Water: Wit, Wisdom & Whatnots

The taste of Natural Springs

Natural springs are as unique as a fingerprint. No two are identical. They occur randomly, and each one has its own personality. Some are gushers while others gurgle. Some are still while others are carbonated. Some are boiling hot while others are near freezing. But one thing all springs have in common is that each one has its own unique water analysis.

The taste of spring water reflects different geologic strata where water absorbs minerals and trace elements, some over a year or two and others over centuries. These minerals are described in the water's mineral analysis and are perceived in its taste. Highly mineralized water can sometimes taste metallic, and high bicarbonates can taste salty. Water with hydrogen sulfide tastes like rotten eggs, and high iron in water can taste like a rusty nail. People tend to prefer their non-carbonated water in the range of 30 - 100 parts per million of total dissolved solids -- that being the measure of these minerals and trace elements. For carbonated waters, higher levels of minerals are more acceptable. (Excerpted from the Taste of Water by Arthur Von Wiesenberger.)

pH
The pH, or "potential of Hydrogen" is a logarithmic scale that measures the relative acidity or alkalinity of a solution. Solutions are measured from 0 (totally acid) to 14 (totally alkaline) and 7 is neutral. The optimum blood pH in a healthy body is slightly alkaline and should fall within the narrow range of 7.35 and 7.45. The human body is constantly struggling to maintain the healthy alkaline pH level. Maintaining this slightly alkaline state is a constant challenge for the body because of all the acid producing foods we consume. The mineral waters of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico have a pH value of exactly 7.
Water Facts thanks to the Bottled Water Store: http://bottledwaterstore.com

Survey

SURVEY: AMERICA'S POOR DRINKING HABITS
CONTRADICT KNOWLEDGE OF HEALTH RISKS
Survey Shows Awareness of Water's Benefits Is High, But Amount Consumed Is Low

Here's a look at the beverages Americans say they drink each day:

Few Drink the Daily Recommended Amount

Inconvenience Biggest Obstacle to Proper Hydration

Highly Conscious About Health Benefits of Water

Regional Variations Revealed

A total of 2,818 American adults (approx. 200 per market) were surveyed between February 1and 20, 2000, in each of the following 14 metropolitan markets: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Tampa. Total sampling error + 1.8 percent.

Findings from a survey of American adults conducted by Yankelovich Partners for The Rockefeller University and the International Bottled Water Association.

Women and Water

Ten years ago water was almost the sole premise of women. With a powerful image of promoting youth and beauty it became a fashion icon for models, entertainment and sporting personalities and office workers, both as an indicator of healthy living and an aid to dieting.

In the workplace, coffee and tea were eschewed in favor of a bottle of Evian or Contrex concealed under the desk and caffeine or decaff demoted to an after dinner drink. The black coffee and cigarette brigade of workers were suddenly viewed as unhealthily aggressive, whole water blossomed into 50 cl and sports cap bottles sold alongside the sandwich counter. With the development of PET, water in desirable lightweight containers became the ultimate portable beverage, embodied by the beautiful celebrities who carried it through airports, while out shopping and with their children.

A bottle of water has become an in-car essential for the independent modern woman and, as the educational process of the re-hydration massage took hold, men gradually have followed suit. Women – and men- now take water into gyms and leisure centers, nightclubs and out shipping. As avid label readers and analysts of beverage content, women were the first to realize the benefits of drinking water over carbonated soft drinks. Most importantly, as a recently developed product, bottled water holds particular appeal for the young, with its inherent health qualities, has a desirable and youthful image. Excepted from "Women and Water" by Claire Phoenix, bottledwaterworld magazine.

Bottled “water is a dose of purity in a modern world filled with grime and pollution. We think of tap water as stuffed with chemicals and lime scale, but in a bottle of water you can buy freshness and mountain air which leaves you feeling clean and virtuous.” – Collette Harris, Here’s Health magazine.

Collette Harris conducted a survey of the reasons why women buy bottled water and received many lengthy responses, which we condensed and listed below:

Women buy bottled water for use as: A hangover remedy: half a liter before bedtime and half again upon waking. A very good remedy for constipation Great for Bad breath and/dry mouth especially before a meeting Prevention against osteoporosis (Calcium enriched water) Slimming. Water contains no calories Hydration. For health conscious women. Youthful Image Dewatering. Low sodium or no sodium water does not retain water. Heart Care. Water with high magnesium content. Aqua Therapy for Skincare. Excerpts from bottledwaterworld magazine, January-February 2003

Hydration Requirements for Athletes

If a marathon runner were not to perspire, his body temperature would reach 42 degrees. And this in less than a quarter of an hour. All athletes will tell you: losing 2 to 4% of ones body weight means losing 20 to 40% of ones physical strength. Scientific evidence and studies confirm it, athletes must drink before, during and after exercise!

