XYZ Records in Oakland 2010 with Exene Chervenka

Love the cowboy boots! Love the rad hole-in-the-wall little record store; they hosted Exene's little one-woman band and she played her acoustic set on a funky old Yamaha, with electric bass back-up. It was truly a one-of-a-kind event. Totally free and the space was like 15' X 10' maybe with about 20 people hip enough to know about the event crammed into the space. I saw her again (again for free!) at HardlyStricktly Bluegrass about six weeks later. Good times. For more about Structural Integretive Massage, please check my other blog entries for upcoming articles.

All Water Is NOT Created Equal!

A lot of my friends, when I ask them what they are drinking, and mention the problem of needing to filter our water for chlorine, chloramine, tri-methohalides, lead and other contaminates, they cheerfully chime in: "Oh, I use the Britta Water Filter Pitcher" so I'm okay!

WRONG!

While the Britta system is slightly better in the short term than straight tap water, it's hardly a good idea to use it regularly. For one thing, the filter must be changed every three to four weeks, or else it becomes contaminated - which is very dangerous and can wear down your immune system and expose you to serious illness. Moreover, it doesn't remove the most dangerous contaminates in water: chloramines and tri-methylhalides (close cousins of PCB's).

I have also tried under the counter, expensive filters, but I have been very disappointed by their performance. For one thing, I have an estrogen-sensitive tumor (uterine fibroid) and when I drank the expensive under the counter filter's water, my fibroid grew very rapidly and my cats all developed serious auto-immune symptoms such as serious coughs and runny noses and their fur became dingy within two weeks! The cholramines, chlorine and other contaminates create massive estrogenic production in the blood stream (xenoestrogens).

We have been told time and again that bottled water is a rip off, that's it nothing more than municipal city water that has been filtered and bottled, and that it is largely unregulated compared to tap water. Both of these things are true. Also, if you are sensitive to estrogen contaminates, getting and storing water in plastic is problematic, as plastic can leach into the water and plastic, being a petrochemical by-product, is highly estrogenic when ingested.

My research revealed that some brands of water are far superior to all the others. I recommend Chrystal Geyser because it is drawn from an underground aquifer and bottled at a dedicated plant across the road, then short hauled from the Mt. Shasta area over to the SF Bay Area. Unlike other high-quality artisinal waters, it is local, so that the amount of plastic that might leach into the water is minimized. It also is slightly better for the environment: unfortunately it is certainly true that drinking bottled water is not good for the environment in many way.

But until our tap water is truly safe to consume in large amounts over years without exposing us to the cancers and other autoimmune degenerative diseases that can arise from exposure to medical/pharmaseutical contaminates, jet fuels, chloromines etc., then the public doesn't really have too many good options.

I will discuss the dangers of drinking and bathing in municipal water if your are pregnant or have autoimmune disorders at length in another blog. For the time being, consider this: if you own your home, you might want to research digging a well and erecting a water tower and plumbing your home with you very own ground water! That's exactly what I intend to do.

Staying Hydrated in a Thirsty World!

I heard on Green 960, my favorite radio station, the other day, something that really made me mad: an "expert" was advising listeners that they didn't need to drink water to get adequate fluids in their body and that they only needed to drink when thirsty. Specifically, he said that coffee and tea and juice all counted towards hydration.

This is completely false. There is absolutely no substitute for water and if you wait until you feel thirsty it is unlikely that you'll get adequate fluid intake. Here's why:

Coffee and tea contain caffeine and that is dehydrating, meaning it actually pulls water out of your tissues. Moreover, it makes our kidneys and liver work extra hard excreting the toxins that are in the coffee. It is the same reason that beer and hard liquor don't count.

In addition, alcohol and juice, like sodas, contain a lot of sugars. The sugars place similar stress on the kidneys and liver as coffee and tea, and also pull a lot of water out of our tissues, robbing us of hydration.

For every glass of tea, cup of coffee, soda or juice we take in, we must consume an additional two cups of pure water. If you are not drinking at least six glasses of water a day, you are most likely chronically dehydrated, a common condition that results in all manner of degenerative diseases, including kidney stones, and exacerbates many pernicious conditions such as asthma, allergies, chronic fatigue and premature aging. Drinking a lot of water nourishes the skin and allows the body to send fluids to the organs so that they can function optimally.

Drink lots of water every day to stay young and healthy!