Hi everybody this is Monica Reinagle the nutrition diva here with your quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous

Melanie writes my husband and I have switched to eating organically,

but now we're wondering about what we drink.

Should we be concerned about pesticides and other chemicals in our water supply?

Is it necessary to get a water filter and if so what kind?

Well Melanie you may very well have something to be concerned about. Modern living it

just involves a lot of chemicals and far too many of them are ending up in the water we drink.

Many people assume that government regulations are in place to protect the quality and the safety

of your water supply.

The regulations, they may not be as strict as you think or hope, and there are of course enforcement issues.

The New York Times has been doing some great investigative journalism on this topic recently,

and they've published a series of articles and the safety of the water supply.

I'll put a link to the series in the show notes for today's episode.

If you read it, you may well decide that it's time to look into a water purification system.

But first, it's important to know what, if anything,

you're dealing with in your local water supply,

because that might determine what kind of system you'll need.

If you live in an agricultural area, for example, pesticides and

fertilizer runoff is a concern. If you live in an area where there's mining,

there could be heavy metals in the water, and if there's a lot of

manufacturing or other industry close by, solvents may be a bigger problem.

If you're on a public water system, you're supposed to get a report every summer with details about your water quality and any contaminants that have been found in it.

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