Workout of the Day:
Snatch (Power or Full)
3-2-1-1-1
and then,
Three rounds for as many repetitions of cleans as possible in three minutes of:
200 Meter Farmer’s Walk (as heavy as you can handle)
Sandbag Cleans (ground to shoulder – Men 90 lbs./Women 60 lbs.)
Rest three minutes between rounds.
Where Your Water Comes From
Written by George Economou
If you live in San Diego, you should have received a copy of the 2009 Annual Drinking Water Quality Report. This report explains a little about where our water comes from, and how safe it is to drink based off acceptable federal contaminant levels; there is a ton more information on the City of San Diego’s water website.
Our tap water is pretty much as clean as you can get using big city standards, but there are things about it that I don’t like. First, any water source has the potential to get contaminated by a variety of things:
-Environmental chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, by-products of chlorination like trihalomethanes, etc.
-Heavy metals like lead, copper, and nitrates.
-Bacteria, possibly from animal and human feces (i.e. giardia).
-Radiological pollution.
Unfortunately, one of the most effective ways of making the amount of potable water needed for a large population is chlorination. Chlorine is a great killer of bacteria, both good and bad. While we want to keep the “bad” bugs out of our system, our gut is filled with “good” bacteria that aid in digestion and keep the “bad” bacteria in check. Aside from the potentially carcinogenic by-products of the chlorination process, I have a greater concern for on-going battle between good and evil going on in my gut.
If you’re not drinking water from the tap, you’re probably drinking bottled water. Remember the fun fact about the price of water compared to gasoline? Water is BIG business, and as such, there are a lot of folks trying to make money. Here’s a quick way to decipher where your bottled water comes from:
Purified Water- Tap water that is filtered again.
Mountain Spring Water – Water that was either snow or rain and was filtered through a mountain’s natural filtering system. Usually has a higher mineral content than purified water, but still needs to go through some kind of disinfection/filtering process in order to remove “floaties.” Generally, the higher the mountain the better as it is farther removed from the things of man.
Artesian Water – Water from an underground well that naturally rises to the surface due to a build up of pressure. This water has usually been in the ground for hundreds to thousands of years and has undergone the natural filtering process called Earth. Again, a higher mineral content, and you want to check the source to make sure it couldn’t have been impacted by local runoff.
Glacial Water – You guessed it…water melted off of a glacier. I would consider this the ultimate in “clean” as you’re drinking water that has probably been frozen for hundreds of thousands of years. While climbing in Alaska, Human and I had the opportunity to drink some fresh melt and it was honestly the best water I’ve ever had.
Filtering Options
If you’re more of a DIY kind of person, here’s a quick rundown on filtering processes:
Carbon Filters – Brita is a common example, although solid-carbon-block filters generally get better effects than the granular ones. Carbon filters remove most organic chemicals, pesticides, chlorine, bacteria, some metals (lead, iron, copper), and radon. They will not filter out arsenic, nitrates, viruses or radioactive particles.
Reverse osmosis – I drank this while deployed on the USS PELELIU as this was the primary method of desalination of seawater. More common in large industrial projects and is good at removing toxic metals, but not many organic chemicals.
Distillation – Similar in concept to that toilet hooch you made in prison, the process involves boiling water, capturing and cooling the steam, leaving you with clean water. Probably the best all around process, but if you go this route you’re probably looking at getting a whole-house filtering system.
*Something that we don’t think about all that often is how much water we absorb through our skin or via inhalation. One way to address this would be to install a filter on your showerhead. Check out www.healthyhome.com for some cool, and relatively inexpensive, products that will help remove chlorine –and the dreaded trihalomethanes- from your shower time.
