and citric acids to clean it and bits and pieces like that. For 250 or so euro you can get started. I actually got a distiller last year as well and I only
00:32:37
Speaker
I only started using the distiller because I needed distilled water for this experiment I was doing with a compound called DMSO, dimethyl sulfoxide, which I will actually have an episode on that because I really need to share with you this amazing thing called DMSO, very interesting stuff. Anyway, so I needed, in order to use that, I had to dilute it with distilled water. So I was like, oh, God.
00:33:07
Speaker
I'm gonna start using this distiller finally because it looked like such a hassle to set it up and you have to run one batch of water to clean it and then you have to put in a carbon filter. Anyway, so it sounded like a hell of a lot of work in hassle, so I just never actually got around to using it. Of course, I had the baby and stuff, so I was super busy with other stuff.
00:33:34
Speaker
Anyway, to use my DMSO supplement, I needed distilled water, so I'm like, all right, let me work this out. And you know what? In the end, I was like, God, I just wish I started doing this earlier because once I started drinking distilled water, I tell you, it's such a game changer. It is a game changer.
00:34:02
Speaker
The first day I started drinking distilled water, a few hours into it, I felt like, you know, around the years, there's like these, at the bottom of the year behind the jaw, there's like this lymph
00:34:18
Speaker
nodes there. I felt them kind of a bit of pain. I felt them like swelling up. I was like, this is, I'm having a detoxification effect. My body's detoxifying something with this water. I was like, I need to slow down maybe just to not overwhelm the body, which very rarely happens with me even like if I take
00:34:39
Speaker
like my health coaching clients, I tell them to start a program very slowly, but I personally, I just like supplement, I go whole hog and parasite protocols and whatever, herbal cleanses, whatever, I just go whole hog and I've never really had detoxification symptoms and stuff like that. So this was like, wow, wow, the stuff, I was like, damn, this is good. And the water is so delicious. There's no minerals pretty much in it.
00:35:10
Speaker
It's just amazing. I'm telling you since then I I'll tell you and I'll explain how the whole thing works in a second, but just to give you my experience of it The My the okay actually let me get into how the so basically the the stealer if you never seen one or heard of the stiller basically it's a
00:35:36
Speaker
a stainless steel chamber that holds the water. You put four liters of water in there, and there's the top part of the unit. It's got a fan and a tube, kind of like a coil. So the boiling chamber boils the water. It goes up into the head unit, which is like a top of the unit.
00:35:58
Speaker
through the coil, like a stainless steel tube, and the fan basically cools down the water, comes out of a spout on the other end where you also put in a carbon filter.
00:36:16
Speaker
you can buy them when you buy the unit or you can get them on Amazon. And these carbon units basically they just filter out any volatile organic compounds that may have evaporated and gone through the the coiled tube. So it's like a final step of
00:36:38
Speaker
cleaning the distilled water because you're dealing with high temperatures, obviously boiling water, steam, and it's going through metal. The carbon filter, again, like I said, they do filter stuff out like volatile organic compounds. What you get on the other end, you have a collection jug, you get your distilled water there.
00:37:01
Speaker
It takes about three and a half, four hours with the unit I have. It's from makewaterpure.co.uk. Actually, I just signed up for their affiliate program. I'll put a link there. It's the unit I use. If you get a unit through them, I get 20 pounds at no extra cost to you. So if you want to use that link, please go ahead.
00:37:31
Speaker
basically I'll use any affiliate commissions I'll use to just buy more spare parts for my distiller because I'm telling you I cannot live without this thing anymore here's what happened I guess a month a month or so ago
00:37:46
Speaker
No, more like six weeks ago, there's a rubber kind of circular thing that goes in the top part of the unit. So when you slot it onto the bottom boiling chamber, it creates like a seal so the steam doesn't escape and goes through the right way. So basically this thing hardens and calcifies over time, especially with our hard water here.
00:38:15
Speaker
And it hardens and you can wash it and clean it. And I did that a few times, but just continued hardening and you'd get less water at the end into the collection chamber. So after a while, I was like, damn, I have to order.
00:38:33
Speaker
So I ordered a bunch of them and actually I was like, no, I cannot have this ever happen again. I was without distilled water for, I believe, two and a half weeks while waiting for this thing to clear customs because I'm in Portugal and it's from the UK.
