What if I told you there was a tropical-tasting fruit growing in the temperate forests of eastern North America and even as far north as Canada?
Let me introduce you to Asimina triloba, commonly known as the pawpaw.
Native to North America, this hefty green fruit grows on palmy, deciduous trees. You may be able to identify a pawpaw by its characteristic big leaves, which grow in triads (AKA, “tri-lobed,” hence the scientific name triloba).
The fruit is best enjoyed tree-ripened and very soft, when the texture is almost custard-like. The flesh is pale yellow, dotted with dark, stone-like seeds.
A look inside the pawpaw.
Despite the similar-sounding name, the pawpaw is not related to the papaya. It is possible English-speaking settlers named the fruit pawpaw after the papaya, due to their similar outward appearance.
Inside, however, the flavor is a more complex cross between a banana and a mango. After the initial tropical hit, there is a hint of floral—even a bready yeastiness.
These unique fruits were once a more common part of the American culinary lexicon. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Lewis And Clarke all snacked on pawpaws.
Pawpaws’ rapid ripening time makes them a bane to commercialization. Like most plants you won’t find at the grocery store, pawpaws have been largely forgotten about. Of course, the loss of forest to agriculture and industry have also made foraging for these fruits (and in general) more challenging.
The good news is, you may have the chance to find one yourself if you live in the Eastern United States and Canada. (East being a relative term—the Midwest is a hot spot for pawpaws!) If you are unable to forage your own pawpaws, growers are popping up around the country. Try buying the fruit or its processed pulp online with the specialty food store Earthy Delights.
I encourage you to try this delicious native fruit.
Whisk together all dry ingredients and set aside. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and line a medium loaf pan with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and mashed pawpaw pulp, then vanilla and coconut oil until well combined.
Gently stir the dry mixture into the wet just until moistened and no visible flour remains. Do not overmix!
Transfer batter to prepared loaf pan and bake in the preheated oven for 50-60 minutes until deep golden brown and toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Allow to cool completely in the loaf pan. Slice and serve. Enjoy!
Are you trying to figure out how to pickle something? Then you’re in the right place! Today I share the exact steps I use for pickling my own vegetables, from garden in Boston, Massachusetts.
Whether you have more peppers from your garden than you know what to do with, or you’ve just bought too many carrots from the grocery store, pickling is a simple solution that allows you to preserve vegetables longer than they would last in the fridge.
We love less food waste!
This blog post is all about how to pickle anything.
Before you go thinking you’ll need some special pickling equipment and make pickling your whole personality, let me just say this: pickling is ridiculously easy.
To take part in the age-old tradition of lacto-fermentation (the scientific term for what is going on during the pickling process) all you need is salt, water, vegetables and some mason jars to fit them in.
Lacto-fermentation is the process by which good bacteria (called lactobacillus) converts the natural sugars present in your vegetable matter into lactic acid. The lactic acid preserves the food and further prevent bad bacteria from growing.
To get this process started, you’ll need to create a salt water solution that creates the right environment for lactobacillus to thrive, and keeps bad bacteria out.
For most hard vegetables, this is a 2% salt water solution. For softer vegetables, like cucumbers, you’ll want to use a saltier solution, closer to 3 – 3.5%.
Hi there, I’m Leslie, the founder of PunkMed. I’m excited to share my guide on how to pickle anything. Feel free to check out my other posts on urban homesteading, canning and gardening!
Supplies – How to Pickle Anything
· Chlorine-free water (use spring water, bottled or from a spring)
· Sea salt (no table, iodized or kosher salt)
· Vegetables (hard veggies like carrots, peppers, rutabega, turnips, parsnips, green beans need 2% salt to water, softer veggies like cucumbers, okra need 3 – 3.5 % salt)
· Mason jars with lids
5 Steps – How to Pickle Anything
Below, I’ve shared my step-by-step guide on how to pickle anything. this information is based on my own experience!
