Avoiding GMO foods is becoming more of a challenge as they remain mainly unlabeled. Many consumers also are left in the dark about what these foods are, and there is a persistent misconception that ‘all foods have been modified anyway.’ That is not true, and there are stark differences between foods that have changed through creating heirlooms and hybridization versus altering the DNA of GMOs and other new gene editing technologies like CRISPR. These differences affect not only the plant but the health of the consumers. With the rise of serious, life-changing and life-threatening diseases such as cancers and autism, understanding which foods have been modified and how in order to avoid them is more important than ever.

Image credit: Heirloom Veggies: 5 advantages over hybrids

Heirloom Seeds Are The Chosen Ones

“An heirloom variety is a plant variety that has a history of being passed down within a family or community.” – Seed Savers.

Heirloom seeds are often prized by farmers as the best seeds available. They are the best of every crop that came before it. The process of creating heirloom varieties in absolutely natural and can be done by anyone who grows their own food. The featured image above contains heirloom vegetables.

Must Read: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

All it takes is harvesting the strongest, best-looking seeds from the best plants. For example, a farmer grew a whole row of tomato plants, but a couple stood out as bigger than the rest with larger yields. The farmer may then choose to live the best of the tomatoes from these plants (often chosen by size or color) and leave them for seed collecting. The next year, using these seeds, the farmer follows the same process until years later they are left with quality heirloom seeds.

Heirloom foods are often tastier and may have better pests resistance that was developed over the decades.

These heirloom seeds are often passed down generation to generation, and they keep improving with time. They were the most popular seeds throughout history until large-scale farming became common. On large farms, the field technologies do not have the capacity to collect the best seeds. Heirloom foods are grown by primarily small farmers and gardeners.

Today, some farmers still like to specialize in heirloom varieties, and some seed companies sell nothing but heirlooms. The best way to support these foods is to buy heirloom produce from small farms.

Great heirloom vegetables and fruits to try are lemon cucumbers and ‘Mexican Sour Gherkin’ cucumber, ‘Pink Accordion’ tomato, ‘Lebanese Bunching’ eggplant, ‘Green Nutmeg’ melon, ‘Romanesco’ broccoli, and ‘Chioggia’ beet.

Recommended: Start Eating Like That and Start Eating Like This – Your Guide to Homeostasis Through Diet

Hybrids: Natural, Yet Limited

“Hybridization is a controlled method of pollination in which the pollen of two different species or varieties is crossed by human intervention.” – Seed Savers.

Hybrid foods are also created without the use of laboratories and genetic editing. It is done by controlling pollination to cross two different varieties or species of plants. It is done on small farms, but also on a larger scale. Mass commercial hybridization began in the 1950s.

Commercial hybrid seeds are labeled as F1, but there is a huge flaw in growing them. They produce the intended harvest once, but the follow-up seeds are unpredictable and often unusable. Farmers who use hybrids have to buy new seeds every year.

Hybrid seeds can be stabilized to grow the same variety every time, but the process takes years and patience. Some hybrids have been in our food system for many decades. Hybrid corn goes all the way to Mayan times, and the non-GMO hybrid corn available today was created in the 1930s.

Other common hybrid produce includes carrots, cucumbers, melons, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, and squash. Many fruit varieties are also hybrids.

Hybrids are the biggest reason why some people argue that many foods have been genetically modified. That’s incorrect. They have gone through hybridization, but that is natural and not done in the lab like in the case with actual GMOs.

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GMOs: The First Lab-Altered Foods

“Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are living organisms whose genetic material has been artificially manipulated in a laboratory through genetic engineering. This creates combinations of plant, animal, bacteria, and virus genes that do not occur in nature or through traditional crossbreeding methods.” – The NON-GMO Project

GMOs are most known to be created by one of Big Biotech corporations Monsanto. Yet, it is not the only company producing GMO foods and patents. Syngenta, Dow AgroSciences, Bayer, BASF, and a few smaller companies are also producing GMOs.

The very first GMO was created in 1982, and it was a diabetes medicine. This approval has led to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) giving green light to many GMOs to come, including foods. The first tomato was altered in 1994, RoundUp soybeans in 1996, and today there are GMO rice, corn, squash, canola, yeast, alfalfa, cotton, sugar beets, papaya, and salmon.

