A Home Detox Challenge: What’s in Your Drinking Water?

Water is the most important item in our lives, yet surprisingly it’s not as clean as you would think.

And then if the government says it’s OK, that still does not necessarily mean it’s OK, know what I mean?

Three main toxins that you can find in your water happen to all be endocrine disruptors…lovely news isn’t it?

Where shall we start?

How about atrazine?

Atrazine is an herbicide that has been linked to breast tumors, delayed puberty, and prostate cancer.

Then we have arsenic. Yes, the same arsenic that is toxic enough to kill you. When ingested in smaller amounts though, like in water, it has been associated with skin, bladder and lung cancer, as well as hormone disruption.

If you pay any attention to the news you’ll already know you will find lead in your water.

Lead harms almost every organ system in the body and has been linked to everything from permanent brain damage and a lowered IQ to premature birth, kidney damage and, of course, hormone disruption.

The challenge:

Step 1: I want you to find out what’s in your water. You’re going to use the Environmental Working Group’s Tap Water Database

There are three ways to search for the water score in your town. 

1. By entering your zip code 

2. By choosing your state 

or 3. By clicking advanced search, which will allow you to search by utility company

Once the search results appear, scroll down the page to see what potential toxins are in your water. Example search results below. There are many hyperlinks on the results, for instance you can click on the ‘7’ and ‘12’ to see the list of contaminants. Then you can click the + sign to see more information on the contaminant. You can also click on ‘pollution sources’ to see where the contaminants possibly came from. 

Step 2: Next, I want you to find a water filter that suits you and your family’s needs. Simply click on the orange ‘Want to filter these contaminants out?’ button to be taken directly to their Water Filter Buying Guide.

Scroll a little up the page until you see the below view:

You can search for water filters using the tabs in the first section (Least Expensive, Most Effective, etc.) or you can filter using the drop down section at the bottom of the page (the All Filter types, All filter technologies, etc).

Now, go find out what’s in your water!