Don’t Drink The Water!
This has been almost a mantra mumbled by ex-pat Brits over the years when living in southern Spain.
The truth of it is that the water that comes out of your tap is not fit to drink! Don’t believe me? Then don’t, it’s not my health that you’re putting at risk by drinking the stuff.
Why is it so unsafe?
Well for starters, there is no true water main anywhere on the Costa Del Sol, at least not as we know it in the UK. All the water that comes out of the tap comes from a mixture of reservoirs and subterranean aquifiers which is pumped into local “depositos”, large concrete bunkers that are built into every new urbanization. These depositos are not particularly well sanitized and can be accessed by vermin, insects and other nasties. To combat the high levels of bacteria in the local water supply, a large amount of chlorine is added.
Add to this the local water is also very high in calcium, as your kettle and electric water heater element will attest to! Include the dangerous levels of heavy metals like aluminium and lead, then add the high levels of pesticide residues that the over-zealous farmers pump onto their land several times a year that leeches down into the water table and you have a cocktail of unhealthy particulates in every glass of water that comes out of your tap!
By World Health Organisation standards, particulate levels above 150 ppm is considered dangerous to health. Guess what the levels are on average coming out of your taps? Between 250 and 300 ppm is regularly found in local tests. Oh yes it is!
By the way, the authorities will not admit to any of this, naturally.
So ok, you only drink bottled water, but…
Boiling the water won’t get rid of the pesticides, heavy metals or a lot of the calcium. So if you’re drinking a nice cup of tea made with water from your tap, think again - is it really so nice?
Ok, you make your tea with bottled water…
Do you cook with water from the tap?
Then your food will soak up all those nasties that are dissolved in your water and you end up with it all in your blood stream anyway.
Chlorine, like flourine binds with other particulates in the water to form compounds which are… wait for it… carcinogenic. That means cancer. If you doubt this point, do you remember the scare in the UK several years ago about the addition of flourine into the water and links with cancer - and how it suddenly got swept under the carpet? Wonder why that was…?
Think how much it costs the local health services to deal with a few cases of cancer, compared with a major outbreak of cholera or dysentery…
Excess calcium in water causes digestive problems as well as helping to cause gall and bladder stones.
Aluminium poisoning has been hailed as a major cause of Alzheimer’s disease.
Do you still think the water out of your tap is safe to drink, or cook with?
Would you also like to hazard a guess at how safe that bottled water is you’re lugging home from the supermarket and drinking?
That’s for another time…
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