
By Karen Reed
Clean eating is one of those things that you likely hear a lot about. You'll hear people tell you that it's all about raw foods that are full of vitamins and nutrients, while others tell you that it means you need to eat foods that have no additives.
The real definition of clean eating is the latter. You're taking out all additives, chemicals, toxins and other similar items. You want to stick to natural foods and not the processed options you can get in stores. All food should offer health benefits.
To be able to follow a clean eating diet, you'll need to make changes to your lifestyle, and this will involve changing the way you buy and store your food. It will also mean setting some clean eating goals that you can stick to throughout the process. The goals will make it much easier to follow the new diet and find something to focus on when you have a bad day.
Here are 12 clean eating goals that you should know about.
You don't want to say your goal is to "start eating cleanly." That's not a goal that you can effectively stick to, as what do you do once you start? How long will you do this for? What are the steps you'll take and what exactly does it mean?
Your goals need to be SMART. This means they need to be sensible, measurable, actionable, realistic and timely. That means they need to be goals that you can meet, but still push you out of your comfort zone. If you decide to set a goal that you will never have a cheat day, that's not exactly doable. We all have bad days, and there is going to be a day that you throw it all out of the window. While you don't want that day to happen, it will at some point and knowing that you're likely to break the goal will set yourself up for failure.
With timely and measurable goals, you will have an idea of the time you'll be on the diet plan. It's possible to see your results, which will help you stick to the new lifestyle.
1. Make Goals for Your Health
Clean eating isn't just about weight loss, so your goals shouldn't all be orientated around that. At the same time, you don't want goals that are just about the types of foods you do or don't eat. It's important to make your goals more health orientated. After all, this is one of the more important benefits of clean eating diets.
For example, have goals for your blood pressure or blood sugar levels. You can opt for goals about the amount of visceral fat you have or goals about your heart rate and cholesterol levels. Your doctor will be able to check these regularly for you to see if you're on track to meet your goals.
At the same time, set goals that you can track on a weekly basis about your health. What about your energy levels? Have a scale that you can measure your energy levels by, maybe based on the number of flights of stairs you feel (or can) walk or the miles you can run. This doesn't have to be exact but based on the way you feel within yourself.
You can also set goals on how happy you feel and the way your mental health is supported. If you regularly take painkillers, consider the number of tablets you take and maybe use them as a basis for your health levels. As you eat more clean foods, you should find your painkiller levels decrease.
2. Think About a Kitchen Goal
Like with your health, your kitchen is another goal you'll want to set for your new clean eating diet. If you cook in a disorganized or cluttered kitchen, you will find it much harder to stick to any healthy eating plan you set. You want your kitchen to be optimal for your needs, and that means keeping things clean, tidy, and set up in a way that makes sense to you.
Plus, you need the right items. If you've been so used to processed foods and packages, pre-cooked items, you may not have all the utensils and items you need for cooking. You'll want to investigate good chopping knives, casserole dishes, pans, and even a slow cooker (this is a lifesaver for so many on the clean eating diet).
Make one of your goals focused on decluttering that kitchen. You want to give yourself a makeover.
Start with a binder. This will be the place to stock all your recipes, so you always have something new to make. You can even store all your goals in here to make sure you're on track to stick to your diet. Then consider a clipboard or whiteboard for the fridge to make a note of items you need to pick up the next time you go to the store.
Rearrange your fridge and cupboards to make it easier to grab the good food, especially if you're going to stock up on some of the bad food. Don't forget about setting up a basket, so you have healthy snacks when you need something!
3. Set a Healthy Fat Amount to Eat
While eating cleanly, you will need to focus on certain types of foods. While you want to cut out processed foods (which tend to have a lot of fats), you won't want to cut out all fats. Your body needs some healthy fats to remain healthy, especially when it comes to the skin, brain, and immune system.
Set a clean eating goal that involves more healthy fat. Don't say you want to eat more healthy fats. Look at adding as set amount of healthy fat to consume daily.