Step #1: Dissolve All Salt in Water
Depending on the vegetable you are pickling, you will dissolve 2 – 3.5% salt in water. Harder vegetables like carrots, peppers, rutabaga, turnips, parsnips, green beans need 2% salt to water, while softer veggies like cucumbers, okra need 3 – 3.5 % salt.
To make this easy, I dissolve 2 tablespoons salt in 1 quart water for a 2% solution. For softer veggies, I dissolve 3 ½ tablespoons salt in 1 quart water. From there, you eyeball the water you need to fully cover your veggies when they’re in the jars. You may not use all the water or need to make a little more, which is fine, as long as you maintain the same percentage salt solution.
Step #2: Process Vegetables
Next, you’ll need to process your vegetables so they fit into your jars. For longer veggies like carrots, peppers, and green beans, I like to slice lengthwise and maintain as much length as possible while still fitting into your jars (with at least a centimeter of space from the lip of the jar).
From there, I stuff as many spears in the jar as I can so they are snug in the jar. You should be able to hold the jar without them falling out. This ensures your veggies will keep each other from floating to the top of the solution and getting exposed to air. (This invites yeast and mold—yuck!)
You can also experiment with cutting your vegetables into other shapes and size—coins, spiralized, etc. It doesn’t matter as long as they can be kept underneath the salt water.
You may need to cover your veggies with a layer to keep them from rising. This can be a layer of vegetable matter like cabbage or grape leaves, or you can invest in a fermentation weight.
Step #3: Cover Vegetables with Salt Water Solution
Next, you’ll ant to completely cover vegetables with your salt water solution. Make sure to leave at least a centimeter of space from the lip of the jar to allow space for the CO2 gases that are produced during the fermentation process to release.
Step #4: Fermentation
For this step on how to pickle vegetables, you’ll want to let the veggies ferment on the counter for 3-5 days. The amount of time the process will take depends on the temperature of the air. Warmer temperatures will mean a faster ferment. Look for bubbles of CO2—this will let you know the process is underway.
It’s a good idea to keep an eye on the jar throughout this time. You may need to release the lid a little bit (“burp” it) to let some gas escape throughout the fermentation. You should also be on the lookout for nay veggies that may have risen out of the water and been exposed to air. Either push those down, or, if they may have been out for a while, pluck them out.
Use your senses when assessing the fermentation. Does it smell fermented? Taste your produce throughout the process. The veggies should remain crisp but flavorful. Make sure no mold or yeast has developed.
Step #5: Tighten & Storage
Finally, tighten the lid and store in the fridge. Enjoy! Your ferment will last for up to a year in the fridge.
WATCH ME MAKE PICKLED PEPPERS HERE:
Here, i’ve shared a step-by-step video on how to pickle vegetables:
A friend recently called me out for having spent hundreds of dollars on lip products in the month of August for this roundup.
“No one is wearing lipsticks, Leslie, we’re all wearing masks,” she said, probably rightfully so.
Honestly, it hadn’t crossed my mind that most people have probably been reducing their lip-slathering—and not because I haven’t been wearing a mask in public. (Wear a damn mask people!)
It’s because lipsticks serve a couple of important functions for me beyond moisturizing and accentuating my kissers.
First, most people who know me will know that I have an almost compulsive habit of applying lip products, sometimes with multiple applications in a span of minutes. It’s a self-soothing mechanism for me, and I always need a lip product on deck.
Second, speaking of the times we are living in, many of us are spending more time at home and experiencing the thinning veil between work and home life. Lipstick has become the ultimate boundary reinforcer for me. A bold lip means I’m working. Bare lips mean I’m off duty.
To that last point, I have been on the hunt for lip shades that feel more adult. (Left to my own devices, I’m usually drawn to barely wearable pinks and oranges.) As we head into fall, I felt a berry shade fit the bill for being both seasonable and respectable.
To me, a lip product is perfect if it’s non-toxic, feels comfortable on the lips, is moisturizing, and has a bold color that starts out sheer but is buildable (bonus points for SPF, we have the technology people!)
So I tried six clean-ish lip products (some lipsticks, some balms, some glosses and an…oil?) in the past couple months to find the perfect berry lip. See how they performed below.
