When I returned from the gym this morning, everyone in the family had finished eating breakfast. The good news is that my wife had apple pancakes waiting for me. Normally, I have a smoothie after my workouts consisting of two to three servings of fruit, protein powder, and pro-biotic yogurt, with a teaspoon of Salba, and a cup of alkaline water. The “sit down” breakfast made for a nice treat. Like so many things in life, a treat often comes with a hitch. Today, the hitch came in the form of a copy of an article written by Dr. Tim O’Shea 8 year ago that my wife expected me to read while filling up on carbs.

The article is outstanding and I recommend it to everyone. It may really open your eyes if you are amenable to having your eyes opened. You can link to the article here: http://dissidentvoice.org/Articles/O-Shea_Doors.htm.

O’Shea’s Article:

The basis of O’Shea’s article is that there is a sophisticated science behind creating public opinion. The people that create the opinions are professional Spin Doctors that we never hear about. These people are highly sought after by corporations or governments, because they quietly work in the background telling us all what we should think about any given subject. The premise is that if everybody believes something, and it is accepted as Conventional Wisdom, it is probably wrong.

O’Shea provides examples of accepted Convention Wisdom that has been bought and paid for. Examples include: pharmaceuticals restore health, vaccination brings immunity, the cure for cancer is just around the corner, when a child is sick it needs antibiotics immediately, when a child has a fever it needs Tylenol, hospitals are safe and clean, and America has the best health care in the world.

O’Shea explains how the Spin Doctor world got started by Edward Bernays, who took the ideas of his uncle (Sigmund Freud) and applied them to the science of mass persuasion. He explains how corporations such as drug companies, tobacco companies, oil companies, automobile companies, and chemical companies etc use the Spin Doctors to create a public perception of their products that suit the needs of the companies. He explains the techniques of the Spin Doctors, who use corporately backed third party recommendations from so called “independent organizations” to shape public opinion. A perfect example of this style of marketing has been used effectively by Tyent USA in the water ionizer industry when they created the so called “independent” ionizersreviewed.com website to promote Tyent water ionizers.

O’Shea explains that third party independent organization recommendations are a much more effective way to alter public opinion than direct marketing. The secret, according to O’Shea is that the public is never aware of what has taken place.

O’Shea leaves the reader with suggestions as to how to gain a more independent perspective on what you are being told by the different forms of media. The article is a great read.

What has this got to do with Water?

The Conventional Wisdom Behind Bottled Water

The hundreds of millions of people around the world have been conditioned by big business to believe that they should be drinking bottled water. I believe that bottled water is the biggest marketing scam in modern history. Most bottled water comes from a tap and has gone through a simple carbon filtration process. The filtration is a good thing, but you can obtain the same filtration or more likely much superior filtration in your own home for a fraction of the price. Paying $2 for a liter of water is absurd, but tens of hundreds of millions of people do it every year.

The bottled water industry has created a Conventional Wisdom among people that drinking bottled water is good. While drinking water is a good thing, drinking bottled water is a bad thing. Not only are you wasting money, but you are creating a huge amount of long lasting pollution (land fill) and wasting fossil fuels (shipping the water to you).

You can produce the same or better water for pennies a gallon and save the environment. If you don’t have a water filtration system in your home, you are part of the problem.

The Conventional Wisdom Behind Ionized Water:

The drug companies and the bottle water industry can’t have people buying clean ionized water because it would be bad for business. Enter the “quack watchers” and the professional pitchmen like Dr. Mercola.

The drug and bottled water companies can’t come out and tell the public directly that they should avoid clean ionized water, because the public would see through that. Instead, they use the “independent” third party recommendations. While I respect the work that Mercola does, his blatant commercialism is sickening. Mercola’s lack of research on the subject and his blind acceptance of the hydrogen stick promoter’s assumption that water ionizers can make you sick is a joke. The Conventional Wisdom about water ionizers has deprived many people of the benefits of ionized water.

The Conventional Wisdom of Electric Water Ionizers

I started a business selling electric water ionizers a few years ago and had a very successful run before I retired a year ago. I was a huge fan of the benefits of electric water ionizers… and I still am.

In the fall of 2010, antioxidant filters, a new technology for producing ionized water was introduced to the market. The new machines produce natural long lasting ionization by running water over magnesium to produce hydrogen ions. This represents a quantum change from electric water ionizers that produce short term ionization by virtue of creating hydroxyl ions via electrolysis.

The new antioxidant filters have an advantage over electric water ionizers in that they are first and foremost a good filter while water ionizers provide minimal filtration. Electric water ionizers have an advantage over antioxidant filters because they can produce acidic water which has a number of uses, and they can be more precisely adjusted to provide water with varying levels of pH. Both machines provide the same health benefits in terms of drinking water. As you can see, there are advantages to both machines. However, the major difference is price as they cost 1/5 to 1/10 the price of the electric water ionizers.

I expect to see the electric water ionizer companies get their Spin Doctors busy creating their version of Conventional Wisdom about ionized water. You can’t blame the electric water ionizer companies for wanting to protect the profits they make on their $2,000 to $4,000 machines.

As always, the opinions expressed in this article are those of the author