The amount of water required when not exercising is about 2.5 liters per day. Approximately 1.5 liters of this is ingested in the form of drinks, the rest in food.

During intense physical activity water loss can reach about 2 to 3 liters per hour. Daily requirement therefore is doubled or tripled.

For athletes the best drink is water, pure and simple because it fulfils the essential role of re-hydrating the body. Salts and other nutrients can also be beneficial (in excessive heat for example), but they are accessories as it is mainly water that the sportsman’s body needs.

Doctors, dieticians and other nutritionists are skeptical about the effectiveness of most other drinks; those that contain caffeine are diuretic, drinks with added soleplates are purgatives and alcohol… is the last thing to drink when doing sports.

Scientists are all in agreement that pure, simple water is the one and only drink that can be drunk in whatever quantity.

Water and the Sacred
Water is a primordial element which under lays creation myths and stories around the world. The Egyptian Heliopolitan creation story recounts that the sun-god Atum (Re) reposed in the primordial ocean (Nun). In Assyro-Babylonian mythology, first the gods and subsequently all beings arose from the fusion of salt water (Tiamat) and sweet water (Apsu). The holy books of the Hindus explain that all the inhabitants of the earth emerged from the primordial sea. At the beginning of the Judeo-Christian story of creation, the spirit of God is described as stirring above the waters, and a few lines later, God creates a firmament in the midst of the waters to divide the waters (Genesis 1:1-6). In the Koran are the words We have created every living thing from water.

Water divinities of various kinds appear in the mythologies of many cultures. And not surprisingly, the world abounds in sacred springs, rivers, and lakes. Even within the Judeo-Christian tradition, which generally avoids the veneration of the various phenomena of Nature, there are numerous examples of sacred springs or wells, and rivers. In most cases, the spring or river has acquired sacredness through connection with a significant or miraculous event. The water of the River Jordan is sacred because Jesus Christ was baptized in it by Saint John the Baptist. The spring at Lourdes is sacred because of its healing properties in connection with the appearance of the Virgin Mary to Bernadette. In some cases, such as the holy well at Chartres, or the Chalice Well at Glastonbury were probably already sacred in pagan times.

While sacred in their own right, sacred springs also draw attention to the sacredness of water itself, reminding the Christian, for example, that water is a symbol of grace (and as such is used for baptism). Water is also one of the four elements possessing fundamental characteristics. In the Canticle of the Sun, St. Francis of Assisi praises God for water: Praised be Thou, O Lord, for sister water, who is very useful, humble, precious, and chaste. In many cultures, water appears as a reflection or an image of the soul. In Japan, water prefigures the purity and pliant simplicity of life. It can be both calm and animated, and the Japanese may contemplate the unruffled surface of a temple pond or make pilgrimages to waterfalls. The lotus-stream of the Buddha or Bodhisattva raises up from the waters of the soul, in the same way the spirit, illumined by knowledge, frees itself from passive existence.

In India, the sacred River Ganges embodies for Hindus the water of life. Bathing in the Ganges frees the bather from sin, the outward purification serving as symbolic support of inward purification. The source of the Ganges lies in the Himalayas, the mountains of the Gods, and descends to the plains of India as if from Heaven.
The identification of the sources of rivers, streams, springs, and wells as sacred is very ancient. Springs and wells were perceived as the dwelling place of supernatural beings, and stories and legends grew up around them. Often it was claimed that the waters healed the injured or cured the sick with the result that well or stream came to be regarded as a sacred shrine. The Roman philosopher Seneca declared that Where a spring rises or water flows there ought we to build altars and offer sacrifices. This was frequently undertaken.

In some cases wells or streams were oracular. Pausanias (VII, 21. 11) reports that a sacred stream in front of the sanctuary of Demeter at Patras served as an infallible mode of divination using a mirror. Wells and springs inhabited by spirits with the gift of prophecy were places of pilgrimage. The Celts venerated natural springs of water for their sacred and medicinal value and many examples of holy wells are known, many of them were later Christianized through rededication to a saint. This practice of venerating sacred wells continued into the Christian era in the West, though they were now referred to as wishing wells.
Springs and wells also took the form of sacred fountains, which were claimed to be the Fountain of Youth, or the Fountain of Immortality, or the Well of Knowledge. A Fountain of Youth was believed to exist in the newly discovered Americas, and the Spanish conquistador Ponce de Léon set out in 1513 on an expedition to find it in Florida. In China, the water of the fountain at Pon Lai was believed to confer a thousand lives on those who drink it, according to Wang Chia; writing in the Chin Dynasty (265-420 CE), and a similar reputation was attached to the springs of Mount Lao Shan.

