Natural Cures Not Medicine
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Fluoride has a dubious history starting with the mass fluoridation of people
under Nazi rule. In recent years, there has been a push to remove fluoride from the tap water in the US, behind most European countries which
have already removed the poisonous chemical from their water supplies.
Most politicians erroneously support fluoridation due to
heavy lobbying in favor of the chemical, but more and more activists and consumers are
making a stand for their water supply. It may only be a few years until we totally eradicate this twisted fluoridation scheme, but here is one way to remove fluoride and 99.9% of all other contaminants from your tap water: Distillation.
Once you are aware of the negative impact of fluoride on your health—and especially if you live in an area where the water is fluoridated—you will have to decide what to do about it. To complicate matters, fluoride is absorbed through the skin, and by inhalation. Showering and bathing in fluoridated water is also a problem. Fluoride is actually more dangerous when absorbed through the skin and/or lungs because it enters the bloodstream more easily, bypassing the gut where it binds with minerals from food. When it is not feasible to remove the fluoride from your entire water supply, limiting time in the shower or bath and reducing the temperature of the water helps minimize the amount of fluoride absorbed.
To top it all off, fluoride is difficult to remove from water. Most water filter sales literature avoids the subject. When buying a water filter, you may be comforted by reading that the system you are purchasing removes 95 to 99% of contaminants, but if it does not specifically state that it removes fluoride, you can bet it doesn’t. Fluoride is a very small ion (atomic number 9). It cannot be “filtered” out of water. At this time, fluoride removal is limited to four main methods discussed below.
How do I get the fluoride out of my water?
1 . Distillation
Distillation is capable of removing just about anything (except volatile compounds) from water. If you have a distiller, you can remove fluoride. The obvious drawback to distillation is that the process is time and energy consumptive. Distillation also leaves the resulting water empty and lifeless. If you use distilled water you need to add minerals (salts) back to the water. (Read about
salt and full-spectrum living water). You should also consider structuring and energetically enhancing distilled water (returning the life force) using any of the methods in Chapters 11 and 12 of Dancing with Water. (Read about
water’s liquid crystalline structure).
Here's a video from our
previous post about distilling water to remove fluoride from tap water:
2. Reverse Osmosis
Reverse osmosis (RO) represents a reverse of normal osmotic processes. It relies on pressure and a semi-permeable membrane to remove contaminants from water. RO can remove between 90 and 95% of fluoride (depending on the efficiency of the system and depending on how well the system is maintained). Contaminants are trapped by the RO membrane and flushed away in the waste water. The process requires between 2 and 4 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of RO water (depending on the quality of the water and the efficiency of the RO unit). Source water with an abundance of contaminants (including hard water) can reduce the efficiency of an RO system and it can shorten the life of the membrane.
Similar to distillation, RO has a good track record for removing almost everything from water. Quality RO systems include pre-filters to remove VOCs (volatile organic compounds), heavy metals, hard water minerals, and other contaminants that reduce the life of RO membranes. And similar to distillation, RO leaves water empty and lifeless. The addition of salts and the re-introduction of life force are necessary to bring RO water back to energetic compatibility with the human body.
3. Activated alumina
Fluoride is strongly attracted to activated alumina (corundum/aluminum oxide) which has a large surface area with a huge array of tunnel-like pores. For this reason, activated alumina is the most commonly used fluoride removal media today. When used properly, it can remove up to 98% of the fluoride in water while also removing arsenic. The challenges with activated alumina are many. First of all, since the process works by ion exchange, the water must remain in contact with the media for an extended period of time—long enough for the fluoride to be adsorbed by the media. When the flow rate is faster than ¼ gallon/minute, there is not enough time to adsorb all the fluoride in the water. Another difficulty with activated alumina is that the media becomes saturated with fluoride. Depending on the amount of media in the system (how large the filter is) and on the amount of fluoride in the water, systems using activated alumina either need to be recharged or replaced often. The last difficulty with activated alumina is that aluminum is released into the treated water. This effectively trades one problem for another. Some systems address this; others do not.
There are many point-of-use filters that claim to remove fluoride using activated alumina. The problem with most of these systems is that they only work for a short period of time (usually far less than claimed) before they become saturated. The other difficulty is that point-of-use systems do not slow the flow rate enough to provide adequate time for adsorption. Recent testing of a variety of these filters revealed that few functioned as claimed for more than a few weeks. Unless the activated alumina can be cleaned and recharged or replaced regularly, and unless the flow rate is slow enough to allow time for adsorption, activated alumina may not be what you are looking for.
There are some “tank” type fluoride removal systems that are capable of working for many years with a backwashing and recharging cycle and an occasional topping off of the media. These systems are often used to remove fluoride from the whole home. Many consisder them the answer to the fluoride problem. They are not. The drawback to this type of system is an environmental problem. Caustic chemicals are required to backwash (sodium hydroxide) and to recharge (sulphuric acid) the media—chemicals that end up in the waste water. And when these “tanks” are eventually replaced, they end up in a landfill, loaded with fluoride, arsenic, lead, mercury and cadmuim.
4. BC-Carbon
Bone-Char (BC) Carbon has been used for centuries to remove naturally-occurring fluoride from water. It works similar to the way bones in the human body attract fluoride. Bone contains a porous matrix that is rich in surface ions. These can be readily replaced by fluoride and by some of the other contaminants that arrive along with fluoride (heavy metals). Bone char effectively removes a number of contaminants.
When used alone, BC-Carbon can remove up to 90% of the fluoride in water. The efficiency of bone char can be improved by adding pre-filters that remove heavy metals and other contaminants before exposure to the BC-carbon. Bone char works best at a slightly acidic pH and may not work as well with hard water. This medium is being successfully incorporated in many systems where cartridges can be replaced as the media becomes saturated. But this method is also not without problems. Obviously, bone char is an organic medium. Medical grade bone char is important to ensure that the bone char itself is clean.
Sources:
Natural Cures Not Medicine &
dancingwithwater.com