GMOs are defined as an organism that was genetically altered in the lab. Often times, these organisms have genetic material from other species inserted into them.

The most bizarre genetic manipulations included inserting a gene from a flounder fish into a tomato. The product from this experiment never made it to the market, but now there are actual GMO animals. GMO salmon is the first and entered food supply in 2017 after being approved two years earlier. This salmon is modified with a growth hormone to make it grow faster.

Like other GMO foods, activists and many health experts are raising alarm to the fact that there is still not enough information regarding GMOs effect on human health. There are, however, many studies linking GMOs to increased risks of cancers and other diseases.

Due to these risks, GMO foods have been banned in dozens of countries around the world, yet in the U.S., biotech companies are not slowing down.

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American consumers today are left to figure out which foods contain GMOs themselves and make educated choices. There are many hidden GMOs in processed foods. Most commonly found are the ones made from corn, soy, and canola. These are corn flour, corn masa, corn meal, corn oil, corn sugar, corn syrup, and cornstarch; and soy flour, soy isolates, soy lecithin, soy milk, soy oil, soy protein, soy protein isolate, and soy sauce.

Other ingredients can be less obvious. The common potential GMOs are also in baking powder, citric acid, condensed milk, glucose, glycerin, lecithin, maltodextrin, protein isolate, starch, sugar, vegetable fat, and vitamins B12 and E.

The one way to know for sure you are buying a non-GMO food or product is to buy certified organic and look for the non-GMO label.

Gene Editing

“CRISPR/Cas9 is a system found in bacteria and involved in immune defense. Bacteria use CRISPR/Cas9 to cut up the DNA of invading bacterial viruses that might otherwise kill them. Today we’ve adapted this molecular machinery for an entirely different purpose – to change any chosen letter(s) in an organism’s DNA code.” – The Conversation

Gene editing technology is the newest on the market today. The one technology that is gaining attention is “CRISPR” or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, which is the basis for CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing.

In the future, this technology can be used to slice human DNA like a pair of scissors and choose to alter the genome in absolutely any way. The potential there, some scientists say, is to find answers to treating incurable diseases.

The danger in this technology is that any minor error in the genetic code can have unpredictable results. The second concern is that this technology can be accessed by anyone.

Finally, CRISPR has been approved by the USDA earlier this year to be used on food. First foods that received the green light include white-button mushrooms and an oilseed crop.

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The USDA also said that as long as the gene is manipulated in the way nature can, the CRISPR food will not be regulated. This is a stark difference from animals edited with CRISPR that are classified as “animal drugs.”

CRISPR cannot introduce DNA from one species into another, but it is still questionable what hidden effects it has on food and animals that it genetically edits.

This newest technology is hotly debated among the health groups, but companies out to make money will be too fast to patent and sell it to the consumers. Both Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer already have their hands on it. Another food company which is exploring CRISPS is Mars.

When it comes to CRISPR food, the consumers will once again be left in the dark, as it will not be labeled.

Conclusion

To say that most foods are not what they used to be is correct. Most plants have changed over the decades whether by their own evolution or the hand of man. Yet to say that all have gone through genetic engineering is false.

By definition from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, genetic engineering means:

“The group of applied techniques of genetics and biotechnology used to cut up and join together genetic material and especially DNA from one or more species of organism and to introduce the result into an organism in order to change one or more of its characteristics.”

Foods that were enhanced by creating heirlooms or hybridization are not cut up and manipulated in the lab. They do not contain are foreign DNA from very different species. Neither do they have any health concerns.

GMOs created by Monsanto and other biotech companies, on the other hand, could not be done without using a laboratory. The true results of these DNA manipulations are still hard to fully grasp. Yet, too many studies already exist linking them to adverse health effects. Natural foods will always be safer and in the case of the heirlooms tastier, which is why it is highly recommended to always choose organic foods and produce.

Be sure to check out How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering.

