Mountain View Pure Water Podcast

Pure vs. Plastic: The Truth About Reverse Osmosis

• Dan Toth • Episode 5

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What Is Reverse Osmosis And How Does It Compare To Bottled Water?

What you don't know about your bottled water could be harming your health. The convenience we've come to rely on masks a troubling reality: those plastic water bottles are slowly leaching chemicals into your drinking water that disrupt your hormones, accumulate in your organs, and potentially contribute to chronic health issues.

Dr. Sibley, an internal medicine physician with 35 years of experience, explains that plastic water bottles contain phthalates that act as endocrine disruptors in the body. "It's almost like giving you extra estrogen," she warns, potentially triggering early puberty in girls and disrupting normal development and hormonal function in boys. Even more concerning, microplastics break off from these bottles and accumulate in the brain, liver, and spleen. Heat dramatically accelerates this leaching process, making those cases of water sitting in the sun at gas stations or bottles left in hot cars particularly problematic.

Reverse osmosis water filtration offers a compelling alternative, removing 96-99% of contaminants from your water source. When this purified water is stored properly in glass containers, you eliminate the ongoing chemical exposure from plastic. As water treatment expert Dan Toth reminds us, "If you're not using a filter, you are the filter" - a sobering thought when considering what our bodies must process. Many people spend more time researching vacation destinations than investigating what they consume daily, yet the cumulative effect of these toxins over time represents a significant health concern, especially for children growing up in what Dr. Sibley calls "a toxic soup."

Ready to transform your home's water quality and protect your family's health? Call or text 423-218-9361 for a free in-home consultation and discover why great water truly is the foundation of a great life.

To learn more about Mountain View Pure Water & Air visit:
https://www.MVPWater.net
Mountain View Pure Water & Air
2926 Boones Creek Rd Suite #1
Johnson City, TN 37615
423-218-9361

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Mountain View Pure Podcast, where your journey to exceptional water quality begins. Here's your host, dan Toth, owner of Mountain View Pure Water. They proudly serve homeowners in the Tri-Cities and beyond, offering advanced water and air purification solutions that support a healthier lifestyle. The mission is clear helping you get great water.

Speaker 2:

In this episode we dive into the science behind reverse osmosis, a highly effective water purification method, and explore how it stacks up against the convenience of bottled water. If you're wondering whether reverse osmosis is worth the investment for your home, we've got the answers. Welcome back everyone Skip Monty, co-host, slash producer, back in the studio with owner of Mountain View Pure Water, Dan Toth, and Dr Sibley, who has joined us in episodes before. Guys, welcome back to the show.

Speaker 3:

Thank you.

Speaker 2:

We're glad to have you. I'm really excited to learn all about reverse osmosis. What exactly is that and how does it compare to bottled water?

Speaker 4:

Well, first off, I'd like to say thank you to Denise for joining us again. Dr Sibley is well experienced in the healthcare field as a 35 years now as an internal medicine doctor, and she's our expert with us for a second episode here to talk about the difference between reverse osmosis and bottled water. And I think this is an issue that a lot of people really don't understand. They don't understand that there is purified water and then there is other, so they're fairly indiscriminate as to what they drink. It looks like water, it's clear, I'm going to drink it is, I think the general consensus and then I've talked to people about for years is just asking them why they've chosen the water that they drink. And typically I find three common reasons why people choose the bottled water.

Speaker 4:

First off, we choose bottled water because it's convenient. About 15, 20 years ago, bottled water came out and most people were like why are we paying for bottled water? Then they went back to their faucet and they think, okay, I can't actually put this to my mouth. So then they realize, okay, I have to drink something else that's palatable for me. And so we all buy bottled water now as a regular way to get the water that we consume. And I'll ask people why did you choose the bottle that you're using? And they'll give me three typical reasons. First off, it's the cheapest one. It was the cheapest. We have to buy a bottle of water, so it's the cheapest. The second one is they have a bottle that I like, and so typically these bottles are really flimsy these days and you might open it up and it comes off all over you because you had to squeeze hard enough to twist the cap off. And then the third is I like the flavor, and so when I analyze that, as someone who is looking at the quality of water, none of that has to do with quality of water.

