Whether you buy bottled water or conscientiously tote some from home, you’ll want to avoid swallowing chemicals along with it. Below, the plastics not to choose (check the recycling number on the bottom of your bottle) :

Plastics to Avoid

#3 Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) commonly contains di-2-ehtylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), an endocrine disruptor and probable human carcinogen, as a softener.

#6 Polystyrene (PS) may leach styrene, a possible endocrine disruptor and human carcinogen, into water and food.

#7 Polycarbonate contains the hormone disruptor bisphenol-A, which can leach out as bottles age, are heated or exposed to acidic solutions. Unfortunately, #7 is used in most baby bottles and five-gallon water jugs and in many reusable sports bottles.

OK, I don’t know about you, but this recently mega-publicized info has me consumed with doubt, fear, anxiety, and anger. For like the last 20 years or so I have been drilled with the enviro concept to reduce-reuse-recycle. My commitment goes in waves, but I do my best. So for the past few months I’ve been re-using a recycled water bottle. And, as we all know –8 glasses a day or else death by dehydration or some crap. Recently I gave up on store-bought bottled water because isn’t it just some other municipality’s water source anyway? At least this was last week’s big water-news story.

I’m in Point Clear, AL where the water is clean and I drink it out of the tap. I am a water-aholic. I don’t know if over the years I permanently altered my chemical make-up trying to adhere to hydration hype. The simple fact is that I need to drink water all day or I don’t feel optimally well. And up until last week I was feeling pretty good and ‘green’ with my long reused Vitamin Water bottle and my ‘healthy’ consumption.

Then whammo! Newsflash…that healthy habit you’ve been working on is killing you and innocent babies across America. Now, every time I take a sip of water these words drift like clouds across my vision…leaching styrene di-2-ehtylhexyl phthalate endocrine disruptor human carcinogen.

Is it really this bad? If it really is – the damage is already done to me and all of my organs. Unless of course this leaching is a new thing and wasn’t occurring for the past 25 years. Now we’re supposed to drink out of an aluminum bottle that is ‘coated’ on the inside. I’m SO SURE that these coatings won’t be ‘written up’ in a future issue of some scare-me-to-death publication that I should heed.

WTF???!!

I have brilliant idea. Maybe I should resort back to my college era behaviors when Jack Daniels out of a short glass was my DOC. Seems safer than a freakin’ sip of water these days. Modern Problems–a funny Chevy Chase movie from the 80’s or death by leaching carcinogens in your water bottle?

But seriously–this is when yoga and meditation save me. Because The Jack –although gentlemanly enough, is not an option. Nor is not drinking water.

What to do? What not to do?

Yogas chitta vrtti nirodhah. Yoga calms the mind.

This is all I can do.

And once again, it is as simple as that.