To start with, 26g of healthy fat is a good amount to look at. This is about 20% of your daily calories coming from unsaturated fats if you're eating 1,200 calories. You'll likely eat more calories but starting with a small amount of healthy fats is a way to start since you won't necessarily be used to eating them. As you get used to it, you can work your way up to around 40g, which is 20% if you eat 1,800 calories per day.
There are some quick and easy ways to add the new type of fat to your diet. The first is to know what you need to eat: reach for more monounsaturated fats. Look for foods such as fish, nuts, avocados, and olives (and even olive oils). There's no need to stop enjoying your favorite meals, but the changes will help make your food choices much better for you, especially since they are all clean options. You'll naturally start eating more clean foods for this benefit.
4. Goals to Up for Fruit and Vegetable Intake
The best way to start clean eating is to change the number of fruits and vegetables you eat. After all, most them will come natural and unprocessed. There are some vegetables and fruits that you can even choose without paying extra for organic, as they're considered the Clean 15!
More fruits and vegetables are especially good for your health. They can help to boost your immunity, improve your cell health, lower your blood pressure, and reduce your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
You'll hear a lot about eating your "five a day." This is somewhat old news. You should reach for around seven or eight portions a day, with five or so from vegetables. Vegetables are lower in natural sugars, which will help to minimize blood sugar rises.
Set a goal to eat your five a day first. Make two portions fruit and the other three vegetables. You can then work your way up to eight or nine portions of fruits and vegetables a day.
While you want natural and unprocessed, the great think about fruits and vegetables is that you can use frozen and canned! Frozen and fresh are better than canned, but there is nothing wrong with picking up canned corn, peas, carrots, and more!
You can even dry your fruit and vegetables—and even buy dried. Watch your intake, as the dried will take out the water content and leave you more likely to suffer from the natural sugars.
When you do get frozen, canned or dried, look at the packages of anything you buy. Packed items can have added sugar, salt, and oil. You want to look at those with no added ingredients and in water or brine.
5. Change the Type of Protein You Use
Make it a goal to change the type of protein you use. While meat is a good source, it's not necessarily the best source. This is especially if you eat a lot of beef and pork. The two meats are full of saturated fats, which aren't good for you. You can also find that meat is more likely to be contaminated with something.
A lot of animals are pumped with antibiotics. Chickens and turkeys aren't kept in the best conditions. Fish isn't always allowed to roam free. You want to find out about the best sources of meat; those that are antibiotic free and wild.
It's much harder to find these types of meats, so you'll want to investigate the other lean sources of protein. Legumes, beans, quinoa, and soy are good options for you. Soy and quinoa are complete proteins, which means they have all the nine essential amino acids your body needs, so you want to start adding them more to your diet.
Make it a clean eating goal where you opt for a meatless day. This is one of the quickest ways to start making changes. You may find that this is something you can do much more easily than you thought, so you could start looking at adding other meatless days.
Meatless days means that all your meals are meat-free. Your breakfast, lunch, and dinner all need to be vegetarian options. There are many options out there, so you won't be stuck for choice.
6. Pump Up the Protein
Start your day right with a good source of protein. This can be meat if you want, but you can also get it from the other sources mentioned above. To set your clean eating goal, you want a set amount to eat in the morning.
Try 15g of protein at breakfast. Experts recommend that you eat 25% of your daily protein at breakfast, and this is a good amount towards a healthy level if you eat 1,200 calories per day. You can build up that protein slowly, as you get used to clean eating.
Make sure your protein comes from clean sources. It's time to get rid of the processed meat if you use it. Opt for eggs, Greek or Natural yogurt, cheese and other dairy sources, and even some diced chicken. You can also use soy as a good source if you're on a meat-free day or you want to try a vegan diet.
Nuts are good sources of protein if you're not allergic. Consider adding walnuts to your porridge oats or some almonds to your cereal.
Why so much protein to start your day? It gives you the nutrients your muscles need to build strong and well. You will also get something filling to start your day, so you don't snack as much throughout the morning. Protein is also a good way to give your blood sugar the balance it needs to reduce on a morning, supporting your overall health.
7. Try More Spices in Your Diet
As you opt for clean eating, you can worry that your food is going to be tasteless. After all, isn't it the additives that create tastier meals?