Speaker 4:

The quality of the water is the biggest issue when choosing what water we're going to put into our body, and we want a pure water that doesn't have contamination, because our health depends on having a clean, well-working system. And so what are some of the things that we would find in bottled water that we wouldn't find in water that would be run through reverse osmosis? Well, we're going to talk about that real quick, but by and large, reverse osmosis rejects 96 to 99% of any contaminant that would be found in the original source water. That's a really big deal, because when we look at bottled water, we want to know, well, what is in that water that I wouldn't want. Do you have any ideas of where we can start this conversation?

Speaker 3:

Well, as you were saying, you know where do they get the source of the water from for their bottle. Is it just out of manufacturers tap? Is it distilled? Is it from a spring? You know they call it spring water. What does that mean? What spring? What's in that water? A lot of that's a dark hole and it could have some of the same issues that we have with tap water or just going out to a creek. I guess they actually don't have pathogens in it.

Speaker 3:

But my big concern is the plastic in which it is contained, and the plastic is becoming a huge deal. Of course, people would say, well, it pollutes the environment, okay, but the big thing about plastic is that it contains substances called phthalates that make the plastic. It's a plasticizer, it makes it bendable and not breakable, and those substances leach into the water and they have endocrine disrupting properties. That's a huge thing. Not only that, but there's also then little parts of the plastic that break off, which we would call microplastics. So you're drinking some microplastics which are not good for you and your brain. They get stored in organs, your spleen, your brain, your liver. But the endocrine disruption it's like it's almost giving you extra estrogen disruption. It's like it's almost giving you extra estrogen. So it would be affecting girls in their estrogen cycles, perhaps making puberty occur before it's supposed to. Or for boys, it could be feminizing the boys or disrupting their puberty or their sperm production, some of their hormonal balances.

Speaker 3:

So I'm very concerned about what the water's contained in in a plastic bottle. And then you know, myself included, I used to leave some plastic bottles bottled water in my car. Well, what does your car do when you're at Hilton Head in the summer? Well, it's about 120 degrees in the car when you open it and that water's been sitting there all day and all week and maybe a month. And that heat. It increases the leaching of the plastic into the water and all those bad things. We don't want the endocrine disruptors, and it deteriorates the plastic so that it is able to go into solution and so, wow, that's a really bad thing to heat up the plastic and then to drink it. So I woke up to that too, as I have to a lot of things during these last five years and I don't keep plastic in my car anymore well, if we don't want to keep plastic in the car because it's going to get hot, would it be a good idea to?

Speaker 4:

if I'm at the gas station, I'm headed out of town to grab the plastic water plastic containing water that's sitting?

Speaker 3:

there Sitting between the pumps there all stacked up.

Speaker 4:

It's been something that has bothered me for years and in fact, I will often tell the attendant you can't put this out here. I worked in a grocery store when I was younger and one of the things that we do is, when we're unloading the trucks, you set stuff where you need to set it in order to get access to it, to take it in and stop the grocery store. Well, a lot of these big containers just skids of water are being left out in the sun and that is very scary to me to think that the plastic is leaching into that even more than it would if it if it wasn't sitting in the sun. Absolutely yes absolutely.

Speaker 3:

And you know there's a place I go and they offer you water. It's a swanky little place and they offer you water. Well, it comes out of this big plastic jug. You know you can put your water under it and even physical therapy place they have a place where you can get water and fill up your container. But place they have a place where you can get water and fill up your container, but it's a big plastic jug that it comes out of. So, yeah, you can use your own container, but it's coming out of a big plastic container. So the plastics bother me. They break down, they leach into the water you're drinking. It it's more impurities. It is not good for you, it is dangerous.

Speaker 4:

I think that people have heard of some of these different contaminants that we find in plastic. I can't even sometimes it's hard to pronounce them. We have perfluorooctonic acid, or PFOA. We have perfluoroalkyl, and that's P-F-O-A-S. Alcohol, and that's P-F-O-A-S, P-F-A-S, and so these PFAS chemicals really are comprised of about 600 different chemicals that are available. I guess they're just contaminants. It's not something you want to buy, it's not something you want to add to your water, but it's just in there because things are in plastics. We have the microplastics that are in the environment and they're called forever chemicals.

