Care
A holistic approach to care encourages you to seek more effective treatments for common modern-day health concerns by looking at the whole picture, starting by eliminating carcinogens and incorporating clean, natural products into our lives.
At a young age, my mother gave me the awareness to of the potential hidden harms in the products we consume and of alternative health practices to prevent & cure myself of illnesses. This page is a way for me to share the knowledge she, and other loved ones, imparted onto me throughout my life.
As an academic, I use my empirical research skills to weigh the validity the claims I make. But more than any doctor or researcher, the people who care deeply about me are those I trust the most to guide me to be my healthiest self.
The Importance of Filtered Water
Sometimes I joke about the ingredients I use and say that even the water I use is organic, because of course water is organic; it’s water! But when I became more aware of what was in my tap water I couldn’t help but wish I could find an organic certified option. Beyond all the chemical and pharmaceutical drug residues present in my water (like hormones from birth control), my primary concern is fluoride.
Fluoride is naturally present in water but is also artificially added in the form of sodium fluoride (link photo) by most municipalities in Canada and the US. Officials say this process is to help keep our teeth nice and white. What they fail to acknowledge is that fluoride is a neurotoxin and has been classified by the oldest and most reputable medical journal, the Lancet, to be just as toxic as lead, mercury, and arsenic. A study from Havard and the National Institutes of Health found that water fluoridation also reduces IQ in children and nearly two dozen studies have linked it to brain damage.
Does your municipality fluoridate your water?
If you want to know if your city adds sodium fluoride to your tap water, you can easily find this information on your municipal government website, or by clicking here to find the list of fluoridated towns in North America.
Fluoride is the new BPA, and BPA was the new lead
When I was growing up, thousands of toys coated in lead filled paint were being recalled due to numerous cases of lead poisoning. Prior to the discovery that lead was a neurotoxin, it was used in countless products, causing a great deal of harm to consumers. In recent years, plastic containing BPA is being linked to illnesses and BPA-free alternatives now fill store shelves.
Now that fluoride has been listed as a neurotoxin, you can expect to see more campaigns to remove it from consumable products and, hopefully, soon from our water as well. But for now, knowledge of this has not yet spread fast enough and some products still boast the positive effects of fluoride for teeth health.
I remember finding out about this shortly before moving into my van for the summer where I had to shop for bottled water to cook with. You can imagine my disgust when I spotted this bottle on the shelf. I am unsure why added fluoride is being marketed to newborns who do not yet have teeth, but parents are unknowingly using this product that is having catastrophic impacts on the brain development of their children.
You can read much more on the hazardous effects of water fluoridation by reputable physicians like Dr. Joseph Mercola, but just these few studies are enough to push me to seek out a healthier option for my drinking water.
What is the safest alternative to avoid fluoride
Let’s get one thing straight: bottled water is not a better option to tap water. Bottled water is dead. I also don’t think anyone should profit from selling water.
Because of this, for many years, I refused to touch bottled water, except when I was living in Latin America where there was no potable tap water. But as I learn more about the harms of our municipal water, I have sought out cleaner options to fulfill my most basic human necessity. I chose to go with a stainless steel Big Berkey filter that uses gravity to pull water through micro-porous elements to then pass it through arsenic and fluoride removal filters.
This is because when your municipality adds sodium fluoride to the water, it not only affects the water you drink but also the water you shower and bathe with. This seemed far-fetched to me at first, but your skin is your body’s largest organ and can absorb significant amounts while pores are open during hot showers.
Since I’m not able to filter the water pipes in my home, I purchased this shower head that removes fluoride and other chemicals from my water.