Sources

• What is an “Heirloom” Food? – Eating Made Easy
• 19 Best Heirloom Plants – Sunset
• What’s the Difference? Open-Pollinated, Heirloom & Hybrid Seeds – Seed Savers Exchange
•  Hybrid Foods – Live Strong
• The Monsanto GMO Story: Adding a Fish Gene Into Tomatoes – Mother Earth News
• GMO Ingredients A-Z – Food Babe
• The USDA Just Gave the Green Light to CRISPR’d Food – GIZMODO
• GMO Facts – The NON-GMO Project

Fungal infections are demonstrating resistance to fungicides in the same way that bacteria react to antibiotics, warns a new report in Science magazine. Many perceive fungal infections like candida, athlete’s foot, and others to be relatively harmless, but an estimated 1.5 million worldwide die from fungal related causes. These microbes have slowly been building resistance to traditional methods of treatment, and according to the report, that’s scary news.

Fungal infections on human health are currently spiraling, and the global mortality for fungal diseases now exceeds that for malaria or breast cancer.”

How Did We Get Here

These potentially devasting microbial evolutions follow the same pattern. People and animals are given large amounts of unnecessary antibiotics or fungicides. Even if these drugs kill all of the pathogens they are meant to (and they don’t always), they also eliminate the beneficial bacteria as well. Once the beneficial bacteria is cleared out, bacteria and fungus left untouched by the treatment have a clear field to thrive. This allows the microbes strong enough to withstand the medication with the best possible environment for it to colonize.

Related: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections

Scientists predict a yearly death rate of 10 million people from antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the year 2050 if things continue as they are. Currently, deaths from those bacteria number 700,000 people a year. Estimates for deaths caused by fungal infections this year are at 1.5 million. Fungus and their spores are causing more deaths, and the most commonly used treatments for fungal issues are being used more frequently and diversely than antibiotics are.

Burying the Lede

There are two reasons to be incredibly concerned about antifungal-resistance. We are using azoles, the most commonly used family of antifungals, as medicine for people and animals, as crop protection, for preserving lumber, and as antifouling coatings applied to the outside of ships. These fungicides are everywhere, and if we’ve learned anything from the widely published antibiotic-resistant superbugs, this is bad news.

Another reason? The fungus is impossible to contain, and fungi are better at becoming airborne than other pathogens like bacteria and viruses. Every inhale contains multiple fungal infections waiting to happen. Much of our food is grown with fungus specifically added to it. There is no escape.

Related: How to Kill Fungal Infections

Taking It Seriously

Agriculture has known about fungus resistance to azoles for more than a decade. We’ve been on this train for a while now, and no one is activating the brakes. How bad is the crash going to be?

Immune System Importance

Dangerous mycotoxins (toxic substances produced by fungi) can develop in the compost pile, household mold, grains like wheat and sorghum, pet food, and dietary supplements. More people die from fungal infections than from tuberculosis. People who are taking antibiotics or who have compromised immune systems are especially susceptible. Which boggles the mind really…antibiotic use leaves you at a greater risk for a potentially dangerous fungal infection.

Related: How To Heal Your Gut

We can’t always control what we’re exposed to. The most common (and frustrating) fungal infections are caused by candida, a necessary digestive microbe! What we can control is how our body reacts to them. Balancing your microbes is key to a healthy immune system and avoiding serious illness.

Sources:

• Deaths from fungal infections exceeding malaria, say researchers in new drug resistance warning – The Independent
• Worldwide emergence of resistance to antifungal drugs challenges human health and food security – Science Magazine
• How fungi kill millions globally – CNN
• Genesis of Azole Antifungal Resistance from Agriculture to Clinical Settings – Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
• Attacking fungal infection, one of world’s major killers – Science News

Two of the pillars of modern medicine are in trouble and it’s for the same reason – ignoring microbial evolution. Conventional medicine charged ahead with rampant antibiotic use without a full understanding of the microbiome and how our immune system works or taking into account the additional impact of eating antibiotic-treated animals regularly. Bacteria consistently exposed to low-level antibiotics has evolved past those treatments, requiring doctors to prescribe increasingly strong antibiotics to conquer these incredibly resilient bacteria. For years we’ve been treating harmful pathogens like elite athletes, giving them increasingly difficult hurdles that only the strongest survive. Now, antibiotic-resistant superbugs will kill 10 million people a year by 2050 if the way we use antibiotics doesn’t change.