Speaker 4:

They there are forever chemicals.

Speaker 3:

It's like you can't get rid of them. So, and you know that's part of the microplastic um pollution. Or you might call it a toxin, a poison, once you drink it but you don't realize that you're actually drinking some poisonous, toxic water out of your plastic water bottle and you don't know. You might go to a sports game. You know soccer moms they load up the car with all the water bottles for the kids. Or you know, now there's Gatorade and all those things with all our official dyes, but they're all in plastic and they're sitting in the sun and they're sitting in sunlight and those kids are going to go out and exert themselves and it's really you're drinking a toxin. Now one thing that I've seen that's become a little bit I'll use the word swanky again is to put now, instead of it in plastic, to put it in aluminum bottles are people actually going to southwest?

Speaker 3:

airlines is now that's how they're delivering. I don't fly much, but I understand that Southwest Airlines has gone to. Now all their water is in aluminum and you can I've seen aluminum. They're nice looking cans in the coolers when you stop at a convenience store. They're quite expensive, but you know it's a different, so you don't have to use plastics. But now you would drink it out of aluminum. What do you think?

Speaker 4:

about that.

Speaker 4:

Well, it has that if you were to pour the contents of, like a Coke bottle onto the Coke bottle, it would eat up the aluminum and you know, inside of that you'd have a plastic bubble that's actually containing the soda. So these aluminum cans are actually lined with plastic and that can be everything from your sodas over to the vegetable aisle where you get your cans of green beans or whatever. And so these things all have these plastics in them. And if we think of it as a one-off, if I were to go out today and I had some food that was in plastic, if I had a bottle of water, the amount of plastic probably wouldn't be a big deal, but it's the accumulation of this. Our body is really good at filtering to keep us safe. The problem is, when it filters out all this stuff, it has no place to store it safely. It ends up being stored in our in our brains and in organs that require that. It will affect and cause problems, absolutely.

Speaker 3:

So you know the and then we get into the whole. So not only is aluminum plastic coated, but then the aluminum can leach into the water as well. And we know that aluminum is a neurotoxic. That means it's a toxin to your brain and your whole neurological system and it's inflammatory to the brain and the neurological system. It's also hard for your kidneys to filter that out. So the answer of putting things in aluminum well, it's no better. And it's more expensive. So what is the best container to put water in? I think it's glass.

Speaker 4:

And you want to make sure that it's not something that has other metals in it, Right like a glass from China.

Speaker 3:

Right. And so you know, maybe panning jars, you know that are maybe made in the United States.

Speaker 4:

I've seen people walking around with mason jars with their water.

Speaker 3:

That was a thing. But you know good quality glass that you've cleaned, that's probably, I guess, stainless steel Certain stainless steel that's made for a food grade.

Speaker 4:

That would be another great way If you haven't gotten to the stainless steel, because I don't like the flavor of the water when it comes out.

Speaker 2:

Maybe it's the smell, maybe it's the flavor of the water when it comes out. Maybe it's the smell, maybe it's the flavor. Less for me as the preferred method for storing, yes, so yeah, go ahead. Are there are?

Speaker 4:

there, I'm sorry, are there plastics? Any plastic bottles that are safe or safer, oh no, no. We went through a time when the bpa um was outed as being poisonous and so then they came out with plastic that was BPA free and, honestly, it's sort of like the chlorine versus bromide. It's no better. There's still toxins in there.

Speaker 3:

Yes, and you'll see a lot of baby products as a grant. You know a grandma with young children. You'll see a lot of the. The products for babies are plastic and it'll say BPA free. Well, okay, well, that's fine. But what you know?

Speaker 3:

that's just one little thing, but everything else is still in that plastic. So you know, do I try to limit even the plastics for my grandchildren? Yes, absolutely. And you know we grew up with a lot of plasticsware. You know that was a huge thing in my day. Rubber made, you stored all your sugar and flour and your you know baking goods in these tubs of plastic. Well, I've done away with those. I've gone to big wide mouth jars of keeping my flour and sugar so that I can have easy access to it.

