7 Reasons to Start Your Day with Lemon Water
Instead of reaching for a cup of joe first thing in the morning, start your day with a glass of lemon water. Here are seven reasons you should consider making this a habit, according to the Cleveland Clinic, a non-profit academic medical center, located in Ohio.
Aids digestion. Acid helps break down food. That’s why there’s so much of it in our stomachs. The acid in lemons may be especially helpful to supplement stomach acids, which decline as we get older.
Keeps you hydrated. Most of us don’t drink enough water. A daily lemon water habit is an easy way to start your day off on the right foot. How do you know if you’re drinking enough? (Your urine is almost clear.)
Weight-loss friendly. If you replace your morning OJ or latte with lemon water five times a week for 20 days—and multiply that by 10 years—imagine the impact.
Prevents oxidation. Lemons contain phytonutrients or substances that protect your body against disease. These phytonutrients have powerful antioxidant properties, which prevent us from oxidizing or essentially rusting from the inside out.
A dose of Vitamin C. If you juice half a lemon into your water, you’ll add only six calories and get more than a sixth of your daily vitamin C, which protects you from cell damage and repair injury.
Provides potassium. Lemon gives you a boost of potassium. And without this mineral, your body can’t function properly. It’s necessary for nerve-muscle coordination, and transporting nutrients and waste. Potassium can also counter some of the effects of salt on blood pressure.
Prevents kidney stones. Lemon water helps prevent these painful stones in those who are deficient in urinary citrate (a form of citric acid). More importantly, increased fluid consumption helps prevent dehydration, which is a common cause of kidney stones.
Tap Water FAQs.
The Sonoma County Water Agency provides high quality drinking water to 11 cities and water districts in portions of Sonoma and Marin counties. Here are some of their responses to frequently asked questions about our local tap water.
Q: Is our tap water safe to drink?
A: Yes, our water is continually monitored and tested to ensure fresh, safe
and clean water is delivered to your tap. All of the Sonoma-Marin Saving
Water Partners meet or exceed all health-based standards for tap water
quality. Water suppliers are highly regulated—with numerous tests and
reports that are required to make public any information available about
the quality and potential contaminants in our water.
Q: What about lead in our water?
A: Our drinking water is very low risk for lead contamination. Water pipes are typically copper or plastic with few older homes having galvanized iron. In addition, lead service lines are not common and all new household plumbing fixtures are required to be lead free.
Q: Where does our tap water come from?
A: Our water is from the Russian River and is pumped from wells about 100 feet below the riverbed through a system called riverbank filtration. Six groundwater wells, also known as collectors, pump the water through natural sands and gravels that act as a filtering system. The system produces high quality drinking water that doesn’t face the water quality concerns that affect many public water systems throughout the United States.
www.takeitfromthetap.org