This ended up being my least favorite, partly due to user error. The shade is less berry and more violet (color:1). It’s has a funky crayon smell, and feels chalky going on (comfort: 1). It’s pretty buildable, which I’m grateful for as I keep it sheer since I don’t love the color (buildable: 3). The ingredients are organic (clean: 5) and it has SPF so it get a bonus point (+1). I’ve been wearing this almost exclusively to the beach.
COOLA’s Liplux Balm in Purple Sky is at the bottom of my list at 11/20.
This lipstick was the most recommended product when I put out the call on social media for a sheer berry lip. The name of the shade, Jam, is spot on—the color is truly the juicy berry medley I was going for (5). The sheer matte, ‘I-just-ate-a-popsicle’ formula feels very of-the-time, as is Glossier’s shtick (5). However, the formula loses points for being very dry (1) and containing less clean ingredients (1).
Glossier Generation G in Jam has all the color and buildability I wanted in a very dry package, 12/20.
Perhaps as the name implies, there is nothing sheer or buildable about Ilia’s Color Block line of lipsticks—these beauties are for impact (3). Still, the formula manages to feel fairly comfortable (4). The shade Wild Aster skews a bit more raspberry (fittingly, raspberry seed oil is one of the ingredients) compared to Glossier Jam’s berry medley (4). Finally, Ilia is the powerhouse of the clean beauty industry—we know the ingredients are safe but I’d like to see a few more organic ingredients in this product (4).
Not exactly what I was looking for in terms of buildability and day wear, but this color is perfect for a romantic dinner or any time you want to make a bolder statement. Ilia Color Block Lipstick in Wild Aster comes in at a respectable 15/20.
When I first saw the name for Ilia’s newest lip product I had to laugh—is it a balm? A gloss? An oil? It seemed like the latest development in a spate of lip glosses that try to do too much and above all, denounce stickiness.
After trying the balm/gloss/oil, I have to say this is truly an innovative product. It feels slick like an oil (in a good way?), yet nourishing and extremely comfortable on the lips like a balm (5). It fully enables my compulsive lip balm habit without drying out my lips. It somehow maintains a glossy effect that doesn’t stick. Still, it’s a gloss, so the color isn’t exactly buildable (3). Again, the ingredients are great (4). The color is a nice cooled-toned berry mauve (4).
This glossy oil is the balm. Ilia Balmy Gloss Tinted Lip Oil in Linger gets 16/20.
Unlike Ilia’s Balmy Gloss, Lawless’s offering is a lip gloss in the truest sense of the word. It’s glossy, it’s creamy, it’s pigmented—I kind of want to drink it? Not that I would but I did, I wouldn’t be too concerned because LAWLESS has some of the best ingredients in the clean beauty game (4).
This formula is THICK and nourishing, like a berry smoothie (4). LAWLESS describes the shade Sexpot, as a “plummy rose,” and it is true to its name (5). Also, as it dries down it leaves a slight pigment to the lips that says, “I just ate a popsicle in a sexy way, sorry you missed it.” Again, this a gloss so it doesn’t really build but the color delivers (3).
LAWLESS Lip Shine Lip Gloss in Sexpot ties Ilia’s Balmy Gloss at 16/20.
This one checked all of my boxes. Ilia’s Tinted Lip Conditioner offers a lot of the color in a nourishing package that feels great on the lips (5). This one can be reapplied all day. It’s pretty sheer at first blush, but very buildable (5). The shade Arabian Knights leans a little more red than the others, but is still well within the berry family (4).
The Tinted Lip Conditioner has a high percentage of organic ingredients (5). Titanium dioxide is listed as one of the ingredients, so it may even have some sun protection. Still, there is no SPF listed so I wouldn’t rely on it.
Sure, wearing a face mask can reduce the spread of respiratory droplets that contain the virus that causes COVID-19 and protect those around you—but did you know they are also the hottest fashion accessory of 2020? Seriously, I think face masks can be so cool.
