Natty Power

Clean water is the best. Plain and simple.

The healthiest liquid you can drink is water. All other drinking liquids contain water, but you still need to drink a pure water. Therefore, milk, coffee, tea, iced tea, fruit juices, lemonade, beer or any other beverage, can not replace drinking water. Always drink a lot of water, especially on training days and during summer. Some of the benefits are:

• Aids functioning of digestive system.
• Flushes waste and toxins throughout the body
• Boosts energy and athletic performance.

The big problem today lies in the fact that all drinking water you can find is polluted to some degree. As expected, the cleanest water comes directly from the Nature itself. Since the majority of population is living in urban areas, different ways of water distribution have been invented. Here is the list of main sources of drinking water:

• Mountain springs: Source of the cleanest water you can find. Spring water still has to be tested for possible high acidity and alkalinity. Springs are Natural source for people living on mountains.
• Water wells: Typical water source in the countryside. Water wells can contain a high quality underground water, but they have to be dug far away from latrine pits and other soil pollutants. Well water has to be regularly tested for pathogens like giardia and shigella.
• Rain water: It is usually clean and safe for drinking, cooking and bathing, but testing for germs and chemicals is mandatory. Rain water quality highly depends on levels of atmosphere pollution and how the collection system is set up and which materials have been used.
• Tap water: It is ready available and costs almost nothing, but it usually contains different toxic chemicals. The most dangerous are heavy metals like lead and mercury, but there are other chemicals too, like fluoride, chlorine and phenols. Prolonged exposure to these substances may lead to cancer, high blood pressure, kidney failure and many other serious medical conditions.
• Bottled water: This option can become expensive in the long run, requires regular shopping at the supermarket and carrying heavy water bottles back home. If you have a large family, you will probably give up at some point. Another downside are plastic bottles, which is certainly not healthy way to package anything.

For all of us living in urban settlements, tap water is the optimal and practical option. While you can drink it directly from the tap for a whole life without any problems, there are several ways to make tap water cleaner and healthier:

• Reverse osmosis: This solution may be an expensive investment, but will pay off in the form of a very clean drinking water. Maintenance will cost some money too and you need a space for the installation of the whole system.
• Filtering: Water filtering jugs or pitchers are very cheap and you can buy them in big supermarkets, so there should be no excuses - start using them now! Filters are also very cheap and all you should do is to change them regularly. Filtering is not effective as reverse osmosis, but will eliminate a lot of harmful chemicals from the tap water. Just keep the pitcher covered all the time to prevent dust and insects falling into water.
• Boiling: Easy and 100% effective method for elimination of the live microorganisms in the drinking water. While tap water can contain bacteria in very rare cases, because microorganisms have been already killed with chlorine in the water facility, there are still some benefits of boiling. It evaporates chlorine, reduces hardness and very successfully dissolves and eradicates dangerous microplastics. Therefore, it would be wise to boil tap water, even if you use filtering jugs.
• Sitting: The oldest way of mechanical purification is to let water sit for a while, until it becomes visibly clear. Sand and heavy metal particles will fall down and settle on the bottom of the container, but lighter substances like chlorine, fluoride, phenol and others can not be removed this way.

Beside pure water, you can drink lactose free milk, yogurt, kefir, fruit juices, herbal teas, coffee, etc. Excellent probiotic drinks are aloe vera juice and kombucha mushroom. Glass of wine occasionally is ok too. Avoid drinking carbonated fizzy drinks, diet soda, energy drinks, sport drinks, vitamin drinks, chemical juices, beer, whiskey, vodka, etc.