Episode 002: Empowering Your Water Choices: Hidden Toxins and Affordable Solutions

In this thought-provoking episode of Crunchy Stewardship, cousins Chrissy Rombach and Katie Jones turn their attention to a vital element of our health: water. Building on their commitment to holistic well-being rooted in biblical principles, they explore the unseen world of our drinking water and the potential toxins lurking within.

Chrissy and Katie share their growing awareness of water quality issues and delve into the processes designed to purify our water, questioning whether these methods come with hidden costs to our long-term health. They discuss the addition of fluoride, its intended benefits for dental health, and the emerging research linking it to neurodevelopmental concerns. The conversation broadens to include other common contaminants like heavy metals, pharmaceutical residues, and the pervasive issue of microplastics.

Throughout the episode, they emphasize the importance of being informed consumers and offer practical, budget-friendly solutions for improving the water we consume daily. They also invite listeners to join their Facebook group, 'Crunchy Christian Mamas on a Budget,' for continued discussion and shared learning.

Episode Takeaway: 

Considering your current water consumption habits and the information shared in this episode, what is one small, manageable step you feel inspired to take this week to better steward the water you and your family drink?

Mentioned in this Episode:

• Landmark Study on Fluoride and IQ: https://www.thenewlede.org/2025/01/study-fluoride-linked-to-lower-iq-debate/

• Environmental Working Group (EWG) Water Quality Resources:

• What’s In Your Water:  https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/ 

• Water Filter Guide: https://www.ewg.org/research/getting-forever-chemicals-out-drinking-water-ewgs-guide-pfas-water-filters 

• Brita Water Filter Chrissy Uses: https://amzn.to/4lU6C11 

• Brita Faucet Filter: https://amzn.to/4jEdazm 

• Berkey Water Filters: https://amzn.to/4cWaIll 

• Dr. Brown's Glass Baby Bottles: https://amzn.to/44iPSdx 

• Mason Bottle: https://amzn.to/3RHGlFn 

*Links may provide affiliate commission. We thank you for your support of our show!

Connect With Us:

Join Our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crunchychristianmama

FREE How to Afford Non-Toxic Living Workbook: https://crunchystewardship.com/how-to-afford-non-toxic-living 

Transcript

Katie: 0:00

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Crunchy Stewardship. My name is Katie Jones,

Chrissy: 0:07

and my name is Chrissy Rombach. We are two cousins who are passionate about learning and sharing knowledge to equip others to steward their spiritual, mental, emotional, financial, and physical health in order to honor God in every aspect of their lives. Okay.

Katie: 0:25

In our podcast, we are taking a deep dive into what it means to be a steward of our lives as God originally intended for us to do with our resources that he has blessed us with. Uh, we're gonna take a look at topics like food, medicine, finances, mental health, and tons more, um, through a natural lens and with a biblical foundation. So without further ado, let's get started on our second episode ever here for crunchy stewardship. We are gonna talk all about water and to get started, I, I know, Chrissy, you have done a little bit of research on this water filtration process and so I wanna, I wanna kick us off today and by you just kind of sharing what it means to filter our water and what that process looks like. Um, because I don't think a lot of us, I don't, I don't actually know a lot about the process. I just kind of know our water gets filtered.

Chrissy: 1:26

Yeah. So, um, so the infamous dihydrogen peroxide or H2O water treatment process, um, generally has about five steps, and the responsibility of water treatment kind of comes down to either the city or the county, um, depending on where you live in the United States. And so the basis that I went off of was smack in the middle of the country. I said Denver. Um, this is how Denver processes their water as a general outline. And most cities follow about the same five steps. Um, but they might use different chemicals, and additives and things like that, just small changes. But as a general overview, there are five steps for the water treatment process in the United States. Those five steps are coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration and disinfection. So the first step coagulation. Um., It's very similar to, uh, like blood coagulation. So if you think about blood and if somebody's taking an anticoagulant or a blood thinner, it is preventing their blood from clumping. Mm-hmm. And so this. Coagulation step is very similar in that it focuses on the clumps. So the idea here is to get rid of the solid clumps that are already in our water. You know, they're, they really do take the dirtiest of the dirty water, you know? Mm-hmm. Sewage. Runoff, you've got stick, stones, stool, all the things that's so gross to think about. It is. But so the first step is getting rid of all those stick stones and stools out of the water, so they get rid of all the solids. And what's left is a mixture that they call floc, which is pretty much just like a cloudy suspension of particles. So it's a very smooth, cloudy. Still gross looking. Probably still smells a little bit, probably is awful, but it doesn't have any solids in it. So the second step is called Flocculation. Mm. Where they add different polymers to the water and they mix it up really hard. And these polymers act as like a binding agent and force these dissolved sediments to kind of bind together and create more clumps, um, because we just got rid of all the clumps, so we gotta make more clumps. And so