Now we are finding that vaccines do the same thing with complex pathogens. The vaccine suppresses the host’s response to the pathogen but doesn’t kill it. This gives more virulent, more quickly replicating bacteria a chance to multiply without killing the host. No one dies…but the bacteria evolves to the point that the vaccine is no longer effective.

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Whooping Cough

People vaccinated for pertussis are carriers of the whooping cough bacteria, even if they never contract the illness. In that respect, the vaccine succeeds…but only in the short term. Since the host of the pathogen doesn’t expire from it, the bacteria develop into a stronger version of pertussis. Caused by the bacteria Bordetella pertussis, whooping cough has never been eradicated and the number of cases has been slowly increasing for years. Conventional news outlets are quick to blame anti-vaxxers every time there’s an outbreak of whooping cough, an easier solution than examining the effectiveness of the vaccine.

The whooping cough vaccine was first modified in 1992 on a recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control after it was linked to seizures. The new version targets specific proteins in the bacteria, which is the perfect opening for other proteins to fill the power vacuum. Like antibiotics, microbes that don’t get targeted are able to thrive. While research has periodically called for an examination of the vaccine as reported cases of pertussis increase, a 2014 study from Australia confirms that the strains of whooping cough not targeted by the vaccine are thriving. Ruiting Lan, senior author of the latest study on whooping cough and associate professor at School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of New South Wales says, “It’s like a game of hide and seek. It is harder for the antibodies made by the body’s immune system in response to vaccination to ‘search and destroy’ the whooping cough bacteria which lack pertactin. This could mean that these pertactin-free strains have gained a selective advantage over bacterial strains with the pertactin protein.” In the course of four years, the percentage of whooping cough samples that lacked the protein targeted by the vaccine jumped over 70 percent. And that’s just in Australia. Lan also commented that “The fact that they have arisen independently in different countries suggests this is in response to the vaccine. More studies are needed to better understand the effects of vaccination on the evolution of the organism…”

Marek’s Disease

Another example of disease evolution in relation to vaccines is Marek’s Disease, a deadly ailment affecting chickens that has evolved enough to render two vaccines irrelevant and costs the poultry industry more than 2 billion dollars a year. Andrew Read, a scientist Pennsylvania State University Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, believes that the vaccine may be causing more harm than good. He’s been researching how vaccines allow bacteria and viruses to evolve and gain virulence for over 15 years and is also associated with the concept of “leaky” vaccines. Leaky vaccines, also called imperfect vaccines, save the vaccinated individual from death but turn them into a disease incubator. In his study of Marek’s Disease, Read linked leaky vaccine and increased microbe virulence.

When vaccines prevent transmission, as is the case for nearly all vaccines used in humans, this type of evolution towards increased virulence is blocked. But when vaccines leak, allowing at least some pathogen transmission, they could create the ecological conditions that would allow hot strains to emerge and persist. This theory proved highly controversial when it was first proposed over a decade ago, but here we report experiments with Marek’s disease virus in poultry that show that modern commercial leaky vaccines can have precisely this effect: they allow the onward transmission of strains otherwise too lethal to persist. Thus, the use of leaky vaccines can facilitate the evolution of pathogen strains that put unvaccinated hosts at greater risk of severe disease. The future challenge is to identify whether there are other types of vaccines used in animals and humans that might also generate these evolutionary risks.”

Marek’s Disease affects chickens, which doesn’t sound scary. The disease isn’t going to just jump to humans…that’s not how things work. But if we’re learning anything, it’s that science’s refusal to seriously consider and investigate vaccines mean that we don’t know exactly how things work.

Related:How To Detoxify and Heal From Vaccinations – For Adults and Children

We Cannot Keep Up

Vaccines are designed to target a specific strain of a bacteria or virus and encourages the immune system to defeat it. The vaccine and its response are frequently victorious. But that focus has ignored the realities of infection and the way microbes evolve. The defeating a particular pathogen or strain of bacteria leaves room for another one to take its place. In the case of Marek’s Disease, the third iteration of the vaccine still works, but there isn’t a new one in the works.