Wells and springs were often associated with a god or goddess and the sacred water dispensed there could ensure life, health, and abundance. The Babylonian moon goddess, Ishtar, was associated with sacred springs, and her temples were often situated in natural grottoes from which springs emanated. The Ancient Greeks who erected artificial basins and placed icons of the deity or deities nearby enshrined sacred springs. The Celts and Romans connected goddesses and nymphs with certain rivers, springs, and wells. Often the river was named after the goddess, such as the Shannon River, after Sinann, and the Boyne, after Boann, in Ireland, and the Seine, after Sequana, in Gaul (France). In 1963, at the Gallo-Roman Fontes Sequanae sanctuary at the source of the Seine, 200 wooden figures were excavated carved from the heart wood of oak to represent all or part of the human body (heads, limbs, trunks; with internal organs carved in relief on wooden plaques). These ex votos indicate that the goddess of the sacred spring was believed capable of curing a whole range of infirmities.

A special sacred significance was attached to springs and wells whose waters could heal. In the New Testament, St. John (5:2) describes the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem, surrounded by five covered colonnades, where a great number of disabled people used to lie -- the blind, the lame, the paralyzed waiting to be the first to enter the pool when the water is stirred. When in the mid-19th century soon after Bernadette's vision of the Virgin Mary, the water issuing from the grotto at Lourdes began to bring about cures in people, the spring was designated a place of miracles.

From these underground sources also bubbled forth mineral water, which could be imbibed or bathed in to effect cures. Later, these springs became baths and spas. The hot (120 degree Fahrenheit / 46.5 degrees Celsius) mineral springs at Bath in England were already being used 7000 years ago. The Celts subsequently established a shrine there dedicated to Sulis, and later the Romans built on the same spot a temple to Sulis Minerva (and renamed the town Aquae Sulis).
The Romans also developed other mineral springs. In Germany the waters at Aquae Aureliae became the famous spa of Baden-Baden (bath bath). In 218 CE, after defeating the Romans, Hannibal and his armies stopped to imbibe the waters at Perrier in the south of France. The water at Evians-les-Bains, on the southern side of Lake Geneva, was discovered in ancient times; in 363 CE, the Roman emperor Flavius Claudius Jovianus stopped there on his way to Germany. The natural spring waters at Evians-les-Bains are marketed today as Evian. The waters at San Pellegrino in Lombardy in northern Italy have been known since Roman times. Rediscovered in the 12th century, one of the famous pilgrims (pellegrino means pilgrim) who came to take the waters there was Leonardo da Vinci. The spa was established there in 1848, and bottling of the water begun in 1899.

-From SACRED PLACES written by Christopher L.C.E. Witcombe, Professor of Art History Sweet Briar College in Virginia, USA

Important Reasons to Choose Water

1. 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated (likely applies to half the world population).

2. In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger.

3. Even MILD dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as much as 3%.

4. One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost100% of the
dieters studied in a U-Washington study.

5. Lack of water, the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.

6. Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.

7. A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.

8. Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.

Water and Summer

We all know how important water is for our health. It becomes even more of a necessity when engaging in physical activity especially now in the warm weather months. Without adequate hydration:

• Water will be taken from blood volume during the first few hours of water deprivation
• It will take longer for nutrients to be delivered to and from muscles thereby affecting their performance.
• If fluids are not replaced, the body’s cells will lose water which will lead to dehydration and overheating.
• Water losses of 9-12% total body weight can be fatal.
• With strenuous exercise, the body can lose two quarts per hour.

Thirst:

• Maintains water balance
• Presence of indicates mild dehydration
• Can be blunted by exercise and overridden by the mind
• Need to drink enough daily to replace losses from urine, sweat, feces and respiration

How much do you need?

• Generally, 1 oz of fluid per kg body weight (i.e. for a 150# male... 150/2.2 = wt in kg = 68/8 = 8.5 cups daily.
• Weigh yourself before and after exercise, for each pound of weight lost replace with 16oz. fluid. OR: Drink enough until your urine is clear.
• Are you drinking the amount of water you should every day?

“A river is water in its loveliest form, rivers have life and sound and movement and infinity of variation, rivers are veins of the earth through which the life blood returns to the heart.”

- Roderick Haig-Brown