Luckily, there are a few great designers that are making them sustainably. They may use natural materials, deadstock textiles, or fabric leftover from their other designs. Any way, they all make wearing a face mask the stylish and considerate thing to do.
Style, safety, and sustainability?! We really can have it all.
All Fly By Night pieces are handmade in NYC. The designer uses deadstock fabrics, even using textiles from old movie sets—what?! These matching headband-face mask sets are so cute
Another Boston local. Erin actually won season 15 of Project Runway and I’ve been a fan ever since. This mask is absolutely stunning and makes me feel like a video game character that lives in a cottage? Like an Animal Crossing vibe.
Often imitated, never duplicated. This mask is made of 100% organic lined featuring a stunning gold chain. Works for summer. Classy and perfect for every day.
Are you looking for tips on how to start a container garden? Then this post is for you!
Maybe you’re sick of throwing away plastic bags of wilted spinach that you abandoned in the vegetable crisper. (Food waste and plastic headed to a landfill—not cute!)
Maybe the scarcity of fresh vegetables on the shelves of grocery stores during the peak of the pandemic has you thinking about ways you can become more self-sufficient. The boom in the home gardening industry since then suggests that a lot of people have a new sense of distrust in our supply systems.
If you’re one of them, or just interested in gardening at all, a great place to start is with a container garden or two!
Why Start a Container Garden?
Regardless of what brought you to home gardening, you will soon learn the deeply satisfying work of having your hands in the soil, growing something from seed, and being able to feed yourself and your family—whether the final product is just a sprig of mint in your julep or a full-fledged tomato canning operation that will prolong your harvest into the winter.
Home and community gardening can provide a variety of health benefits, including increasing fruit and vegetable intake, physical activity and boosting mental health.
Container gardening, in particular, is fantastic because it can bring nutritious produce to homes without green space or workable soil. It may be a good idea to grow in containers if you live in an urban area, particularly near a road, industrial site or older house known to have a history of lead paint and fixtures.
Plus, one of my top tips for new gardeners is to start small. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with Instagram gardening goals and ambitious gardening projects when you’re first starting out. Starting a container garden is a great first gardening project for beginners!
Okay, that’s enough! You came here for a how-to guide! To get started, you’ll need to determine how much space and time you have to dedicate to a home gardening project. We’ll start with the smallest, easiest projects and progress to the more time-intensive.
This blog post is all about how to start a container garden.
How to Start a Container Garden
The great thing about container gardening is almost any vessel will work once you discover the general principles. In fact, I encourage resourcefulness where possible. Please find ways to reuse containers you have lying around the house! I incorporate all of the containers below in my urban garden.
List of Needed Items – How to Start a Container Garden
Before you get started and pick out a project, you need a few essentials. Garden gloves and a good spade are important tools to have around.
You’ll also want the best, organic soil you can find. We like Coast of Maine products for container gardening and larger raised beds (affiliate link). Shop for your essentials and tackle one of the container gardening projects below this weekend!
You know the pure panic of making the long trip to the grocery store only to find they don’t have any mint, and you had your heart set on a mojito? The idea behind the cocktail garden is to make sure that never happens to you again. With a cocktail garden, you will always have a set of herbs within your reach, should ever the mood strike you for a tipple.
In general, these come in the form of a window box or hanging basket, and look great on a windowsill or porch ledge. Shop some of my picks below.
ROSEMARY SAGE LEMON VERBENA LEMON BALM BASIL MINT TULSI OR HOLY BASIL
My tip: You could buy these plants as younger seedlings and transplant them into your garden or start them from seed in the spring. See your seed packet for instruction on how to start individual plants.
A surprising number of plants will thrive in the type of five-gallon bucket you can get at your local hardware store. Ideally, use food-grade plastic or other materials considered safe for growing food. A general rule of thumb for plastics is that typically any of those with the ‘recycle’ symbol are consider safe for food.
If you want to go above and beyond, try sourcing your buckets from out behind a local restaurant or coffee shop—you know the containers will be food-safe. Reduce, reuse, recycle!
5 Gallon Bucket Planter How-To
Allow for drainage by drilling a number of holes into the bottom of your bucket.