In its success, the vaccine has opened the door to a host of other issues that modern medicine won’t be ready for until it’s too late. Of course, we won’t be ready. You can’t fix something until you admit there’s a problem, and admitting that vaccination causes serious issues is too costly an error to cop to.

Sources:

• Vaccines Are Pushing Pathogens to Evolve – Quantas Magazine
• Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens – PLOS Biology
• Whooping cough bacterium evolves, mutation makes existing vaccine less effective – TechTimes
• Leaky vaccines could lead to more virulent pathogens – PLOS Blogs
• ‘Leaky Vaccines’ Could Spur More Dangerous Disease – Mercola.com

A new paper published in the American Journal of Infection Control examined reusable endoscopes cleared for patient use at three separate hospitals in California and found that sanitation procedures are lacking. At the best performing hospital, 62 percent of scopes had positive results for bacteria and potential pathogens. The other two had even higher percentages of bacteria with 85 and 92 percent. While researchers confirmed the lack of antibiotic-resistant superbugs on the scopes, that prospect is a when not an if.

What Is an Endoscope?

An endoscope is a thin, flexible tube with a light and a camera at the end, usually inserted into the body through the mouth or the anus. They are commonly used to navigate the colon, stomach, and esophagus, although they’ve also gained popularity as a way to examine the ears, throat, heart, nose, abdomen, urinary tract, and joints. Most of the people who experience endoscopy suffer from gastroesophageal reflux disease, GERD. According to the American Hospitals Association, the lifespans of endoscopes like gastroscopes and colonoscopes range from five to ten years.

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Why it’s Problematic

Not to activate your inner germaphobe, but this should make you wary of medical procedures where they insert something into you to figure out what’s going on. Doctors from the American College of Physicians reporting in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that the “Overuse of upper endoscopy contributes to higher health care costs without improving patient outcomes…” Numbers vary, but as many as forty percent of endoscopies don’t do anything to improve patient health. Is figuring out exactly what’s wrong with you worth inserting years of hospital bacteria into your system?

Not the First Warning

“Sadly, in the 10 years since we’ve been looking into the quality of endoscope reprocessing, we haven’t seen improvement in the field,” said Cori Ofstead, the study’s lead author and an epidemiologist in St. Paul, Minn., referring to how the devices are prepared for reuse.

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The issue of properly sterilizing this equipment has been and will continue to be a point of contention for hospitals and regulators. Researchers reported that the two hospitals that showed incredibly high numbers of bacteria reused towels when cleaning scopes, left the devices wet in dirty cabinets, and skipped necessary equipment washing procedures to save time. And they knew they were being watched.

No Quick Fix

There is no such thing a benign medical intervention. Being in the same room as someone who has taken antibiotics can affect your own microbiota, and a hospital is a fertile breeding grounds for hardy and potentially harmful pathogens like C. diff. A bacteria prone to antibiotic resistance, studies have shown rates of C.diff are greatly decreased in facilities that take sanitation seriously. This study found that the best of hospitals only eliminate less than half of bacteria left on reusable medical devices. Something to think about before you schedule your next colonoscopy, perhaps…

Sources

• Hospitals and device makers still struggle to rid medical scopes of infectious bacteria – LA Times
• Types of Endoscopy – cancer.net
• How C. Diff Infections Decrease With fewer Antibiotics – Organic Lifestyle Magazine
• Endoscopy Overused in Heartburn Patients – Web M.D

Much of the discussion surrounding microplastics in the environment have focused on our oceans, but a new report from Germany confirms that these tiny bits of plastic are also entering the food chain through organic fertilizers. Reducing and reusing waste are key elements of a healthy ecosystem, but proper pretreatment of waste destined for organic fertilizer is essential to avoid contributing microplastics to the soil. Professor Ruth Freitag from the University of Bayreuth in Germany, one of the study’s authors, identifies that pretreatment as a key to minimizing the impact of plastics on the soil.