While the additives can make your food taste of something, the tastes aren't natural, and there will always be something off. The best thing you can do is stick to natural flavors, and this is where spices come into play. Herbs are also good options for your diet.
Fresh herbs and spices are better, but you can make the most of dried too. Like with canned and dried fruits and vegetables, make sure the dried herbs and spices don't have the additives or any extra chemicals or salt. Most them don't but check to make sure.
Adding spices and herbs to your meal can be a little bit of a case of trial and error. There are some that you won't like, others you'll love, and some you can't get enough off. Start off small and work your way up.
For a SMART goal, opt to try one new herb or spice a week. You can use it with a range of your dishes and see how much the right amount is just. This will also give you a chance to trial which dishes the herbs or spices work with. The next week, you can move onto another herb or spice and even see how it mixes with the previous one.
Must recipes for clean eating will have a list of recommended herbs and spices. Follow these recipes to get a good idea of the amount that tastes good and whether you like them. The recipes also tend to offer alternatives, especially if the spices or herbs are strong.
8. Set Some Meals to Eat at Home
Eating out is fun, but it's not clean eating. The restaurants use all types of additives and ingredients. They're not in the business of clean eating, unless they're a restaurant set up for something like that.
The best way to stick to your diet is to make your meals at home. You have control over all ingredients, portion sizes, and any alternative spices or herbs you use. There's also the control over the meal plan that you follow and whether you bulk makes your meals at the weekend to give you something for the week when you don't feel like cooking.
Set a clean eating goal to eat a set number of meals at home. For example, this could be four evening meals in your own home. The other three can be takeout or in a restaurant. As you get used to cooking and want to add clean eating into your whole lifestyle, you can then start looking at increasing the number of times you eat at home.
Eventually, you can get to where you eat out once or twice a month. The rest of the meals are prepared at home.
This is a good way of helping your children stick to the clean eating diet. You lead by example, and they don't feel too much different from their peers.
9. Goals for New Recipes
Another idea is to set a new goal for the number of recipes you try in a week. One of the dangers of a new lifestyle is that it starts to get monotonous. You choose the dishes you know how to make and have time for, but eventually, you end up fed up with the meals. This is when you're more likely to fall off the wagon, searching for something else to eat; and it's usually the processed, artificially-filled foods you'll reach for.
You don't need a lot of new recipes each week or month. Set a goal of trying one or two new recipes per month. As you get used to adding them to your meals, you can then build up to adding more to your weekly schedule. You may find that you eventually add one or two new recipes a week to keep the variety in your diet.
The great thing about adding new recipes is that you also improve your cooking skills. Your children can also get involved, which will help them learn more about the lifestyle and why it's so good for them.
Not interested in buying books? Don't worry about it! Many vloggers are now showing you their recipes through video. You must follow the step-by-step instructions.
10. Journal Your Journey
You'll have good and bad days when you're on the clean eating plan. This is perfectly normal—and happens with all types of diets. Sometimes your mind works against you, telling you that it's time to try something different.
It's important to keep a journal. This is something you want to aim to do daily, but you can start off small.
Start by tracking all the meals you eat daily. This is best done after each meal or snack when the food is still on your mind. You can even put ticks and crosses next to them if you feel like using them again in your plan. Then once a week, have a goal that you write more about your week. Make this the point that you share how you're doing with the new lifestyle, anything you tried you want to do again, or anything you found hard.
When you get into a routine, you'll find it easier to journal in detail daily. You can track the food after each meal and then at the end of the day have a longer blurb about the successes and failures at the end of the day.
When you do have a bad day, you can look back over your journal and see how far you've come. This is also a good way to look back at your journal to see when you last had a bad day and what you did to overcome it.
11. Make it About Exercise
Finally, you want to set a clean eating goal that is aimed at your activity levels. This will help your body process the food better and kick out any toxins that you do pick up. After all, you can stop all toxins from entering your system, as some are from the air around you.