Katie: 3:55

yes,

Chrissy: 3:55

all the dissolved dirt that's still in the water then clumps together and kind of falls to the bottom of this tank, at which point they have like this giant shovel thing at the bottom of the tank that kind scooches it off to the side and gets rid of it and that. Step of the shovel thing, scooching it off to the side is the sedimentation step. You know, um, after those polymers create those clumps, they then fall to the bottom as sediment does, and then they get scraped away. Yeah. So you get left with this clear, um water, you know, it's clear, it looks good, um, but it still can contain, um, some germs and toxins that are not good for us. Uh, viruses, bacteria, things like that. And so, this fourth step, they call the filtration step, and they have two layers of filtration. It's, um, they're in vertical layers. There's anthracite, coal and sand, and anthracite coal is actually the purest form of coal that is created in the earth. It's, I saw about 98% pure coal and is used as a natural filtration medium. And so this combination of anthracite coal and sand is called the filter media. And so any remaining particles that are left in the water gets stuck in this filter media as the water filters through it, and so all the clear water goes through it and any remaining sediment or other nasties that is stuck in the water, gets stuck in there and you're left with clear, zero sediment water. Um, but you know, bacteria and viruses cannot get stuck by sand unfortunately. So this last step is called the disinfection step in which they add. Um, different cities add different things. I saw some cities add chlorine. Some cities add what's called chloramine, which is a combination of chlorine and ammonia that are used together to kill that bacteria and the viruses. And leaves us with clean, drinkable water that you can consume without being concerned for your health and all the other nasties that was in the water to start off with. So that's kind of like a general overview of it. I'm sure there are more specifics. I am not a water treatment professional. And I have heard, you know, they do also add fluoride to water in some areas of the United States. Katie, have you looked into like why do they add fluoride and what exactly does it do to our bodies as we drink it?

Katie: 6:50

Yeah, it's interesting. I, I keep running across a lot about fluoride and I keep, like hearing a bunch of stuff recently that's been like, fluoride isn't actually as safe as we really thought it was. Because one of the main reasons I think that they started adding fluoride to the water was because there were some links to the fact that fluoride was really good for our teeth. Um, it helps to keep them strong and white and. And it helps to protect them from getting lots and lots of cavities. And so I think that the in intention originally was good for, you know, the government was like, okay, we want to protect people's dental health. And so I think there was a lot of good intentions behind fluoride. But with good intentions that aren't studied for long-term effects. I think now we're starting to find that fluoride is actually linked to a lot of negative stuff. I recently came across like an article that was posted, uh, early January. I have it up here to kind of reference, but the, the title of it is like A Landmark Study, Affirms Fluoride's Link to Lower IQ. And there's like been a lot of things like that where fluoride is actually linked to like neurodevelopment and cognition issues. So like the, that there's like an impact on these things, especially in children whose brains are not fully developed. They're obviously just, they're so young and. They can be impacted by these kinds of things in a harsher way than us as adults can. And so like I've always kind of known, okay, children really shouldn't have like fluoride toothpaste, like we should be doing fluoride free toothpaste. But I never really understood why. And so now I've been kind of starting to like look into why this is important, but also there's been a lot more negative impacts. That they're starting to recognize with fluoride, even in adults. Um, it just like long term things. Interesting. It's not like you're gonna have fluoride and it's gonna kill you immediately, but it's just like the long term impacts of having these things in our systems. Um, and so, and I think that that's true too with water in general is like, okay, you know, in general they are putting stuff into our, our water like chlorine and ammonia that is supposed to help kill off bacteria. But at what cost? Right? Yeah. Like, okay, maybe having chlorine, maybe drinking chlorine every day, like small amounts of it is not great. And that's where I've mm-hmm. Kind of come across this idea of GRAS generally recognized as safe. Yeah. And they, they label a lot of the things that we ingest,

Chrissy: 9:48

I hear that in a lot of places, like, oh yeah, you know, if you. Google search, is this product safe? It's never a yes or no. It's, I know, generally regarded as safe, you know? Yes. And it, it's comes to question like, what is that generally regarded? What does generally mean? Like, for the most part to have a lot of it, to have a little of it, it's mostly healthy until a point. Yeah.

