The importance of water
Water is one of the most important nutrients for the body. It is involved in basically every bodily function, and makes up 70-75% of our body weight. It helps regulate body temperature, metabolize body fat, aids in digestion, lubricates and cushions organs, transports nutrients, and flushes toxins from our body just to name a few of its benefits. Our blood is also made of 90% water. If we lack getting sufficient amounts of water our body reacts by using the already present water, like the water in our blood. This action makes your blood thicker and after a prolonged period of time could cause clotting in smaller vessels like the capillaries. Not having enough water is linked to heartburn, headaches, and arthritis so make sure you stay hydrated.
Water keeps us nice, flexible and juicy.
There is no replacement for pure water. Soda, tea, and coffee can not replace the hydration that water provides. There are many phytochemical constituents in tea and coffee that are good but most of them contain caffeine which has a diuretic effect. Diuretics are substances that force water out of your body and sometimes if flushes certain other essential nutrients. People who are athletes, or people that do intense exercise, need lots of water.
Not only do we get water through drinking we also get water through eating. Our bodies require a lot of water so instead of lugging a big water filled jug around all day, try using a smaller container and getting water through nutrient rich water dominant foods. Foods in their uncooked state contain high amounts of this liquid gold(water). A few of these foods are Cucumber(97% water), Zucchini(95%), Tomatoes(95%), Eggplant(92%), Peaches, and Watermelon. These juicy foods, like the majority of vegetables, contain a large quantity of water. You can witness this by the little cellulose that comes out after juicing them compared to the large amounts of juice. When any of this water is lost in the preparation of vegetables, the nutritious substances contained are also lost. Over heating food can result in dehydration of that food. Eating too many overly heated and dehydrated food without proper hydration more than likely will lead to dehydration because it pulls already present water to digest the extremely dehydrated food- the whole food structure is damaged and little nutrition is left. The total food value of vegetables as well as cereals, meats, and in fact all foods, varies with the quantity of water and cellulose they contain. Therefore the vegetables that contain the least coarse material are those that have the highest food value.
The number one symptom of dehydration is fatigue and 60-70% of people are dehydrated all day long. Too much coffee, tea, and soda, make our bodies acidic. In order to keep our bodies balanced, it has to flush the acid substances out, therefore pulling from our water stores and making us even more dehydrated. 70% of our diet should consist of water rich foods. Green fluids, like green drinks, help our body stay in a balanced alkaline state. The body must maintain a balanced pH level of 7.34 so drinking green juices is one of the most important ways for staying hydrated and maintaining proper pH balance.
The best water to drink is spring water. Spring water is water that is in an underground aquifer and runs out of the nipple of the spring. The aquifer is an underground storehouse that holds water that was collected over long periods of time between rock sediment. The minerals in the rock sediment is dispersed throughout the water as the pressure makes it seem to levitate up through the ground to make the hole that it calmly leaks through, which is called the nipple. Spring water is the cleanest source of water available to us. It doesn’t contain contaminants from city water systems, or pollution in general. A great brand that I like to drink is Pierre’s carbonated spring water. Carbonation in the water helps with digestion and to settle the stomach. It’s also a better alternative to dreaded mainstream sodas. On Pierre’s website you can read about its history and about the treatment of land around the spring so that it remains a high quality, clean, natural water.
Still not convinced? The Bush Admin. jumped on the Liquid Gold wagon in another country…. read this:
“The Guarani Aquifer: a little known water resource in South America gets a voice
The aquifer contains enough fresh water to sustain the world’s population for 200 years, and as water shortages affect us all in the future, the Guarani Aquifer could be a lifeline for millions. But increased commercial interest in the aquifer’s water, and political bickering between the four countries that share it, is threatening this huge resource.
“The Guarani system is a striking example of an international water body threatened by environmental degradation,” says Karin Kemper, a water resources specialist with the World Bank. “Without better management, the aquifer is likely to suffer from pollution and rapid depletion. Uncontrolled exploitation could reduce it from a strategic water reserve to a degraded resource that is a focus of conflict in the region.”
It’s a complex story with many overlapping strands that call to the global as well as local water situation. The story combines the fight between the indigenous Guarani people and the corporations who are using the aquifer’s cheap water supply, climate change and a bit of conspiracy theory (George W Bush owns a huge ranch on the aquifer which some activists are interpreting as an American neo-imperialist threat to South America’s sovereignty). There’s even a celebrity angle to the story: the James Bond movie, The Quantum of Solace, despite being set in Bolivia, is allegedly based on the Guarani Aquifer.
But this strategically important water resource has barely received a second glance in the mainstream media. That is why a small team and myself have formed The Guarani Project, and we are going down to South America for three months this summer to start piecing together the complex puzzle of the Guarani Aquifer to ultimately produce a documentary.
We strongly believe that by highlighting the plight of the Guarani Aquifer we can encourage people to conserve this water resource for future generations. The longer this story remains untold the higher the risks to the Guarani Aquifer and, by continuation, us all.
Through this documentary we want to make people understand that the scarcity of freshwater is no longer a problem restricted to poor countries. Shortages are reaching crisis proportions in even the most highly developed regions: the Ogallala Aquifer in central US is being rapidly depleted by intense municipal use, and in 2008, 438 million gallons of water were shipped to Barcelona, Spain, to relieve the worst drought that the region had experience in over 60 years. Water use has grown at twice the rate of the world’s population for the last century (Source: UN Water), and we’ve reached peak water, the point at which the renewable supply is forever outstripped by unquenchable demand.”
The best way to supply the body with adequate amounts of essential water is: 1) drinking pure spring water or the best water you can find for now, 2) eating uncooked raw water rich vegetables, and 3) drinking fresh home made green vegetable juices.