00:38:52
Speaker
So I tell you, I was drinking Berkey water and I asked my wife, I was like, why does this water taste like dog shit to me? And I was buying water from, it's called Monchique water. It's like a pH of nine. It's really nice spring water that we have here. It's famous all over Portugal.
00:39:13
Speaker
I was drinking that and I was drinking the burky water. I was like, to my wife, does this water taste right to you? It's like, yeah, it tastes fine. It tastes perfect. It tastes like dog shit to me, I tell you. Because of all the extra minerals and stuff, I was just so used to just drinking no mineral water. It's so much sweeter. I started getting used to it after a couple of weeks, but not fully. I was still like,
00:39:39
Speaker
I was actually, those two and a half weeks, I was drinking less water just because I was like, oh God, it's not distilled, it's just not the same. So moral of the story is once you go distilled, I believe you will never go back. That's how good it is, right? When you drink distilled water, when I started drinking it, I would guzzle half a liter and have like a liter bottle full of water, just like guzzle half of it.
00:40:07
Speaker
And it was summer, so it's very hot, and I almost wouldn't feel that water sitting in my stomach. It would just almost dissolve into you, because there's no osmotic pressure, I think is the term.
00:40:24
Speaker
When there's minerals or there's stuff in the water, the osmosis, so its ability to pass through like membranes and getting to stuff in the body is reduced, the more stuff is in the water.
00:40:40
Speaker
So it was just like, you know, like if you drink cold water or whatever, like if you drink a lot of water, sometimes it sloshes around your stomach. You don't get that with distilled water, especially if you drink it at kind of room temperature and it's not cold.
Debunking Myths About Distilled Water
00:40:55
Speaker
Um, so absolutely amazing. And I just felt, I felt, I definitely felt like it's cleansing me the water. And a lot of people have this misconception that it, um, it leeches out, uh, minerals from your body, right? This is, I think one, one of the biggest hurdles to people accepting distilled water is good for you or whatever. Um, so they think, and this is what I even like this naturopath.
00:41:25
Speaker
that we go to this really great guy really gets the stuff even here i asked him what do you think of distilled water he's like oh no it's i wouldn't recommend it it takes the minerals out of your body i started looking into it right and honestly
00:41:42
Speaker
It's very hard to find good information on it. I'm starting to think it's a little bit of a scam, this whole thing, because how can you believe that nature in its infinite wisdom created us and it would allow distilled water, like something, let's say rainwater,
00:42:07
Speaker
And, you know, back in the day when rainwater wasn't, well, it was still clean, a lot of tribesfolk would, that's how they would survive. They would collect rainwater. If you're not near a river, that's your only choice. So would you believe that nature would make us so weak that you have a, like if you can think of a cell, like a balloon full of stuff in there and you put distilled, let's say you have a balloon
00:42:37
Speaker
and then you put that balloon in distilled water, and that's kind of an analogy for the cell. Do you think that the structures in that cell just start disintegrating and letting all their minerals be absorbed into the distilled water? That's preposterous that the body would be that weak after we've survived for,
00:43:01
Speaker
millions and millions of years. I think it's just when you actually think about it rationally, it's almost stupid, right? Actually, I have some quotes from doctors that were brave enough to speak positively about distilled water. I'll have to do another episode on that. But yeah, so I'm starting to think that's the whole scam because if you look at
00:43:26
Speaker
how difficult it is to actually find good articles on distilled water online. I don't know. I'm not buying this BS narrative. And here's the thing, right? Here's the thing. If you look at, let's say, this mineral water that I get here, because once I got into it, I started looking at the mineral content of various waters, right? And so if there's...
00:43:56
Speaker
one that I buy that I was telling you about earlier, on the pH of 9, it has about 300 milligrams of dissolved solids per liter, right? And of that is like 1.1, of that is calcium, and like whatever, 20 or 30 maybe milligrams of magnesium, a lot of it is bicarbonate. So you got like
00:44:19
Speaker
So my point is, if you're afraid that distilled water can deplete your minerals in your body, then look, just take a pinch, a small pinch of salt and add it to your distilled water. But what you've done is you've
00:44:36
Speaker
You removed all impurities, heavy metals, chemicals, hormones, medications, God knows what else, fluoride, chlorine. You've removed that and then you choose to add some minerals back into that water because you might, maybe you want your water to have a different taste, whatever, right? I don't do that.