Katie: 10:15

What does that mean? It's hard because a lot of these things, like again, obviously all of us have been drinking our water. Mm-hmm. And none of us are like falling over dead immediately. So it's not like poisoning us to a point where we're dying. Like on impact. At least in the United States. It's not. At least in the United States. Yes. Well, well that like, that's what I'm saying is like in chlorine is. Is generally safe in low doses. Right. But then what happens, like when it's being added to our, like we're drinking so much water and we're told to drink lots of water. We, we, our body needs water. Right? So what happens when we're drinking tons of these chemicals day in and day out? Exactly. Yeah. It's like, maybe, maybe that's not. The greatest thing.

Chrissy: 11:04

I wish there was a way that we could get the harmful bacteria and viruses out of our water without having to add chlorine. Which chlorine is really just another way of saying bleach. It's, it's a nicer form of bleach if you really think about it. It's a very similar chemical compound,

Katie: 11:24

and we all know we shouldn't drink bleach.

Chrissy: 11:26

I just, I wish there was a way that we could filter out the bacteria and viruses without having to use harmful chemicals like chlorine and ammonia. Um, that I don't know of any Do you

Katie: 11:42

From like a big, like a government standpoint, like doing it statewide? I don't think that there's like a, a process necessarily. I mean, I guess maybe boiling the water. Oh yeah. Could, would probably do that. I don't know. I, but that would be very expensive. It probably would be really hard to like, heat up large amounts of water and Yeah, it's, it's really interesting. I mean. You think about like, okay, well then what are we supposed to do if there's all these chemicals in our water? Like, how do we avoid them? Especially if nowadays, you know, we start to learn. Like I, I read an article, um, from EWG, which, which we'll link to in the notes, so you can take a look at it too, but. There's tons of stuff like when, when you start to look at water that there, there is fluoride, which is dangerous. Mm-hmm. Or they're starting to recognize as more dangerous. But there's also traces of lead and arsenic, iron, mercury, um, obviously the chlorine, which we talked about. Um, but even things like, I literally heard a podcast the other day that was like, there are literally, um hormones from birth control and stuff like in our water. Yes. And I'm like, that probably is not good for children to drink like hormones like. Okay.

Chrissy: 13:01

Also, in the hospital system, we are encouraged not to waste narcotics in the sink. We have a special bucket that has like a coagulation piece. Oh, coagulation in the bottom of it. That like solidifies the narcotics that we pour'em into, um, or dump them into, and it prevents the extra narcotics from getting into our water filtration system.

Katie: 13:26

Oh my gosh. You know what I'm just thinking about is like, yeah. Every time that somebody has like. Like leftover, yeah, pain meds from their surgeries, a lot of people I think I even have in the past, like just dumped them down the because I'm like, well, I don't want them to be in my cabinet. And then somebody, you know, goes and picks them up and takes this drug. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. Oh my gosh. Like I've even been a part of the problem of adding, see, so like what else are people putting in the water that like stays around?

Chrissy: 13:56

Well, thankfully there are actually household ways that we can get some of these other, um, toxins out of our water. Mm-hmm. Um. So Katie, I know you've done a little bit more research than I have into different methods that we can implement in our own households to protect us more so from these extra drugs, metals, um, and plastics that are in our water. So what are some of those resources that you found that we can implement easily? In a cost effective manner in our homes.

