Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - FOLLOW UP Q&A With Water Scientist Robert Slovak On Berkey, Alkaline Powder, Evolution, + MORE

Episode Date: September 30, 2023

There were so many questions from you guys for Robert after Alex’s interview with him, that he felt compelled to respond to some of the questions and comments you wrote online. This Q&A is conducted by his team at Water and Wellness Co. Don’t forget to go to waterandwellness.com/thespillover and use the code from our interview for 10% off!Support the Show.Looking for like-minded friends? Join the Cuteservative Facebook group!Interested in making a tax deductible donation to support The Sp...

I was so intrigued after we presented this spillover podcast with the questions that came in. And this really made it a very special occasion for me because the questions were really interesting and good. And they allow me to really make some of the important points of health and wellness. So we're going to take up a couple of comments. going to answer them and I hope this will clarify a lot of things. So the first question came in from one of the listeners, Rachel, and Desiree, would you please read Rachel's comment? So not trying to be mean, but was just looking through the website for the ocean water stuff and all I see are powders and one is literally an alkaline powder, which he made fun of. He seems smart, but this is off for

me. Sorry, Alex. Okay. I love this question because it really leads to the fact that pH, alkalizing, alkalin is still, remains one of the most mysterious subjects in health. And we do have something called active pH restore and the pH really refers to how it's going to influence the pH of your blood and because with modern diets we tend to have an acidic pH and the blood pH should be between 7.35 and 7.45 but this powder is is is is a is while it is designed to ultimately affect the pH of the blood, it really isn't alkaline powder, it's alkalizing powder. And that is the difference.

And this is where the best practitioners are so confused between the words alkaline and alkalizing. So water, I've always for a long time been a critic of alkaline water, which is simply water that has a high pH. But pH is not the active substance that controls the pH of your body. So alkaline water is somewhat meaningless. I teach that pH of drinking water is irrelevant in human physiology. And doctors often look at me and go, what?

I thought it was like the big deal. And it's not the pH that is the big deal. it's alkalinity, that's the big deal. So this powder that Rachel referred to is an alkalizing powder, not a high pH powder. I mean, the pH of the powder is, it's maybe 8.4, not a particularly high pH. But that is the point.

So she found this powder and disregarded it because she thought I was abandoning my... ...in alkyl in alkalinity. And alkalinity is what enables you to control the pH of the fluids of your body, especially your blood. So, but if someone just said, here's a glass of water, it's a pH of 9 or 10, which often alkaline water is,

it's totally meaningless. Unless the alkalinity is high enough to overcome the influence of the body and its stomach acid, etc. So I hope that helps Rachel, who was, as she said, she was looking for Kintone. She shouldn't have had the trouble finding Kintone on her website because it is a product that is most dear to my heart of all products because I discovered it in Brazil. It saved my life in Brazil in a remote area.

And I brought it to the United States almost 20 years. ago and I speak about Keen Tone marine plasma, which is derived from seawater, for much of my career in health and wellness. And it is my all-time favorite as the most important nutraceutical one can take. Next question, Desiree? We have a few questions on the difference between Berkey, Berkey filters and reverse osmosis technology. Okay. This is a forever question. So Berkey is a very well-known brand

that incorporates fundamentally activated carbon absorption technology. And this has an ability to remove contaminants from the water, certain contaminants. certain categories of contaminants. RO, which is reverse osmosis, and one of the technologies I'm responsible for developing long ago in the early 1970s, reverse osmosis is certainly the raining technology of the day

because it's capable of even turning seawater into freshwater. And it's used worldwide and is one of the great standards of water technology. But there is, with all of the contaminants we're seeing in municipal water, et cetera, especially the new category of contaminants, you've heard the term forever contaminants, especially these products, PFOAs and PFOS's. These are the forever chemicals that are the result of using chemistry that repels, that repels water and also is a non-stick coating for pans. This has become spread throughout the world.