Opt for a goal that is about adding a set amount of exercise to your week or day. You can aim for 30 minutes of exercise twice or three times a week to start. As you get used to this, you can increase to 30 minutes of exercise four or five days a week and even increase the 30 minutes to 60 minutes.
All types of exercise are open to doing for this goal. Track the exercise you do, the amount of it that you do, and the intensity. You'll want to track things like distance run, heart rate afterward, repetitions of an exercise done, for example. You can then set measurable goals for each of your exercise sessions, improving your whole lifestyle.
12. Clean Eating is More Than Just Food
Opting for a clean eating lifestyle is more than just opting for a change in your diet. It's a change in everything about you and for the better. You will benefit regarding health and weight, but you don't want to focus all your goals on the types of food you eat. Set SMART goals on the amount of each type you eat, and your exercise and you are well on your way to success.
Reposted with permission from our media associate Positive Health Wellness.
Cities Can Help Migrating Birds on Their Way By Planting More Trees and Turning Lights Off at Night
By Frank La Sorte and Kyle Horton
Millions of birds travel between their breeding and wintering grounds during spring and autumn migration, creating one of the greatest spectacles of the natural world. These journeys often span incredible distances. For example, the Blackpoll warbler, which weighs less than half an ounce, may travel up to 1,500 miles between its nesting grounds in Canada and its wintering grounds in the Caribbean and South America.
Blackpoll warbler abundance in breeding, non-breeding and migration seasons. Cornell Lab of Ornithology / CC BY-ND
<p>For many species, these journeys take place at night, when skies typically are calmer and predators are less active. Scientists do not have a good understanding yet of how birds navigate effectively at night over long distances.</p><p><span></span>We study bird migration and how it is being affected by factors ranging from <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=S04C3UMAAAAJ&hl=en" target="_blank">climate change</a> to <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pPk38-8AAAAJ&hl=en" target="_blank">artificial light at night</a>. In a recent study, we used millions of bird observations by citizen scientists to document the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2020.116085" target="_blank">occurrence of migratory bird species in 333 U.S. cities</a> during the winter, spring, summer and autumn.</p>Blackpoll warbler. PJTurgeon / Wikipedia
<p>We used this information to determine how the number of migratory bird species varies based on each city's level of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/light-pollution" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">light pollution</a> – brightening of the night sky caused by artificial light sources, such as buildings and streetlights. We also explored how species numbers vary based on the quantity of tree canopy cover and impervious surface, such as concrete and asphalt, within each city. Our findings show that cities can help migrating birds by planting more trees and reducing light pollution, especially during spring and autumn migration.</p>Declining Bird Populations
<p>Urban areas contain numerous dangers for migratory birds. The biggest threat is the risk of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1650/CONDOR-13-090.1" target="_blank">colliding with buildings or communication towers</a>. Many migratory bird populations have <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aaw1313" target="_blank">declined over the past 50 years</a>, and it is possible that light pollution from cities is contributing to these losses.</p><p>Scientists widely agree that light pollution can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1708574114" target="_blank">severely disorient migratory birds</a> and make it hard for them to navigate. Studies have shown that birds will cluster around brightly lit structures, much like insects flying around a porch light at night. Cities are the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.2029" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">primary source of light pollution for migratory birds</a>, and these species tend to be more abundant within cities <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.13792" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">during migration</a>, especially in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2020.103892" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">city parks</a>.</p>Composite image of the continental U.S. at night from satellite photos. NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data from Miguel Román, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
The Power of Citizen Science
<p>It's not easy to observe and document bird migration, especially for species that migrate at night. The main challenge is that many of these species are very small, which limits scientists' ability to use electronic tracking devices.</p><p>With the growth of the internet and other information technologies, new data resources are becoming available that are making it possible to overcome some of these challenges. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07106-5" target="_blank">Citizen science initiatives</a> in which volunteers use online portals to enter their observations of the natural world have become an important resource for researchers.</p><p>One such initiative, <a href="https://ebird.org/home" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">eBird</a>, allows bird-watchers around the globe to share their observations from any location and time. This has produced one of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.04632" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">largest ecological citizen-science databases in the world</a>. To date, eBird contains over 922 million bird observations compiled by over 617,000 participants.</p>Light Pollution Both Attracts and Repels Migratory Birds