Katie: 14:33

Yeah. Plastics is a really interesting one too that you mentioned, because, I think many of us know like filtered water is typically better than the tap water that we drink from our sink at home. Like again, the tap water is not going to like kill you, right? It's better than drinking from the pond in your backyard, right? Like so. Yes. But. Uh, filtered water. Like, there's like different levels of that even so many of us think okay, I'm gonna go and do bottled water, which is a higher quality than typically the tap water from our sinks and. There, there's a lot, like I, I don't know a ton about like each of the brands and all this stuff, and they all go through their own special process of filtering the water so that it doesn't have all of these harmful chemicals and heavy metals and hormones and and things like that. But what's interesting is that. Taking now bottled water from the grocery store. You know, you think about the big mm-hmm. Packs of the plastic water bottles. What then poses as an issue is they're being held in plastic containers. Right. Which now we're all starting to also recognize like microplastics are a really big problem. And I literally read Chrissy that the other, like the other day that. I don't actually know if it's totally, if it was from air alone or because it was, it was an email that I read from this air. Um, purifying company, and they were talking about how each of us ingests about a credit card worth of microplastics a day. And it's like, oh my word. Like that's, that's terrifying. Like literally eating plastic. Like that's how prevalent plastic is in our world these days. And it's like, oh my gosh. So. I think one of the big things with water too, is trying to eliminate as much plastic that it comes in contact with as possible, because whether it's in a bottled water or something else mm-hmm. In our household, like it's going to leak very, very, very small amounts of plastic into our water that we're then going and drinking and then putting into our bodies and. As I, as I, I

Chrissy: 16:47

currently drink out of a plastic cup.

Katie: 16:50

I know. Literally ditto. I have a plastic cup right now too that I'm drinking my little smoothie out of, but it's like, so, okay. Bottled water is filtered and it's, it's probably better than drinking the tap water from your sink. Yeah, for sure. But we need to be careful about how much we, we use and so. Really quick on another note for if you're thinking, what other plastics do I have in my kitchen? Just think about like, okay, the Keurig that you're using, Keurig is made from plastic and then the K-cups that you're putting the coffee or tea in, um,, into the Keurig from are also plastic and the water kettle that you might be using to heat up your water. If it's like one of those plugin ones might be plastic. So it's like there's a lot, there's a lot of plastic.

Chrissy: 17:40

And Tupperware Tupperware's a big one, I think. Our society has done a really great job of kind of like drilling it into our heads of do not heat Tupperware. Mm-hmm. Don't put Tupperware in the microwave, not microwave safe. Um, even if it says microwave safe, I hear a lot of people saying, don't put it in the microwave. Nonetheless. Use a glass plate or a glass cup or bowl or whatever. Um, and that's so true, you know? Yeah. Tupperware I think is one of the biggest ones that is a very easy switch, you know, switching to glass tupperware dishes, you know, Pyrex has a bunch of different sizes and everything like that of Tupperware, you know, so

Katie: 18:20

it's interesting. My dad is a plastics chemist and actually we had a conversation about literally this plastic cup that I am holding right now, years ago, and we talked about that. With plastic like kitchenware especially, it's really easy. Like most of it says like, yeah, it's dishwasher safe, put it in your dishwasher. But he always told me to hand wash anything plastic, whether it was the cup or a like a plastic Tupperware thing. Um, and we always talked about it from a standpoint of making that product last longer because when plastic is heated up, so in the microwave, for example, or in the dishwasher when it's heated up at these high temperatures, the plastic thing starts to degrade even quicker than it would just if you hand washed it or if just didn't heat it up in general. And so we always talked about it from like a a longevity standpoint, but now it's like, oh my gosh. Like you think about the breakdown of plastic. Yeah, yeah. Like every time I would wash it in the dishwasher, it probably starts to like degrade the lining of it and it starts leaking into my liquids and foods

Chrissy: 19:29

and ah, that makes me remember, like growing up we used Tervis Tumblers all the time. Yes. You know, in Texas, I still have some. Well, they're great, you know, they don't sweat. You keeps your drinks warm or cold or however. Um, but I always wondered like our Tervis Tumblers started looking gnarly after a few years and we'd go over to our friend's house and their Tervis Tumblers, they were 10 years old, just still looked brand new and they were still really shining and sparkly. And I asked my mom like, why do theirs Tervis Tumblers look so much better than ours? She said, oh, we put ours in the dishwasher. It's not very good for them. Yeah. Yeah. And. Now I realize like, oh my gosh, we were breaking down the plastic and that's all we drank out of. We did not have glass cups to drink out of. Mm-hmm.