And I'm told that virtually anyone in the world who does a blood test, they can find PFOAs and PFOS's in the water. So here we go. So how do we remove all these new categories of chemicals? My approach, my conclusion is that there's only two ways that can remove it safely without risking the unknown of when you need to change filters. RO plus activated carbon and distillation plus activated carbon. With the Berkey, you only have activated carbon. They do have a special cartridge for removing fluorite from the water, but that is another topic entirely.

So when you have a carbon filter, and I want everyone to understand this, all the contaminants that are removed by a carbon filter stay in the carbon filter. They are going to stay there, and with time they keep increasing and increasing, and each one of those contaminants reaches a point where the carbon cannot hold it anymore. And most consumers don't have any clue of when that is, because there is, is no easy way to determine it. With reverse osmosis plus activated carbon, the reverse osmosis membrane doesn't retain anything. It separates the pure water and it flushes away automatically the contaminants. So if you look at an oral membrane five years later from the time you

first used it, it will look exactly and perform exactly like it. it was when it was brand new. Now there are some things, some contaminants can sneak through an oral membrane, especially those with a low molecular weight, and those contaminants are then removed by the carbon filter that's after it. But this makes it very easy on the carbon, and the carbon lasts a long time because it's so protected by the reverse osmosis membrane. So these days, you know, even though Berkey had its

day, it's not enough for the very health-minded consumer if they're interested in removing every contaminant that one can find in the municipal water supply, from heavy metals to pharmaceuticals to solvents, pesticides, herbicides, there is nothing that matches RO plus activated carbon or a more old-fashioned technology distillation plus activated carbon. And I think there was a question, Desiree, on the testing of water products. Yes.

So this right now, right now in the marketplace, there is a lot of talk about Berkey. not having been tested like other products and why it's even had restrictions placed on it from being sold. And the EPA supposedly, I think, is making some action against Berkey. And from my perspective, I think it is justified to step back and take a look at Berkey. Now, in, I'm saying 20 years ago, the water industry decided that it needs some standards to rate and measure the performance of products being sold to consumers. And this was, this job was taken up by something called the NSF. It was originally named NSF for National Sanitation Laboratories because they tested everything from, you know, plates and sponges and dishwashers, etc. for the sanitary use in a public food serving domain.

But they decided to take on this job of being the ones in America to test water treatment products. And this is a very serious undertaking because it's done in an international way with the International Standards Institute organization and also something called ANSI, American Standard National Institute. This is a very serious undertaking. So NSF, National Sanitation Labs, that's just called NSF now. They don't use the sanitation in their name anymore. So they decided that they are going to undertake this job. And they decided to get experts in the world of water treatment to come and help write those standards.

We knew, and I just happened to be chosen because of my expertise in the reverse osmosis. technology and they knew they needed that because it was the up-and-coming technology. They brought in a dozen or so experts and we spent five years coming up with those standards and they finally published them. They got approved internationally and these are the water standards. Now NSF did NSF testing and they have standards. They have a standard for distillers, they have a standard for carbon filters. They have a standard for reverse osmosis, a standard for every standard for type of water system. Now they licensed that standard because millions were spent on developing that standard. They said they licensed that standard to other

laboratories and the two other laboratories that license it was one the Water Quality Association Gold Seal program and a company called IATMO and IATMO is is a test a test a test a test. laboratory in California, water quality association is in Chicago, and NSF is in Michigan. So these are the three laboratories that truly use these rigorous standards, and it costs a lot for a manufacturer to test under those standards. Just start at $50,000 per product that you make okay so it's it's a it's a big guys business you have to come up with it it takes months and months to test your product so these are the three laboratories now

this if you do not test to one of those three laboratories your information is very questionable and the questionable part is what standard did you test to and there's been a lot of, shall we say, unscrupulous claims that your company tested to a particular standard, but often they do not or do not test the whole standard. So you have to verify that one of those three companies, NSF, IATMO, and Water Quality Association Golds, seal actually have the product you're looking at mentioned and listed in their list of tested products on their website. So that's a guideline. Burkey never, to best of my knowledge, never tested their products to those standards and they gave lots of excuses. One, they said, oh, our

technology is so proprietor. We were afraid people would take it. I've heard everything. coming from Berkey. But the point is that a carbon filter alone is not going to give great results if you really test to the standard. Now, where do they fail? They fail in just one thing. When you test to the true standards of NSF, WQA, and IATMO, you have a minimum amount of water that you have to subject the filter to. Well, I have found up in, found in my investigation that Berkey did not follow those rigorous standards. And so they passed when they shouldn't have passed. And that's where I'm at right now.