00:44:59
Speaker
I don't think I need to do that for several reasons. So first reason is the, if you look at the, like this water that I was telling about, it's got like 300 milligrams of dissolved solids and I think at one or 200 milligrams of that was just bicarbonate. So a hundred milli, like a hundred milligrams of minerals, uh,
00:45:24
Speaker
That's I get basically the majority of the minerals that we eat come from the food that we eat, right?
00:45:33
Speaker
calcium, dairy, leafy greens, magnesium, zinc, cheese and meats, so on and so forth. That's where the bulk of your minerals is coming from. And here's the other thing. The minerals in water are rocks, they're ground up rocks, right? The minerals in fruits and vegetables and meat,
00:45:58
Speaker
They're a different form of these minerals. They're chelated, ionic, whatever. There's different ways to kind of, you know, that the body utilizes. So they've been transformed through some type of physiological process.
00:46:14
Speaker
or into in the plant. So the plant takes rocks, ground up bits of rock, and it transforms them into its cells into a different form that your body can use. So you can get a ton of minerals from your water, but is the body going
Minerals in Water vs. Food
00:46:35
Speaker
to use them? What I believe what is actually happening is that these rocks
00:46:41
Speaker
these minerals, they get deposited in our body in various ways. And we all break down in different ways due to genetic differences and so forth. So I'll tell you, for example, here where I live, where we have hard water, at least two neighbors that I've spoken to complain about arthritis and arthritic type pains. And
00:47:11
Speaker
Also, kidney stones are quite common, right? It's not a scientific study or anything I'm doing, but anecdotally it looks like it could be the hard water, right? And yeah, so people have gout, arthritis.
00:47:32
Speaker
kidney stones, bladder stones, gallstones. A lot of these are calcium oxalates, various minerals that if you think about arthritis and calcification of joints, where are these minerals coming from?
Economics of Water Distillation
00:47:57
Speaker
Think about it. Think about it.
00:48:00
Speaker
Yeah, I have to do more research on the topic. But this is kind of my hunch. I believe that distilled water is the way to go. Now, there is some issues with it. It's a little bit of it's a little bit of OK, so there's the electricity cost. So I think it. I think it's about four, three to four kilowatt hours per batch. So where I'm at now right now with.
00:48:25
Speaker
frozen electricity prices it's about let's say 80 cents per batch so it's definitely let's say and I do one batch per day minimum in the summer maybe two or every second day I do two and then other days it's just one so you know it adds up it's let's say 20 euro a month in electricity costs
00:48:51
Speaker
on top of the unit. So depending on your electricity prices, your cost sensitivity, you know, that the Berkey might be a better choice long term. But personally, I will continue to use the water distiller
00:49:10
Speaker
until it becomes unviable. And even then, if it becomes unviable due to electricity prices or whatever else, I will probably figure out how to distilled water using
00:49:28
Speaker
you know, those moonshine kits you can get on Amazon or something, I'll figure something out. Or like I might build a solar still that doesn't need electricity. It's actually not that hard. So whatever happens, I will probably try to continue distilling my water because I believe it's so good. Just to give you an example, right? So I have a water quality tester that I bought just for out of curiosity.
00:49:58
Speaker
And when you basically dip that into a glass of water and it gives you a number, which is TDS, total dissolved solids. And basically the higher the number, the more stuff is in the water and the more
00:50:14
Speaker
minerals and metals and whatever so I did a little experiment I took a glass of tap water from the kitchen and keep in mind I have a Berkey shower filter on on that line okay so it's coming through a Berkey water filter at 985 ppm parts per million
00:50:42
Speaker
Let's, oh God, my mathematics is not the greatest thing. I believe that's like one gram per liter, one milliliter per liter, or one gram of dissolved solids roughly per liter, okay? So then that water, I ran it through the Berkey.
00:51:09
Speaker
And it went down to 685 parts per million. So that's like 685 milligrams of total dissolved solids per liter.