Katie: 20:18

Um, well, so many of us think like, like for us, it's so hard too with kids because kids drop things and if they're glass, inevitably they're going to break if they get dropped enough or from the right height and plastic obviously doesn't do that. So it does last longer from that standpoint, but it's. It's hard. It's like a balance, right? You have to find out what works best for you and your family. Mm-hmm. Because, yeah, there's some things that we still have that are plastic because of having children, but. Like then you think, okay, am I actually maybe harming my child a little bit more because I'm allowing them to eat and drink from plastic materials that are now leaking into their systems and could cause all sorts of endocrine disruption and stuff, and you're just like, oh my gosh. Like it's kind of terrifying sometimes being a parent. Yeah.'cause you're like, every little decision really can make a lasting impact. And so.

Chrissy: 21:17

Do they make, do they make stainless steel bottles for babies?

Katie: 21:22

Yes, actually, so we, um, that's a really great question. So we actually switched to using glass and stainless steel bottles. So Dr. Brown's is the brand that we've been using for bottles and it's like, it is a glass bottle, but it comes in like a silicone sleeve. So it has a little bit more of like a protection to it. Um, and then I recently found, um. This brand called Mason Bottle. They make both glass and stainless steel, and I ended up getting their stainless steel one because they have interchangeable tops to it. That can be like a baby bottle nipple, but then you can change it to then be a straw cup. And so my son right now, he's, um, switching, he's like in the process of starting to learn how to use other cups besides just bottles. And he actually really likes the little straw cup with this mason bottle brand.

Chrissy: 22:14

Very cool.

Katie: 22:14

And so, yeah, it's, it's great. There's, there's a lot of good options that aren't glass, like if you're afraid of having glass around kids. Um, so stainless steel is. Is one of the safest products for the kitchen, whether it's like cooking materials or drinking or plates or whatever. So it's not always like the nicest'cause they're, it can, stainless steel can be really loud too when you Yeah. Bang it on stuff. But it's dropping at least not gonna a stainless,

Chrissy: 22:40

Dropping a stainless steel water bottle in a silent classroom.

Katie: 22:44

Yeah. Yeah. And now Kai's been dropping his stainless steel little sippy cup recently and it's like, whoa. Like the whole house is like, ah. So. But I, you know, the other thing filtering our water is I think one of the keys

Chrissy: 22:58

Yeah.

Katie: 22:59

to the whole puzzle, because we can't really rely on our city or county or state or whatever. Like we can't rely on the government to just fix this problem because it's such a big, you know, you think about the. Big water filtration plants, like they're so huge and to change anything costs a lot of money right on, on how they're gonna do it. So using different chemicals is not always going to be like a, oh, we're gonna do this today and it's gonna be fixed. So we as consumers have to be very aware of what we're putting into our bodies. And so finding a filtered water is important. Maybe not choosing plastic as like a plastic water bottle. Yeah. But instead looking for like a water filtration system for our house. Yeah. Now Chrissy, I know that you have like kind of done a little bit of research on this because you use one, right?

Chrissy: 23:50

Yes, I do. My husband and I, we use a Brita water filter. Um, and I love it. It really does change the taste and the flavor of our water. Like our tap water kind of just has like a meh yeah, taste to it. Um, and the Brita creates like a more depth to the flavor of the water.

Katie: 24:14

Yeah, like freshness maybe.

Chrissy: 24:15

Oh, I sound like a water sommelier right now. That's actually a thing. Did you know that water sommelier?

Katie: 24:22

Really? I'm like, I know about wine people like, but no water. Wow.

Chrissy: 24:27

Yes, it is a job. But anyway, so we use a Brita water filter and I kind of went through and figured out exactly what Brita filters out and the classic. Standard Brita water filter removes that chlorine from the water that they use in that final filtration step of the disinfection. So that's a big one. It removes the chlorine. It also removes a lot of, um, heavy metals like mercury, copper, and cadmium from our water, which unfortunately, a lot of those might not be in the water when it leaves the water treatment plant, but think about it, if your underground water pipes are 50, 60 years old, yeah. They might be made of these heavy metals instead of PVC, which PVC is plastic, so I don't know, which is kind of,

Katie: 25:19

is there really even a good system to use? I'm like, ugh, we're all doomed.

