⌛ Drinking Water and Diarrhea

... and then there is good old fashioned boiling. Whenever there is an issue with well water in the small hicktowns of Canada and the States they issue very public water advisories warning people to boil their water. I'm not sure what the pipes are made of here either. I'm guessing leaded pipes which would be another good reason to use your carbon filter. Just follow the manufacturers directions for frequent replacement. To summarize, yes a carbon filter is good for alot of stuff but useless against bacteria. By the way, I'm saying all of this under the assumption they don't chlorinate here. Does anyone know ?? I've certainly had some wicked peeing through my bum and have avoided it on this trip by staying away from tap water and ice.

 

I guess I missed something. What process are the "mineral" water suppliers using here, RO?
As an aside, all well water has bacteria, before we became so technologically crippled with too much knowledge, local populations developed the afore mentioned immunities to the local water from birth through generations. Aside from E coli, and heavy metal content, all natural occuring water contains bacteria, it is not neccessarily bad, only if your system is not used to a particular strain, or collection of strains. Having worked with sterile cultures as a student, I know it is practically, no absolutely impossible to have sterile water out side a laboratory beaker with a tight lid. The key is acceptable levels of bacteria to which you have some natural immunity.

As a foreigner, I would not drink any ground water here, Neither would I drink any public water, although I know some who do. There are testing facilities here in Dumaguete that will test your well water if you want to know whats in it.

SMB, SML, and coke no problem. only for your liver, oh well, trade offs...

 

Mineral Water

Mineral Water has no scientific meaning. Neither does Spring Water....another common trick question on University Science exams is to critique a scientific paper that sneaks in either term. I can call p*ss either if I wanted to. A few companies in the States and Canada have been caught putting common tap water in bottles and calling it spring water. There's no law against it.

 

I know this, It's why I put it in quotation marks Chuck, its the common name here for purified bottled water, you know the process they are using here to purify it?
I have seen at least on set up, its not rebottled tap water in this case.

 

They probably aren't "purifying" it if they are selling it under various brand names in the supermarket. They can do anything and nothing to it and sell it. I guess I'm not sure which "bottled water" you are speaking of. When it is marketed as Reverse Osmosis water , it should be going through a 4 stage process. !) gross filtration- just a really fine screen to get any course particulate matter. 2) dechlorination with activated carbon (chloramines are also commonly used in place of chlorine) 3) water softening and then 4) RO to remove everything including bacteria and viruses. The pore size on RO filters is just barely enough to allow water molecules to pass but nothing else. You then store the pure water in a vat with UV lights blasting on them. I saw the stages actually labled at an RO water place just off the boulevard. It was beside that nice pastry shop Sans Rival. He has all the stages labled and you can see the tanks in the front window. Looks like he's making lab grade water but, in the end, it all depends on whether it is properly maintained and the filters and media are changed often. If someone just runs the municipal water straight into an RO unit your bull sh*t meter should start twitching. Unpretreated water would clog an RO in a matter of 50 liters. The universal test for pure water is that it's electrical conductivity plummets at purity. You can stand in a tub of pure water and stick your finger in an electrical socket and not get a shock. It would be like standing on a rubber mat.

 

... and if somebody has health problems with the water here and the "bad" air and "I-don't-know-what-else" I wonder WHY this people are here. Stay in your 1st world country but don't travel as a peso-millionair in cheap-charlie-manner to a third world country and tell people what to do.
Go inside the shop and ask them, don't look through a window and come with bottomless "what If" speculation. And if you are not satisfied with the way they do things... feel free to catch a ferry to Cebu and fly out...

cheers with Coffee (and hot Tub-Water) without Diarrhea

Rhoody

Btw: You will get an electric shock standing on a rubber mat (or having rubber shoes) and touching 220 V outlet. You can wear my Islander as a rubber mat replacement and I will shoot some funny pictures for the board when you touch the wires...

 

Hardly seems worth the trouble if the water fails the test. A faster way to go I suppose.:p

 

Electricity needs a route to get back to ground. If you are fully insulated from the ground it can't go anywhere. If it weren't the case all the birds that land on live wires would be instantly electrocuted. Electrical workers don't wear rubber soled shoes and gloves for no reason. As a fomer Government of Canada Electricity and Gas Inspector, I regularily came in contact with 6 hundred volts without any shock because I was insulated from ground. As far as being a "Cheap Charlie", I spend alot of money in this town and am well known for my generousity !! You have a problem with me wanting to give people advice and share my knowledge of health issues and how to stay well.

 

Sorry for my rant Rhoody but I don't think my noble intentions deserved such a caustic response from you. I'm not going anywhere as I have commitments to fullfill at Silliman, but I do think its time I stop looking to this board as a place to exchange info. Compared to perfection, none of us fare very well, but I do try and make an effort at respecting others opinions. I fail sometimes and for that I'm sorry. How do i unsubscribe or can you do that for me ?

 

Carbon filters were also tried in some aquaculture set-ups, I was aware. One thing seems to be certain in all my "academic" observations of filters, distillation and such processes of purification: there are elements, trace or of requisite amounts; that need to be present in anything for intake or in anything to be used as a medium--for culture of living organisms, for example. The natural process of movement of materials from regions of higher concentrations to regions to lower concentrations goes bottomline to the question of balance.