So conclusion, if you are very concerned about the contaminants you're exposed to in drinking water and the water you prepare food with, you better make sure that your product that you're buying is tested to one of the three standards. NSF, IATMO, and WQA. And the product that we sell, my favorite product that is for consumers, that's very, both economical and high performance, is the Aqua True.

There are two models. These are tested by the Ayatmo Laboratory in California to the true standards developed by myself and my colleagues 20 years ago. We have another comment. about one second. I mean, people are asking about evolution. Okay. Do you want to guess that?

Well, yeah, I mean, that's fascinating. I don't often get that question. I'm a scientist, and I had to at some point in my life come to the conclusion. You know, was there spontaneous creation, special creation? it's called in which, you know, we started with Adam and Eve and just boom, there they were, and there was not this evolutionary process. But it's really hard to buy into that when you realize the geological and geobiological record of, you know, the fossils, et cetera, et cetera. So I believe that life began in the ocean. And that's like a most magnificent to me choice by God because he happened to have

put into the ocean, the ocean that's on earth, the entire periodic table of the elements. That's the secret. To me, that's the reason why I really am convinced there was evolution in the ocean, because the entire periodic table happens to be everything God produced in the universe. The whole universe is made out of the periodic table. From hydrogen, the smallest element to plutonium, the heaviest natural element. So I do believe in evolution and I believe that the ocean is responsible during evolution for establishing the structure and function of all species. And we inherited this as being part of the animal species.

And when we left the ocean about 450 million years ago, we had this incredible environment called the ocean, which you couldn't, have evolved without. And now when animal life sought a terrestrial existence, this ocean was no longer there. So Renee Cantone, who really did the science of this the most said, the only way life could leave the ocean was to take the ocean with it.

And in fact, our body fluids match almost perfectly the proportions of elements in the ocean. I mean, that's the tip off. that it matches it almost perfectly. Now, when life left the ocean and took the ocean, your body fluids are often called the internal ocean, okay? I mean, since the 1800s they called it that

because they also believed it came from the ocean. When you left for a terrestrial existence, well, what was going to keep feeding all the minerals trace elements, the periodic table to your body, because you're not going to be getting it from like eating the earth, et cetera. Well, you got it from plants. That was the idea. But nowadays, you can't get it from plants. From the late 1800s until this present day, modern farming has destroyed any hope of having the entire periodic table. So you can't restore the ocean that's in your body and that's where Kintone comes in. Kintone is the ocean and it restores the 78 minerals

and trace elements and many other factors, micronutrients, to restore that in your body. And so you don't have to depend upon your food to restore this property to your body that we call. And I want you to All remember this because it's the most important word in all biology and physiology, and it's called the terrain. And this concept was really presented by Claude Bernard, the father of modern physiology in the 1850s, and he said he used the word because he was French, Nileu, Interior. It's the internal ocean.

That's how it translates. And this is what Kintan does. It restores your milieu interior to maintain this quality that you inherited from evolution in the ocean. Let's do one last question on Kintan. Okay. And then we'll shift this into the feed.

But what's the difference between hypertonic, isotonic, and the quintessential line? And the quintessential line? I mean, okay. So isotonic and hypertonic, very good question, very necessary, mysterious. First of all, hypertonic is a fluid that's harvested directly from the ocean and runs through pharmaceutical processing. It's never heated, so it retains all of its natural properties. And it's harvested from a special zone in the ocean called a plant, a plant, a plant, vortexing plankton bloom.

It's a priceless area. It's not promoted because it also happens to make 55% of the oxygen on the planet and there is always the threat of terrorism, et cetera, in threatening this area. It's monitored by buoys. It's monitored by satellites.