Chrissy: 25:23

Let's go back to the Roman stone. You know, like how the Roman, the Roman aqueduct, let's go back to that. But anyways, um, they also do remove those microplastics from the water. If you do have pVC pipes instead of the metal pipes, um, that release plastics. The Brita water filter does remove microplastics and asbestos. Um, oh yeah, so that's a big one, especially if you live in an older community where a lot of homes were built using products that contain asbestos. Um. That is a good one. Now, the one thing that the standard Brita filter does not remove is lead, which is a very common heavy metal that does get into our water from pipes. And, you know, there's lead in soil and ground and things like that. And so, um, Brita does have in elite version of their filter, Ooh, that does remove lead and some additional heavy metals from the water. Um, but then after that. You kinda have to think like, okay, well, is my Brita water pitcher made of plastic? And if so, maybe I could like filter the water into a glass jug. Um, or,

Katie: 26:42

oh, that's a great idea.

Chrissy: 26:43

You know, if you have like a glass water pitcher, um, Brita does make attachments for the faucet in the sink. And so you can put that attachment on and fill up a glass water pitcher and there you go. You've got, or just fill it up straight into your water cup. That would make a lot more sense.

Katie: 27:02

Yeah, no, that's, I, I didn't even think about that because I, I do know many of those, like really, um, small, like the, they're just kind of more personal size pictures tend to be made of plastic. And, um, I was looking into water filters a while ago because, you know, I go down these paths and I'm like, oh my gosh, everything's gonna kill us. And so now I need to filter everything. And so. The one brand that I came across that's kind of like the top tier. Like if you're not gonna go,'cause you can get like a whole house water filtration system. Yes. Where it's like actually installed. And so every like faucet in your house, whether it's the shower or your sink, every single faucet has this nice filtered water, but that's expensive. Like they're, they're like one to$3,000 worth. So like to, to get that installed.

Chrissy: 27:53

And no renter is going to do that.

Katie: 27:55

Yeah. So if you're renting, it's not, it's not a, an easy solution there. So one of the, uh, filters that I came across that is supposed to be kind of like the top tier is called the Berkeley Water Filter. And it is like a stainless steel basin. They make like a bunch of different sizes. Like the smallest one is considered their, like travel size, but it's still like, it's a big container that would sit like on your counter and it uses, um, reverse osmosis. It's nice'cause it is stainless steel. However, like those things are expensive too. They're like, I think$300 or$400, and that's not always practical. So finding something like a Brita water filter, I'll share a link to, um, a site. It's actually EWG's like list of water filters and like they're. Tests that they did on them and, and the percentage of stuff that it takes out from the water, like, so what it actually filters. So I'll share that so that people can kind of check it out and see which filter might work best for them. Mm-hmm. Um, because some of them can be pretty expensive, but I like your solution though, Chrissy, on um using like the Brita, but then potentially putting it into yeah. One of those nice glass ones. Or like one of those like what about the like ceramic pretty, you know, you think about, there's a lot of like nice filters, so it's like, okay, use the plastic one, but then take it outta there so it's not sitting in the plastic and just leaching into your, yeah. Right. Water the time.

Chrissy: 29:19

I think that's actually a really great, um, method. Or the, like I said, the attachment for the faucet. You know, you could just fill up your mm-hmm. Drinking cup right from the tap, um, without really having to have an InBetween holding space know.

Katie: 29:35

How often do you know, like at least for your Brita filter, like how often do you have to change out the filter?

Chrissy: 29:43

I wanna say every couple months, two to three months maybe. Okay. I think most Brita filters have like a little button on top that tells you like the quality of, ah, your filter. I don't know exactly how it works. It knows if it has like a timer on it or if it like measures by how often I open the lid. To refill it?

Katie: 30:10

Oh yeah. It's intriguing because

Chrissy: 30:11

I would think if a filter is not being used for two weeks, it might still have two more weeks left of life to it. Yeah, I don't know.