Related: How to Detox From Plastics and Other Endocrine Disruptors – Organic Lifestyle Magazine

We have plants where they use a lot of precautions and there we find hardly any plastic particles, and other plants where they simply use a shredder to prepare everything and break it down – there you find a lot…One example is people use plastic bags and then put everything together in the bin, and then this is entering the waste treatment plant and ending up in the fertilisers…”

Germany’s Recycling Efforts

Germany leads the world in recycling, with 65% percent of the population using the country’s color-coded bins. Almost 12 million tons of food and garden waste are composted or turned into bio-gas yearly. The researchers examined fertilizer samples from different types of waste treatment plants, finding samples from those plants converting biowaste contained plastic particles of varying sizes and concentrations. On the other hand, agricultural energy crop digesters tested for comparison only had isolated particles, suggesting that plastics are entering fertilizers through improperly sorted compost waste. Samples tested had low levels of plastic, with a maximum of around 150 microplastic particles per kilogram found.

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Plastics Are Everywhere Now

There are six different bins to divide your recycling into in Germany. 317.7 million metric tons of waste were recycled in 2015. They are the worldwide leaders in refining personal recycling systems. Now they’re finding microplastics in organic fertilizers, a scary proposition.

We know that plastics like BPA and BPS disrupt the endocrine system and cause other health issues, but we still don’t know how they affect our health. We likely won’t have the full picture until well after it’s too late. Plastic is in our drinking water, the fish eat, and the soil we grow our food in. How soon will we be talking about how much plastic people can safely ingest before something serious occurs?

Related Reading:

• Drinking Bottled Water Means Drinking Microplastics, According To Damning New Study
• Many Hand-me-down Plastic Toys Are Toxic for Kids
• Microplastics in Sea Salt – A Growing Concern

Sources:

• Organic fertilizer as a vehicle for the entry of microplastic into the environment – Science Advances
• Microplastics found in fertilizers being applied to gardens and farmland – Independent
• Germany Gleefully Leads List of World’s Top Recyclers – New York Times

The Trump administration is considering allowing states to require drug testing for some food stamp recipients. The plan would narrowly target and affect mostly “able-bodied” people, according to an anonymous administration official, AP reports. The rule would apply to around five percent of those enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), according to AP’s source. In addition, the plan would target people without dependents who are seeking certain specialized jobs, the AP reported.

Conservatives have been pushing for mandatory drug testing for people who receive SNAP benefits for years. Federal law prevents states from implementing their own conditions for individuals to be eligible for SNAP.

Secretary Sonny Perdue wants to provide states with “greater control over SNAP.”

As a former governor, I know first-hand how important it is for states to be given flexibility to achieve the desired goal of self-sufficiency for people. We want to provide the nutrition people need, but we also want to help them transition from government programs, back to work, and into lives of independence.”

On Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order calling for federal agencies to establish expand on existing work requirements for individuals on federal welfare programs.

Ed Bolen, the senior policy analyst at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities think tank thinks implementing drug testing for SNAP recipients is legally murky.

Are people losing their food assistance if they don’t take the test, and in that case, is that a condition of eligibility, which the states aren’t allowed to impose? And does drug testing fall into what’s allowable under a state training and employment program, which typically lists things like job search or education or on-the-job experience? This is kind of a different bucket.”

Utah did its own welfare drug testing on 4,730 applicants from Aug 2012 to July 2013 for their Temporary Assistance For Needy Families program. Less than one percent were found to be using illegal drugs.

There are more reasons than ever to filter tap water for drinking and cooking. Tap water is commonly contaminated with heavy metals, chemicals, and radioactive elements. Toxic water has been found in many cities across the U.S., from the Flint crisis to many communities who may not even know hazards in their water. The utility companies are doing a lot of shady business to hide this information from the consumers for the sake of saving their pockets. Luckily, it is possible to take the situation into your own hands by filtering your water at home. With so many water filters out there, the only next step is choosing the right one. Expert information such as from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) can help you make the right decision for you.

Contaminants that Hide In Tap Water

When it comes to hazards in tap water, there are different contaminants to be aware of.