00:51:25
Speaker
And like I said, that spring water that I buy sometimes, that's more like something like 300 milligrams. So that's like 300 parts per million.
Remineralizing Distilled Water
00:51:38
Speaker
So I got 685 out of the Berkey and I believe
00:51:43
Speaker
A lot of that is calcium because again, it's a hard water area. There's a lot of calcification on our dishwasher and in pots and the keto and stuff like that. So I ran the tap water through the distiller and the number that it came as was 20 parts per million. So we went down from 985, 680 from the tap, 685.
00:52:13
Speaker
from the Berkey down to 20, so very little. And again, if you are so inclined, you can take a pinch of... So there's different ways to remineralize your water, right?
00:52:28
Speaker
You can take a pinch of salt, Himalayan or sea salt, or some people just throw a few grains of rice. Apparently that also works, or a drizzle of lemon juice. So there's a number of ways. So if you clean your water really well with a distiller, then you can do whatever you want. I just drink it as it is because it's so tasty. I tell you, once you get used to
00:52:52
Speaker
In fact, actually, my mother-in-law was visiting us and so she was asking, what's up with this distiller? And I started telling her, it's so much better. And I told her, look, just take a bit of water, pour yourself some of the distilled water and take a sip.
00:53:13
Speaker
And she took a sip and she's like, yeah, what, it tastes like water. Yeah, water. And then I was like, okay, now take another glass and take some water from the Berkey filter.
00:53:31
Speaker
And she did, and immediately she kind of like a frown, slight frown came off and said, oh yeah, oh yeah, definitely taste, taste something in that water, you know. So yeah, the other, there are other cons. So other than the electricity cost, it's a little bit of a hassle. You got to clean the unit after every use a bit, because there's so much shit in your water.
00:53:55
Speaker
that the bottom of the unit is this like mucky gross stuff. It's disgusting and it smells like death. Yeah. And that is in your water. You're drinking that and your family is drinking that. If you're, if you're using a Brita, most of that is, I would venture to say still getting into your body. And then it's putting a strain on your liver, your kidneys, and you know, it's a lot of that stuff is getting deposited.
00:54:25
Speaker
in fatty tissue because the body cannot deal with all of it in one go and you keep adding more and if you don't eat organic food, if you don't take enough supplements like NAC and glycine and stuff, that stuff is staying in your body. So you got to clean the unit from the gunk and some parts do wear out because again, we're dealing with high temperatures, steam, boiling water. So the parts
00:54:55
Speaker
I ordered now when I I ordered some spare basically rubber kind of seal seals glass nozzles for the spout you know carbon filters I just ordered a couple of spares of everything and I bought another boiling chamber in top part of the unit just in case because again like if
00:55:24
Speaker
When I was unable to use my unit, the unit was working fine, I just needed one rubber part that cost five pounds or six pounds or whatever. I just can't let myself be in that position again, because once you go again, once you go distilled, you never go back.
00:55:43
Speaker
At least I won't. To me, it's worth all the hassle, really. That's about it. Again, so to sum up, the fastest and easiest way is get the Berkey with the filters, maybe get some spare filters.
Choosing the Right Water Purification Method
00:56:02
Speaker
You'll be set easily for five years if you get another set of filters with the ones that come with your unit, maybe even more.
00:56:12
Speaker
And then it's, it's relatively low maintenance, you don't have to do something every day like with a distiller every time you have to like fill it up and clean it up a bit and, you know, this kind of stuff it's, you get used to it though it's just another one of those little things you got to do every day like making your coffee takes about probably the same amount of time.
00:56:32
Speaker
But there is the electricity cost. So the Berkey would be the first sort of thing I would do. And then if you want to go next level with it, or let's say you have some type of, let's say someone in your house has a condition, a health condition of some kind.
00:56:52
Speaker
I would go with distilled because you want to reduce as much toxic stressors on your body if you're dealing with a health condition, right? So I would definitely go with distilled water. Oh, and one final thing is, if you listen to some water experts,
00:57:11
Speaker
I'm not saying they're snobby about the water, but if you listen to some of the things they're doing, like they're stirred their water, they bless their water, and I get all that. It's awesome. I wish I could do it, and I wish some of these things I could afford, some of the water filtration systems that they use.