<p>Migratory bird species have evolved to use certain migration routes and types of habitat, such as forests, grasslands or marshes. While humans may enjoy seeing migratory birds appear in urban areas, it's generally not good for bird populations. In addition to the many hazards that exist in urban areas, cities typically lack the food resources and cover that birds need during migration or when raising their young. As scientists, we're concerned when we see evidence that migratory birds are being drawn away from their traditional migration routes and natural habitats.</p><p>Through our analysis of eBird data, we found that cities contained the greatest numbers of migratory bird species during spring and autumn migration. Higher levels of light pollution were associated with more species during migration – evidence that light pollution attracts migratory birds to cities across the U.S. This is cause for concern, as it shows that the influence of light pollution on migratory behavior is strong enough to increase the number of species that would normally be found in urban areas.</p><p>In contrast, we found that higher levels of light pollution were associated with fewer migratory bird species during the summer and winter. This is likely due to the scarcity of suitable habitat in cities, such as large forest patches, in combination with the adverse affects of light pollution on bird behavior and health. In addition, during these seasons, migratory birds are active only during the day and their populations are largely stationary, creating few opportunities for light pollution to attract them to urban areas.</p>Trees and Pavement
<p>We found that tree canopy cover was associated with more migratory bird species during spring migration and the summer. Trees provide important habitat for migratory birds during migration and the breeding season, so the presence of trees can have a strong effect on the number of migratory bird species that occur in cities.</p><p>Finally, we found that higher levels of impervious surface were associated with more migratory bird species during the winter. This result is somewhat surprising. It could be a product of the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/heatislands" target="_blank">urban heat island effect</a> – the fact that structures and paved surfaces in cities absorb and reemit more of the sun's heat than natural surfaces. Replacing vegetation with buildings, roads and parking lots can therefore make cities significantly warmer than surrounding lands. This effect could reduce cold stress on birds and increase food resources, such as insect populations, during the winter.</p><p>Our research adds to our understanding of how conditions in cities can both help and hurt migratory bird populations. We hope that our findings will inform urban planning initiatives and strategies to reduce the harmful effects of cities on migratory birds through such measures as <a href="https://www.arborday.org/programs/treecityusa/index.cfm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">planting more trees</a> and initiating <a href="https://aeroecolab.com/uslights" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lights-out programs</a>. Efforts to make it easier for migratory birds to complete their incredible journeys will help maintain their populations into the future.</p><p><em><span style="background-color: initial;"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/frank-la-sorte-1191494" target="_blank">Frank La Sorte</a> is a r</span>esearch associate at the </em><em>Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University. <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kyle-horton-1191498" target="_blank">Kyle Horton</a> is an assistant professor of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology at the Colorado State University.</em></p><p><em></em><em>Disclosure statement: Frank La Sorte receives funding from The Wolf Creek Charitable Foundation and the National Science Foundation (DBI-1939187). K</em><em>yle Horton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/cities-can-help-migrating-birds-on-their-way-by-planting-more-trees-and-turning-lights-off-at-night-152573" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
By Lynne Peeples
Editor's note: This story is part of a nine-month investigation of drinking water contamination across the U.S. The series is supported by funding from the Park Foundation and Water Foundation. Read the launch story, "Thirsting for Solutions," here.
In late September 2020, officials in Wrangell, Alaska, warned residents who were elderly, pregnant or had health problems to avoid drinking the city's tap water — unless they could filter it on their own.
Unintended Consequences
<p>Chemists first discovered disinfection by-products in treated drinking water in the 1970s. The trihalomethanes they found, they determined, had resulted from the reaction of chlorine with natural organic matter. Since then, scientists have identified more than 700 additional disinfection by-products. "And those only represent a portion. We still don't know half of them," says Richardson, whose lab has identified hundreds of disinfection by-products. </p>What’s Regulated and What’s Not?