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Fluoride: Fluoride is a toxic substance that has been added to public water supplies since 1945, and became a nationwide phenomenon in the 1960s when society was tricked to believe that it helps prevent cavities in teeth. While there is a very small benefit to applying fluoride straight on the teeth, it is a very health-damaging substance. Worst of all, drinking it has no benefits to teeth. (When comparing decay rates for fluoridated and non-fluoridated countries, the results are similar).

The harm, however, is significant. Fluoride is toxic in any amounts, and it is impossible to predict the dose of it a person is receiving on a daily basis when drinking unfiltered tap water. Fluoride causes arthritis-like symptoms. It is toxic to the brain, and it may increase the risk of cancer, especially bone tumors, and lung, and bladder cancers.

Another chemical that is added to tap water on purpose is chlorine. Because it is used as a cleaner, it is added to water to “purify” it. However, it is not fully safe. It can react with water and produce toxic hydrochloric acid which causes cell damage, memory problems, and can even impair balance.

Heavy Metals: Since the Flint Crisis, this type of contaminant has been the most commonly discussed. Lead and other heavy metals can leach into the water from old pipes.

Lead, the element that poisoned Flint children, is one of the worst. It is a neurotoxin and also toxic to nearly every single organ in the human body. Lead poisoning, as well as chronic low-levels of lead exposure, can lead to developmental and behavioral issues in children, as well as brain damage at high doses. It has also been linked to cancers, kidney and heart problems, and reproductive issues.

Mercury is another extremely toxic heavy metal that is not safe at any dose. It can also cause brain damage, as well a nerve damage and cognitive disability. The many symptoms it causes include headaches, fatigue, memory problems, rashes, and mood swings.

Radioactive elements: It was recently found that 170 million U.S. people access tap water that is contaminated by carcinogenic radioactive elements. These elements come from inside the Earth when mining for gas and oil. Because they create ionizing radiation, this leads to cancers, birth defects, and even dysfunctional brain development. Elements such as radium 226, radium-228, radon, uranium, tritium, and strontium-90 increase chances of cancer even at legal limits. However, all of them are found at higher than allowed levels across the U.S. The highest number of people affected are in California, Texas, and Florida, but other states are not far behind.

Other chemicals: Many other chemicals end up in our drinking water supplies from the manufacturing industry; big corporations poisoning the environment. In one case, not that far from Flint, Michigan, an auto part manufacturing left a giant toxic plume over 50 years ago. Today, the pollution in the groundwater is still growing and affecting more households by contaminating water with a known carcinogen called trichloroethylene (TCE).

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Other factories left behind polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs); chemicals that were used in paints and electronics until their ban in 1979. Still today, they are found in tap water as far as thousands of miles away from their main source – where they lay in landfills. PCBs are also linked to cancer risk, as well as are hazardous for the immune and nervous systems.

Although arsenic can exist from natural sources, is often used artificially by the industrial companies. Long-term arsenic poisoning is linked to cancers of skin, lungs, and bladder; and severe abdominal issues.

Other chemicals that end up in water from different toxic industries are dioxins (released when burning waste), DDT (banned insecticide), HCB (banned pesticide), dacthal (herbicide still used today), and MtBE (a gasoline additive).

What About Bottled Water?

A lot of bottled water companies take the same tap water that you have access to, filter it, and re-sell it for way more of a price (hundreds of times more expensive). They often do a bad job filtering the water. If it’s not just filtered tap water, it’s coming from companies like Nestle damaging local environment and putting local populations at risk.

Related: Drinking Bottled Water Means Drinking Microplastics, According To Damning New Study

The second, much bigger issue, with bottled water, is that other chemicals may leach from the plastic into the water. This is especially true when the bottle is left in the sun during hot weather. The chemical often found in plastics is BPA – which acts like a hormone and disrupts many functions in the body. However, even buying BPA-free is not enough. Manufacturers substitute BPA with other chemicals…that also act like hormones! A study in Environmental Health Perspectives found that over 95% of products in BPA-free plastics tested positive for these chemicals when exposed to natural sunlight.

In the end, the safest thing to do is to purchase a glass bottle and fill it with water you filtered yourself at home.

A Detailed Guide to Water Filters

To bring some clarity to choosing the right water filter for you, EWG released a buying guide. To help you choose, here are the different types of filters available, which technology they use and how it works.