It's monitored by all the oceanographic institutes in the world to preserve the purity of this area. And so Labrtois Canton goes into this area with its special ships that take this water from 100 feet down where phytoplankton exists, etc. And this special area is called the zone of biosinosis, and they harvest this, and this fluid goes into special processing so it makes it actually sterile in apyrogenic, meaning it's pyrogen-free too. And they take this fluid and without changing any parameter to it,

they put it in a glass ampule or a special sachet, and that's called hypertonic. So hypertonic is the ocean itself. When they make isotonic, they take the hypertonic and dilute it roughly three times and to make the isotonic. Why do they do this? because they were making a medicine for use.

And the medicine matches your blood plasma. Your blood plasma is derived from the ocean, but it's not as concentrated as the ocean. So the blood plasma, they made one just for the blood plasma, so one could take this in actually by intravenously injecting it into the body. That's how they treated the early diseases in the, in the early 1900s. So we have here, you guys can see,

and I carry, this is how I carry my kingdom around when I have this, you know, when I'm traveling and so on. So I take one of the trays, we call it, and I put some hypertonic and an isotonic in it. And this is the hypertonic, and it's in an amber-colored ampule, and you break the tip off with this little, this little round disc and just to protect your hands, to be honest with you, most of us who do this

a few times, you go, we don't need this, this, but I always want you guys to use the disc just because it's the right way to do it. And so this is hypertonic, and hypertonic is the nutrient. It's got 330 milligrams of the entire periodic table in it. There aren't many things that can achieve that in the world. This one is called isotonic. For those of you who are maybe more medically oriented, you know that your blood plasma in your body is at a lower concentration than seawater,

and it's called isotonic. So this is diluted with a very special spring water that was defined by Renee Cantone, who discovered all of this, and this is diluted. So this can be put directly in your body. In Quintone's Day, they would inject this. and I V this right into the body. And it's still done in countries today.

And this came out in 1897, as amazing as it is. Not the neat cardboard tray, though, just the glass ampules. And this became very soon after Renee Cantone did his dog experiment in which he took the isotonic and replaced the whole blood of six dogs with this to prove that he was right, that we really inherited our terrain, our body water from the ocean. And he replaced all the blood in the six dogs and all dogs survived and the two six dogs were healed. So this got the attention of all of the physiologists of the early 1900s in Europe. And they said, wow, we've got to explore this.

Now, at the same time, just years later, Europe was faced with the multiple pandemics of cholera. And this included not just Europe, but North Africa. It was faced with cholera, tuberculosis, syphilis, gastroenteritis, typhoid, ad infinitum. In fact, during the early 1900s, 50,000 people were dying every day of these. multiple diseases. This was a true real pandemic, okay? And there was desperation. There was no antibiotics. There was no penicillin. There were only potions because this was a long time ago. And they didn't, you know, have advanced medicines. Thank God, actually. Because René Cantone came to the rescue. They said, hey, this stuff like healed these dogs and you change the blood and

can we use this for a medicine? Well, very quickly they found that this addressed all of those diseases. Amazing story. There are volumes written on it, warehouses of books on it. And the fact is this became adopted by 1909. This became adopted as a medicine, an official medicine. They weren't thinking of nutraceuticals and supplements. A true medicine. This was called and it entered into the physician's desk reference, for those of you who are practitioners, know that is the Bible of medicine in countries, it's called the Physicians Desk Reference.

This was in the Physicians Desk Reference that was used in Europe called the Vidal as a medicine and a treatment for all those diseases. So it became interesting and was used in World War I as the blood plasma replacement, and it was used up until, actually by IV up until the 1980s. And then this became a very questionable product

because the pharmaceutical companies were going, we can't let this exist. And so they kind of, as we know today, did a deep state dive on the laboratories, Kintone and tried to eliminate its influence on medicine. but that's a story for another time. So this is the very special stuff. It also comes in a sachet.