00:57:28
Speaker
What I did is actually I bought for like 20 bucks, I bought some clear quartz crystals and I put one in my collection jugs and I put a couple in the in the Berkey water filter chambers and there's basically the point there is
00:57:51
Speaker
the distilled water, they say it's kind of, they say it's dead water because in nature, water is spiralized, it's like in streams, it goes through like these vortexes and that energizes the water. And when you're dealing with tap water, it's going through right angles, which are not inherent in nature and things like that. And obviously the chemicals and
00:58:16
Speaker
all the stuff and then steam becoming water that's again it's not as energizing as running water so basically there's ways to energize your water but this is kind of more advanced stuff you know you just want to clean up your water first and then think about this other stuff
00:58:38
Speaker
Since the last couple of months, I've put those clear quartz crystals. The idea is that they will charge the water because clear quartz is awesome on many different levels.
00:58:56
Speaker
To be honest, I can't really tell much of a difference. But a lot of good things happen just by the mind influencing things like the placebo effect. So I'm doing it. And I do a lot of stuff that I find benefits from, like supplements and things. And a lot of it might be placebo, but if you get benefit, it's still a good thing. If it's not costing you a lot of money or whatever.
00:59:25
Speaker
So that's one thing I would just add as a kind of fun aside. But that's about it. I've gone about an hour here. I think I'll leave it at that. I found an article online about those doctors talking about the benefits of distilled water. I'm going to read that article, share it with you in another episode. I think it's interesting.
00:59:51
Speaker
I think if you're not sold yet, or you're thinking about distilled water, or you have some friends that are like, oh, you have to get on the distilled water buzz, that could definitely push you over the edge and help you make the right decision, which I believe is the right decision. Oh, and one final thing. Sorry, one final thing.
01:00:12
Speaker
There's also another option you have, I probably should have said it's an option at the beginning, is reverse osmosis water. You get a similar sort of cleanliness as distilled water. Basically, reverse osmosis units are, they're under the sink type units, so you can get them, I believe for two, 300,
01:00:40
Speaker
euros or dollars or pounds, you would be able to get yourself set up and then it's a matter of changing the filters in the unit periodically, I think every two to five years depending on usage and whatever else. There is the issue that reverse osmosis water wastes quite a lot of water to achieve the
01:01:02
Speaker
the final result, but you don't use it all the time. You have like a separate outlet that's installed on your sink. So you use that for drinking water or cooking water, and then you use your faucet normally the rest of the time.
01:01:19
Speaker
So that's another option. It wastes more water, but then again, distillation costs electricity. So everybody's different. So if you're an area where electricity is cheap, that distillation might be the right thing for you.
Conclusion: Prioritizing Water Quality for Health
01:01:39
Speaker
So it's all about making the right decision. But I think the most important thing
01:01:44
Speaker
is to take some action and clean up your family's water because this is obviously something that we ingest on a daily basis and the tap municipal water supplies are so polluted
01:02:03
Speaker
not just heavy metals and chemicals and fluoride and chlorine, but it's recycled water from what people pee into the sewage. So it's pharmaceuticals and pesticides, just
01:02:30
Speaker
God knows, like we're talking hundreds of different chemicals, dozens of heavy metals. And all of that, here's a quote from someone, some health person that I remembered now is, if you don't use a water filter, your body becomes the filter. You are the filter.
01:02:53
Speaker
So think about that. Think about what happens to filters over time. To get clogged up, you gotta throw them out, but you can't throw your body out. You know what I mean? So clean up that water and drink enough water. Drink more water. You will know if you're drinking too much water. Your body will tell you, but it's a little bit harder
01:03:23
Speaker
to know if you're not drinking enough, you know what I mean? Maybe I didn't express myself there, but I've been going on for more than an hour, so I'll leave it at that. Again, just clean up your family's water. This is one of the most fundamental things. And before you do anything, like buying fancy supplements and whatever else, if you're not handling this,
01:03:47
Speaker
You really, I honestly think if you don't have this handled yet, I would drop everything else and it's sorted out before you even consider, you know, these fancy supplements and other cool, cool, amazing stuff that's so much more interesting, but should definitely be a lower priority than water, which is the source of all life. So thanks for tuning in and I will see you on the next episode.