Katie: 30:23

Yeah, I don't know either. And that's kind of the whole point of our show is like, we are definitely not the experts here on any of this. And we just love getting to share what we're learning about all of this. And I think, you know, as we continue moving forward, we wanna talk about some of these like key areas of toxin. You know, our last episode was on food. This one's on water. We wanna talk about air. Um, and I think we'll go into some of the other, like bigger areas that. Toxins get into our systems and how we can kind of, at least what we're learning about and how to avoid them. Mm-hmm. But as we kind of start wrapping up, I wanna go into some of the takeaways that we have, um, that we wanna share with people. It can be really overwhelming when we learn some of this stuff because you're like, oh my gosh, I had no idea that my water was like poisoning me. And, and that's, that's like the, the route that I often go is like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this, this is outrageous. And then I share everything with Wes and he's like, okay, yeah, calm down. I, and, and I like the voice of reason, but

Chrissy: 31:25

I think in general, there's two main responses that I hear from people when I start talking about all of these things. And it's very much one side of the spectrum or the other. And very rarely is there a voice of reason in the middle. The response is either, oh my gosh, I'm gonna die. I can't eat anything, I can't drink anything. I can't use any personal care products. I'm just gonna sit in a hole and not expose my any myself to anything. And the other side of the spectrum is. Well, it's in everything. It's on everything. So I'm gonna die one way or another. Mm-hmm. Doesn't matter how it goes, you know? And so it's a, a side of apathy versus like extreme concern. And it's very hard to find that middle ground of like, okay, how do I find very small fixes? Or very small steps that I can use to better my environment and the things that I put in my body bit by bit, you know? Yeah. It's not an overnight change. This is a very slow process that does take quite a few years to implement into our lives. And so before we exit this episode, I think we should probably go through like what is maybe the first one or two steps that somebody can take to start changing their water for the better, no matter what kind of water treatment plant their city or county has? Um, what can our listeners do to protect themselves from the toxins that is in the city water and also for a cost effective price, um, that's not gonna break the bank?

Katie: 33:07

Yeah, I think one of the, the quick fixes that we took, um. Would be to switch just the water bottle that you're using or the cups that you're using in your house. So switching them from plastic to either stainless steel or glass. And, and that was kind of an easy one for us. Um, for our reusable water bottles.'cause we take our water bottles everywhere and we were for years using a plastic water bottle and you could just literally see them degrading like the color was changing and they, it was just bad. And so once I realized that, that was probably leaking a lot of plastic into our water, we, we, we made the switch to stainless steel ones and I actually really like them. Um, I think they're, they're prettier too, so. That was an easy switch and we're still fixing our cups at home, but that's mine. What about you, Chrissy?

Chrissy: 33:57

I feel like my first observation, I did the stainless steel water bottle also, and I've realized it doesn't smell as much as, yeah, plastic, you know, plastic water bottles, if you leave it closed with a little bit of water in the bottom for even overnight. It just smells musty in the morning. Mm-hmm. Stainless steel water bottles don't smell like that. Nope. So that's an observation I've made. Um, let's see. The first step I would recommend is to get some sort of water filter to add to your tap water. Mm-hmm. Um, for instance, as I said earlier, we use the Brita water filter. It works phenomenally for us. Um, and if somebody has a lot of people in their household or a lot of people over frequently, then that attachment to the water faucet can be very easy to implement, to get quick water that is good for you. So that's great.

Katie: 35:00

We'll share links to most of the stuff that we mentioned today, and if you have any questions about something we mentioned and we didn't add a link to, um, we would encourage you to join us over in our Facebook group that we've created called Crunchy Christian Mamas on a Budget because. I think one of the things again that we've been, that we're really serious about is we wanna take these steps to become as non-toxic as possible, but also be good stewards of our finances and not do the whole overload where we're like, I need to go get a whole house filtration system and I need to buy all organic foods and I need to do this and that and change out everything.'cause again, that can be overwhelming, but it can be really expensive. And so we wanna support each other in this journey to, to being less toxic in our lives, but do it on a budget. So come join us over on Facebook and, and let's keep chatting about this and share what you've learned because again, Chrissy and I here are not the experts and we don't know everything. I would love to learn more, honestly, like if you could help us, please help us. So come join us there. Uh, we're getting our website set up and we'll have some free resources for you to join, um, to, to check, check out, and, um, we'll help you on this process and we'll just share some of the things that we've learned on how to do this on a budget. But Chrissy, is there anything else that you would like to add before we sign off? Nope. I think we covered everything that I thought of. Well, fantastic. We are, we pray over all of you guys and just hope that these episodes can be helpful in your journey to being a better steward of, of everything, of your body, of your mind, your soul, your spirit, your finances, um, and your families. So praying that this episode was helpful for you and we will see you next time. Bye.