First, it is important to note that the most common brand available at supermarket chains, Brita, does not filter out fluoride. The best of the filters are not usually sold at major stores and are found online.

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These filtering systems can come in forms of water pitchers, countertop faucets, under-the-sink systems, and whole-house filtration. Whenever possible, a whole house system is the best choice for health, so that there are no chemicals absorbed through the skin when showering or washing hands at different sinks in the house.

From there, you should choose which filtering technology you prefer (some use multiple) instead of focusing on the brand name itself. Each technology can also vary in quality and how well it removes every contaminant.

Carbon or activated carbon filters: Carbon removes contaminants from the water by bonding with them on a chemical level. . Some remove only chlorine, but unable to clear out the other toxins, leaving heavy metals and chemicals behind.

These filters can use a carbon block, a fibredyne block, or granulated activated carbon. The first two are more effective in general, but the second type is best at removing sediments.

On the plus side, carbon filters serve for a long time without needing replacement.

Related: Activated Charcoal is Very Popular Right Now – Here’s Why

Ceramic and mechanical water filters: Ceramic filters and mechanical filters block sediments by using tiny holes but they let all the contaminants pass. They do not remove chemicals.

Deionizing filters: These filters work through an ion-exchange process; it removes mineral salts and electrically-charged molecules from the water, but leave behind non-ionic contaminants including toxic VOCs.

Ion exchange water filter: This process replaces ions using a resin. For example, water softening removes calcium and magnesium and adds sodium.

Ozone and Ultraviolet filters: Both ozone and ultraviolet light kill bacteria and microorganisms, but do not remove chemicals.

Reverse osmosis filters: Reverse osmosis blocks any particles that are larger than the molecule of water, therefore blocking: fluoride, arsenic, and nitrates. However, it cannot block chlorine or VOCs. The other setback of this filter is that it uses a lot of water – not the best pick for the environment. This method also ends up being pricey.

Solar-powered water filters: These filters use natural solar energy to purify the water and are a good investment for camping and other outdoor activities.

Distilled water filter: Distillation heats water until vaporization happens, then condenses it back into liquid form. Distillation removes minerals, bacteria, and viruses, but not chlorine or chemicals.

Related: Symptoms of Dehydration & Benefits of Proper Hydration – Are you getting enough water?

The main advantage of distilled water is that it removes the most amounts of toxins, heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, and radioactive elements.

One concern some people have is that distilled water is acidic. However, if you do not let the water stay in the jug too long before drinking it, the acidity level will be lower. Also, if you take care of your digestive tract, it will also not affect anything – the body will be able to take care of it.

The Newest Player on the Market: Structured Water Filters

This type of filtration system is new, or not yet fully known, but it may become the best choice in the future.

Dr. Gerald Pollack discovered the fourth phase of water – also called structured water, living water, or exclusive zone (EZ) water. This type of water brings the water to its original state as if it came straight from a spring; it hydrates the body better and is healthier in every way.

Editor’s Comment:

I like the Berkey the best. We hope to have these on Green Lifestyle Market soon, but at this time we do not sell any water filters at all.

At my house, we have a Berkey with the fluoride-filter attachments, and we also have an AquaTru Water Filter. I like this one, and I think it does an excellent job, but Berkey water tastes better. You can taste the plastic with everything else when you do a side by side comparison. I’ve used Zero, Britta, and Pure pitcher filters as well. Zero was the best pitcher filter. Using this meter to check PPMs, both filters bring tap water down to zero.

Must Read:

• What’s the Best Water for Detoxifying and For Drinking?
• Detox Cheap and Easy Without Fasting – Recipes Included
• Inexpensive, Easy Detox – The One Gallon Challenge

Sources:

• 12 Toxins in Your Drinking Water – The Global Healing Center
• 170 Million In U.S. Drink Radioactive Tap Water. Trump Nominee Faked Data To Hide Cancer Risk – Environmental Working Group
• Study: Most Plastics Leach Hormone-Like Chemicals – NPR
• EWG’s Updated Water Filter Buying Guide – Environmental Working Group