<p>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) currently regulates 11 disinfection by-products — including a handful of trihalomethanes (THM) and haloacetic acids (HAA). While these represent only a small fraction of all disinfection by-products, EPA aims to use their presence to indicate the presence of other disinfection by-products. "The general idea is if you control THMs and HAAs, you implicitly or by default control everything else as well," says Korshin.</p><p>EPA also requires drinking water facilities to use techniques to reduce the concentration of organic materials before applying disinfectants, and regulates the quantity of disinfectants that systems use. These rules ultimately can help control levels of disinfection by-products in drinking water.</p>Click the image for an interactive version of this chart on the Environmental Working Group website.
<p>Still, some scientists and advocates argue that current regulations do not go far enough to protect the public. Many question whether the government is regulating the right disinfection by-products, and if water systems are doing enough to reduce disinfection by-products. EPA is now seeking public input as it considers potential revisions to regulations, including the possibility of regulating additional by-products. The agency held a <a href="https://www.epa.gov/dwsixyearreview/potential-revisions-microbial-and-disinfection-byproducts-rules" target="_blank">two-day public meeting</a> in October 2020 and plans to hold additional public meetings throughout 2021.</p><p>When EPA set regulations on disinfection by-products between the 1970s and early 2000s, the agency, as well as the scientific community, was primarily focused on by-products of reactions between organics and chlorine — historically the most common drinking water disinfectant. But the science has become increasingly clear that these chlorinated chemicals represent a fraction of the by-product problem.</p><p>For example, bromide or iodide can get caught up in the reaction, too. This is common where seawater penetrates a drinking water source. By itself, bromide is innocuous, says Korshin. "But it is extremely [reactive] with organics," he says. "As bromide levels increase with normal treatment, then concentrations of brominated disinfection by-products will increase quite rapidly."</p><p><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15487777/" target="_blank">Emerging</a> <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.7b05440" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">data</a> indicate that brominated and iodinated by-products are potentially more harmful than the regulated by-products.</p><p>Almost half of the U.S. population lives within 50 miles of either the Atlantic or Pacific coasts, where saltwater intrusion can be a problem for drinking water supplies. "In the U.S., the rule of thumb is the closer to the sea, the more bromide you have," says Korshin, noting there are also places where bromide naturally leaches out from the soil. Still, some coastal areas tend to be spared. For example, the city of Seattle's water comes from the mountains, never making contact with seawater and tending to pick up minimal organic matter.</p><p>Hazardous disinfection by-products can also be an issue with desalination for drinking water. "As <a href="https://ensia.com/features/can-saltwater-quench-our-growing-thirst/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">desalination</a> practices become more economical, then the issue of controlling bromide becomes quite important," adds Korshin.</p>Other Hot Spots
<p>Coastal areas represent just one type of hot spot for disinfection by-products. Agricultural regions tend to send organic matter — such as fertilizer and animal waste — into waterways. Areas with warmer climates generally have higher levels of natural organic matter. And nearly any urban area can be prone to stormwater runoff or combined sewer overflows, which can contain rainwater as well as untreated human waste, industrial wastewater, hazardous materials and organic debris. These events are especially common along the East Coast, notes Sydney Evans, a science analyst with the nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG, a collaborator on <a href="https://ensia.com/ensia-collections/troubled-waters/" target="_blank">this reporting project</a>).</p><p>The only drinking water sources that might be altogether free of disinfection by-products, suggests Richardson, are private wells that are not treated with disinfectants. She used to drink water from her own well. "It was always cold, coming from great depth through clay and granite," she says. "It was fabulous."</p><p>Today, Richardson gets her water from a city system that uses chloramine.</p>Toxic Treadmill
<p>Most community water systems in the U.S. use chlorine for disinfection in their treatment plant. Because disinfectants are needed to prevent bacteria growth as the water travels to the homes at the ends of the distribution lines, sometimes a second round of disinfection is also added in the pipes.</p><p>Here, systems usually opt for either chlorine or chloramine. "Chloramination is more long-lasting and does not form as many disinfection by-products through the system," says Steve Via, director of federal relations at the American Water Works Association. "Some studies show that chloramination may be more protective against organisms that inhabit biofilms such as Legionella."</p>Alternative Approaches