Speaker 4:

But I've gotten rid of my plastic. I've noticed in in the grocery store there are a lot more options of a glass container. It might have a plastic lid, but the container itself for storage is glass. That's really a good way to go and, you know, those things last longer as long as you don't let the kids do the dishes. You just end up with a whole bunch of extra lids. You know, making sure that the container that we're using is just as important as making sure that the water that we're drinking is pure.

Speaker 3:

So that's absolutely I had no idea. Once you go and you devote hundreds of hours to studying the things that are in our air and this year in the General Assembly I had a bill about Red Dye 40, which did pass for the school systems Federally, we're looking at food dye so you start looking at labels everywhere, things that I never did as a doctor and I didn't know what was in the sky. I didn't know what was in the sky. I didn't know what was in the water because I hadn't looked, but because now I look and I'm concerned.

Speaker 3:

It takes a lot of study but you find out things that you really need to be paying attention to for your family because, again, your family is your, it's your God given little tribe. Family is your, you know it's your God given little tribe and you want them to have the best of food, the cleanest food, the cleanest water, long term health, absolutely. And we have this epidemic or chronic disease, which we all know about, especially in our children. And so you know, for your family, especially as a mom and now as a grandma, you know I'm looking to be safe, especially as a mom and now as a grandma, you know I'm looking to be safe. I want to give my children safe things and usually you know for the most part that falls on mom or in the family, but some dads are into it as well, which, dan is, because this is tough, but it is worth your investment. Again, there's a lot of things you can invest in, but if you don't have your health, you don't have anything.

Speaker 1:

You also?

Speaker 3:

need God. You absolutely need God. You don't have anything. You can't enjoy life if you don't have your health. So this is a you know. These things we're talking about are worth looking at and not just burying your head in the sand and saying, well, I'm not going to worry about it.

Speaker 4:

Well, you should I have one more thing that I think is really important. You know, water is the universal solvent. The rain comes down and it cleans things. This is God's plan for cleaning the earth and so as it cleans, it grabs some of that stuff and it holds onto it, and if we're not discerning as to how we remove those things, we're just taking it into our body and polluting ourselves. My mentor in water treatment, almost 20 years ago now. He had a favorite saying if you're not using a filter, you are the filter, and I don't want to be the filter.

Speaker 4:

I want to remove that stuff before it gets to me.

Speaker 3:

What goes up must come down as far as what's in the atmosphere and guess where it all lands is in our groundwater. I mean, it comes to the soil as well, but it's going to eventually run off into the groundwater. So yeah, don't be the filter. Buy a good filter. Take an interest in these things. People spend more time deciding where they're going to go on vacation and looking up everything where we're going to go, what we're going to do. Then they do on what they're eating or drinking, and that, I mean that just astounds me. But you know, I guess I used to be guilty of that as well, but now I'm not.

Speaker 4:

Now I know I feel like a reader's digest. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Those things really mean something when we're talking about long-term accruing of these chemicals and toxins inside of us. It really matters that you start now to make sure that you're not getting a lot of this in your body. Absolutely.

Speaker 3:

Especially the children, because they're growing up in a toxic soup than maybe. You know. I'm 65 years old. For my generation, I mean, we had toxins, I'm sure, but there's more.

Speaker 2:

Well, I tell you younger folks and this is pleasing to me and I'm happy my kids are all young adults and when they come to visit, whenever they pull anything out of the refrigerator, they're looking at the back and my son says if it's got more than three ingredients, I'm not interested and I'm like okay but they all guzzle water out of plastic, so I'm so excited to whip this out on them.

Speaker 2:

So straighten them out. Well, dr Sibley. Dan, I can't tell you how much we appreciate you stopping by the studio today. This has been very informative and something we can talk about forever. Maybe we can get Dr Sibley get you back in another episode.

Speaker 4:

Thanks, that'd be great.

Speaker 2:

All right, Dan. Thanks so much, and we'll see you in that next one.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for joining us on the Mountain View Pure podcast. When you're ready to transform your home's water and air quality, call or text 423-218-9361 for a free in-home consultation. For more information visit mvpwaternet. Remember, great water is the foundation of a great life.