I have a friend that ran a simple test once. She likes to garden, so she and her husband planted two plots of exactly the same tomato seeds. They treated them exactly the same, except for one difference: One was watered with rain water collected in a barrel, while the other was watered with city water from the garden hose.
The plants watered with rain water sprouted and grew. The plants watered with city water never came up.
Moral of the story is, city water is not good for you, primarily because of the heavy doses of chlorine with which it is treated. Think about it.....where does your tap water come from? If it's like mine, it comes from a river that flows nearby. That river has already passed by one other large town, which used it for tap water and then dumped treated sewage into it. It also passed by hundreds (if not thousands) of acres of farm land, with the accompanying run-off of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Your city has no choice but to treat the river water with heavy applications of chlorine to kill disease-causing bacteria.
My sister-in-law is not accustomed to drinking water. She drinks coffee, tea, soda pops....but not water. So, one day, she decided to get healthy and started drinking water. She stopped right away because it gave her an acid stomach. I thought it was just because she was not used to drinking water, and I told her that her stomach would adjust eventually. I only recently realized that was probably not the problem.
Until a couple of months ago, we were living in the country, using well water. Good water! We moved to town and now have city water. I usually pour the water in an empty jug and let it sit for an hour or so to let the chlorine dissipate before I put it in the fridge for drinking, but when the weather got hot we started drinking the water faster than I could fill it, and I drank a glass straight from the tap. What an acid stomach I got!
At first it did not occur to me that my heartburn was from the water, but the next day I drank another glass of water from the tap, and again.... a terrible acid stomach! That's when I made the connection. Don't drink that water!
The best water for drinking (or watering your plants, your garden, or your livestock) is spring water. Second to that, well water. Third to that distilled or bottled water. Not only does that keep the chlorine out of your drinking water, but it generally will have less of the Prozac, Ritalin, blood pressure medicine and birth control medications that seep into the source of your city water from the sewage treatment plant.
If you have to use city water, pour it in a clean jug -- water, milk, even bleach jug, as long as they are thoroughly cleaned. Let it sit open, on the kitchen counter, for an hour or more. Then cap it and put it in the refrigerator. Use that instead of the tap water. Your plants and your stomach will thank you for it!
The plants watered with rain water sprouted and grew. The plants watered with city water never came up.
Moral of the story is, city water is not good for you, primarily because of the heavy doses of chlorine with which it is treated. Think about it.....where does your tap water come from? If it's like mine, it comes from a river that flows nearby. That river has already passed by one other large town, which used it for tap water and then dumped treated sewage into it. It also passed by hundreds (if not thousands) of acres of farm land, with the accompanying run-off of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Your city has no choice but to treat the river water with heavy applications of chlorine to kill disease-causing bacteria.
My sister-in-law is not accustomed to drinking water. She drinks coffee, tea, soda pops....but not water. So, one day, she decided to get healthy and started drinking water. She stopped right away because it gave her an acid stomach. I thought it was just because she was not used to drinking water, and I told her that her stomach would adjust eventually. I only recently realized that was probably not the problem.
Until a couple of months ago, we were living in the country, using well water. Good water! We moved to town and now have city water. I usually pour the water in an empty jug and let it sit for an hour or so to let the chlorine dissipate before I put it in the fridge for drinking, but when the weather got hot we started drinking the water faster than I could fill it, and I drank a glass straight from the tap. What an acid stomach I got!
At first it did not occur to me that my heartburn was from the water, but the next day I drank another glass of water from the tap, and again.... a terrible acid stomach! That's when I made the connection. Don't drink that water!
The best water for drinking (or watering your plants, your garden, or your livestock) is spring water. Second to that, well water. Third to that distilled or bottled water. Not only does that keep the chlorine out of your drinking water, but it generally will have less of the Prozac, Ritalin, blood pressure medicine and birth control medications that seep into the source of your city water from the sewage treatment plant.
If you have to use city water, pour it in a clean jug -- water, milk, even bleach jug, as long as they are thoroughly cleaned. Let it sit open, on the kitchen counter, for an hour or more. Then cap it and put it in the refrigerator. Use that instead of the tap water. Your plants and your stomach will thank you for it!