<p>When he moved to the U.S. from Germany, Prasse says he immediately noticed the bad taste of the water. "You can taste the chlorine here. That's not the case in Germany," he says.</p><p>In his home country, water systems use chlorine — if at all — at lower concentrations and at the very end of treatment. In the Netherlands, <a href="https://dwes.copernicus.org/articles/2/1/2009/dwes-2-1-2009.pdf" target="_blank">chlorine isn't used at all</a> as the risks are considered to outweigh the benefits, says Prasse. He notes the challenge in making a convincing connection between exposure to low concentrations of disinfection by-products and health effects, such as cancer, that can occur decades later. In contrast, exposure to a pathogen can make someone sick very quickly.</p><p>But many countries in Europe have not waited for proof and have taken a precautionary approach to reduce potential risk. The emphasis there is on alternative approaches for primary disinfection such as ozone or <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/eco-friendly-way-disinfect-water-using-light/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ultraviolet light</a>. Reverse osmosis is among the "high-end" options, used to remove organic and inorganics from the water. While expensive, says Prasse, the method of forcing water through a semipermeable membrane is growing in popularity for systems that want to reuse wastewater for drinking water purposes.</p><p>Remucal notes that some treatment technologies may be good at removing a particular type of contaminant while being ineffective at removing another. "We need to think about the whole soup when we think about treatment," she says. What's more, Remucal explains, the mixture of contaminants may impact the body differently than any one chemical on its own. </p><p>Richardson's preferred treatment method is filtering the water with granulated activated carbon, followed by a low dose of chlorine.</p><p>Granulated activated carbon is essentially the same stuff that's in a household filter. (EWG recommends that consumers use a <a href="https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/reviewed-disinfection-byproducts.php#:~:text=EWG%20recommends%20using%20a%20home,as%20trihalomethanes%20and%20haloacetic%20acids." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">countertop carbon filter</a> to reduce levels of disinfection by-products.) While such a filter "would remove disinfection by-products after they're formed, in the plant they remove precursors before they form by-products," explains Richardson. She coauthored a <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.9b00023" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2019 paper</a> that concluded the treatment method is effective in reducing a wide range of regulated and unregulated disinfection by-products.</p><br>Greater Cincinnati Water Works installed a granulated activated carbon system in 1992, and is still one of relatively few full-scale plants that uses the technology. Courtesy of Greater Cincinnati Water Works.
<p>Despite the technology and its benefits being known for decades, relatively few full-scale plants use granulated active carbon. They often cite its high cost, Richardson says. "They say that, but the city of Cincinnati [Ohio] has not gone bankrupt using it," she says. "So, I'm not buying that argument anymore."</p><p>Greater Cincinnati Water Works installed a granulated activated carbon system in 1992. On a video call in December, Jeff Swertfeger, the superintendent of Greater Cincinnati Water Works, poured grains of what looks like black sand out of a glass tube and into his hand. It was actually crushed coal that has been baked in a furnace. Under a microscope, each grain looks like a sponge, said Swertfeger. When water passes over the carbon grains, he explained, open tunnels and pores provide extensive surface area to absorb contaminants.</p><p>While the granulated activated carbon initially was installed to address chemical spills and other industrial contamination concerns in the Ohio River, Cincinnati's main drinking water source, Swertfeger notes that the substance has turned out to "remove a lot of other stuff, too," including <a href="https://ensia.com/features/drinking-water-contamination-pfas-health/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">PFAS</a> and disinfection by-product precursors.</p><p>"We use about one-third the amount of chlorine as we did before. It smells and tastes a lot better," he says. "The use of granulated activated carbon has resulted in lower disinfection by-products across the board."</p><p>Richardson is optimistic about being able to reduce risks from disinfection by-products in the future. "If we're smart, we can still kill those pathogens and lower our chemical disinfection by-product exposure at the same time," she says.</p><p><em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://ensia.com/features/drinking-water-disinfection-byproducts-pathogens/" target="_blank">Ensia</a>. </em><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2649953730#/" target="_self"></a></p>Trending
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