So because this can be awkward to travel with, so you can travel with it, athletes use it in a sachet. Now, you don't do the heavy, let's say, the heavy addressing of health conditions with the sachets. Those are more at the nutrient level. and these are these can be used for anything these these priceless glass ampules did we did we finish that do we get that question yeah let's finish off the live this last question from korena she's asking what your thoughts are on whole home filtration systems and r o from companies like colegan she was mentioning that she has the system and they produce their water systems in home okay so i mean this is is a topic I've handled for 20 years. So whole home, here's where you start. You must know all the details

about your water supply. One, is it a municipal water supply? And what is its analysis show? What does it say, what does your water supplier say it has in it? If you have a private well in which you don't a water supplier you must have that water tested and analyzed for you to make a decent decision you might need some just if you have a well in a pristine area and there's no agriculture there's no pesticides there's no other obvious problems like you're you're up at 5 000 foot level in in colorado rocky mountains you might need just a simple a simple large cartridge carbon filter to handle your water. And maybe you might, if there's any bacterial problems,

you might want to incorporate a UV. But in general, the more challenging is the municipal water. Anything can happen in municipal water in the United States. There are well over, there are almost 300 known contaminants tested that have shown up in municipal water. It doesn't mean those contaminants are in every municipal water, but if we took all the tests of all the municipal waters, you would find 300 contaminants that can put your health at risk.

So, you know, most municipal waters have less than 100 contaminants. And there are some of them are very serious. Like we talked about PFAs and PFAS is and PFOS as like the new forever chemicals. But you have glyphosate in the water, pesticides, herbicides. You have heavy metals. and now because their cities are recycling the water that was once sewage water, it's getting very common because we're running out of water supplies, et cetera.

They're recycling water, so now you can have pharmaceutical medicines in the water, you can have drugs in the water, etc. So it's a very serious undertaking. for water for the whole house here's what you here's your takeaway whole house water filtration should only address your bathing and showering and other things in your washing dishes doing laundry that's all it should be used for and it should be safe enough that you bathe in now you do not take many contaminants in through your skin etc so the most the volatile chemicals like trihalomethanes, also known as THMs, are much more susceptible

that you breathe them in, but it's not nearly as important as your drinking water. You should never count on a whole house system, in general, never count on a whole house system to do your drinking water and remove the chemicals if you're a very health-minded person. you should have a water system for your whole house that can handle the needs of bathing and showering and protection in that area and a separate drinking water system that might be under your sink. It could be a filtration system. It could be a reverse osmosis system. Now, Colligan certainly makes a certified reverse osmosis system under the sink. So they've got that covered. and they, you know, Colligan was actually part of the team that helped develop these standards along with my colleagues and myself.

But here's one of the things that I've been speaking about for almost 25 years. Even though I was one of the early developers of the under-sync reverse osmosis system, I became skeptical of it after, after they started to make membranes that made so much water that you never could drain the tank. It would just keep the tank full. And those of you who have an undersync aura system,

you will notice there's a distinctive metal tank, or it could be plastic nowadays, tank. And this tank can become a microbial incubator. So I, for the most health-minded people, and especially those who have anyone that has an immune problem or autism, you do not want to challenge these people with a high bacteria level because it can truly impair the microbiome of that person. So, you know, I wrote the book on maintaining RO systems for home use. and always made a point that you have to continually or regularly sanitize that storage tank. But now I've kind of given up on it because people don't do it and dealers don't do it

and no one's going to do it. And it's very rare if it's done anymore. So we use a system that doesn't require an enclosed, encapsulated holding tank like you find with under sink. and I suggest that people get a countertop RO system in which you have complete access to the holding tank. You can clean it, you can wash it, rinse it, sterilize it, et cetera, very easily in just a matter of minutes. So I have lost my endorsement of under-sync reverse osmosis systems and go in favor the countertop Ruralomosis systems and go and favor the countertop oral system that has containers you can sanitize.

Cool. I think that's it for today and we'll go on post to do some more questions. Okay. And I love questions, everybody. And I love to be challenged and I love to be told I'm wrong more than anything because then that's when my brain gets most activated. Thank you very much for listening and thank you for visiting the podcast.