Clean Water, Clean Air
-- the Fundamentals of Life

While governments

and scientists work

toward clean water

and air, we also need

to consider them

ourselves in our plans

for a more natural life.

Clean water is potentially the single most important internal cleansing agent. People forget that the nutrients we need for natural healing are carried by water through the digestive system.


But is the water you’re drinking necessarily very good? What comes out of the faucet isn’t, always – check the quarterly reports that water companies send out to their customers about their water quality.


Maybe you’ve decided to make sure of clean water by drinking bottled water. But there are a couple of problems: First, what’s really in that bottle? Just because it says it’s pure and calls itself “spring water” doesn’t make it true.


Recent reports showed that one of the best-known brands was just filtered city tap-water. Do a little Internet research, if you can, and get a brand that’s on the level, if you can afford it.


And money, of course, could be another problem: you may not buy enough to drink what you need. Most people don’t drink enough water – not nearly enough! So if you buy those little eight-ounce bottles of water, you should drink eight of them by lunchtime, and eight more before bed!


Yep, that’s right – to aid optimum natural healing and detoxification, you should aim at drinking a gallon of clean water per day. (Most people won’t want that much, but you should increase gradually, until you train your body to tell you what it really needs.)


But unless money’s no problem, buying those little bottles is going to pretty well price you out of that game.


What you CAN do is buy the gallon-size, and put it in smaller bottles yourself, if you must. Or have a local company deliver 5-gallon dispenser bottles to your home. But do your research there, too – why pay money for water no better than you already have?


AND WHAT ABOUT CLEAN AIR?


Like clean water, it ought to be the one natural healing factor we don’t have to think about, but it’s really the one we have least control over.


As far as the inside environment goes, you do have some control. Scientists at NASA, among others, have found that a number of plants that adapt easily to raising indoors are able to remove as much as 99.9% of toxins from the air, and convert them to plant food.


While some plants do well on chemical fumes in general, others are effective against specific toxins. Growing Peace Lily, Areca Palm, Gerbera Daisy, Golden Pothos, Boston Fern and Bamboo Palm will remove a wide spectrum of contaminants. On the other hand, Azaleas deal with foam carpet pads and insulation; Chrysanthemums cope with toxins in new plastics and new paint; and English ivy, Spider Plants and Rubber Plants work against formaldehyde.


Take the opportunity to promote natural healing by having as many plants as possible in your home or workplace, especially in areas where you spend a lot of time.


But the outside air is a different matter. Some valiant souls are working tirelessly to improve the overall air quality by supporting better laws. And you can play a part by buying products made by more responsible companies, and not rewarding the wrong ones. Still, getting the results takes time.

Almost the only thing

you can do in the short

run to breathe cleaner

air outside is to move

to an area with lower

pollution. Forested

areas have cleaner air

and cleaner water.

This is the spring my family drank from when I was growing up.


There are all kinds of statistics available on the Internet about air quality in different areas, but there can be tradeoffs. In much of Kentucky, for instance, chemical air pollution is substantially lower than in many other places, but the hay fever problem from deciduous trees is worse than anywhere in the USA.


From my point of view, that, at least, is natural, and can be handled over time by the cumulative benefits of natural healing and the natural life. But it is an issue of air quality for some.


Clean water and clean air can be knotty problems, and, like most things, you aren’t likely to solve them all at once. The point is to be aware and take the small steps you can toward a more natural life.

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