To keep soil from clogging up the holes, put down a layer of chunkier solids like rocks or gravel. I’ve even used shards from broken pots for this application (be careful!)
Fill the container with potting soil, allowing enough space for the root ball for the plant you are transplanting. You want the root ball to be an inch or so below the lip of the bucket, otherwise watering can be difficult and you may expose the roots.
Pop the plant in and watch it grow!
PLANTS THAT DO WELL IN A FIVE-GALLON BUCKET:
BASIL ITALIAN PARSLEY TOMATOES EGGPLANT CUCUMBER MELON STRAWBERRIES BLUEBERRIES (REQUIRE SPECIAL SOIL)
Storage Tub – How to Start a Container Garden
I don’t know how to describe these storage tubs other than to say they seem to be universally used in attics to store holiday decorations. I have some laying around that were gifted to us to use as we were moving. Maybe you have some lying around the house. In that case, these eight to 14-gallon sized storage tubs make the perfect vessel to start a beginner’s salad garden.
Lettuce is perfectly suited to growing in these tubs and will provide you with fresh greens throughout the spring.
Lettuce does not love the hot sun of summer, so it is generally best to plant in the early spring in areas with freezing winters. In warmer climates, you can start lettuce in the fall, or even over the winter.
The process for preparing the storage tub for soil is very similar to what we did with the five-gallon bucket. However, the bin will give you more area for growing plants that can be placed closer together, like lettuce and other salad greens.
Storage Tub Planter DIY
Drill holes in the bottom of the storage tub to allow for drainage.
Spread a layer of rocks, gravel, or other chunkier material at the bottom of the tub, so that the soil will not clog the holes.
Fill the bin with potting soil up to an inch shy of the lip of the container.
Add a handful or so of dry organic fertilizer.
Water the soil you’ve added so far. It may settle—add more soil if needed.
Sprinkle a layer of salad green seeds evenly over the top of the soil. The seeds should have about a centimeter space between them, but this does not need to be perfect. The beauty of salad greens is they are tastier when eaten young, so you will be doing some natural clearing out throughout the growing season by plucking whole baby plant greens and eating! This makes room for the remaining plants to grow.
Lightly sprinkle some more potting soil over the seeds just to cover—about ¼ of an inch or less.
Gently water your seeds. You may want to use a spray bottle for this to ensure you don’t disrupt their placement. You don’t want your seeds to go swimming.
Keep your lettuce seeds moist with the spray bottle until they sprout. Check your seed package for time until germination.
As the plants mature, thin them out by plucking baby lettuce heads out whole. Make a big salad for lunch!
Eventually, it will get too hot and the remaining lettuce will start to send up flowers. This is called “bolting.” The greens tend to taste bitter at this point. Time to plant something new or wait until next season!
Raised Bed Vegetable Garden (8×4) – Container Container Garden Instructions
The raised bed garden is less of a container garden and more of a real garden that can supply you with a variety of fresh vegetables throughout the growing season. For that reason, this project is for the advanced urban gardener with some time and space on their hands. Still, the raised bed garden is no more than a weekend project once you have all your materials.
The general idea as outlined below can be adapted to the specific space you have allotted for a raised bed garden. However, if you want to keep it super simple, I recommend the 8×4’ garden because it requires barely any math and handiness.
Wood at the hardware store comes in 8-foot planks, so you’ll be using the entire plank for the long side of the garden, and just cutting in half for the short side. If you don’t have a saw, have the pieces cut for you at the store or lumber yard.
If you don’t want to DIY your raised bed garden, there are plenty of ready-made raised bed on the market that require limited assembly. Shop a few of my picks below.
A PATCH OF LAWN OR DIRT IN YOUR YARD THAT GETS A MINIMUM OF 6 HOURS OF SUNLIGHT PER DAY
DRILL
DRILL BIT FOR #14 SCREWS
SHOVEL
(6) 2” X 8” BOARDS, EIGHT FEET LONG. CUT TWO OF THESE BOARDS IN HALF FOR THE SHORT SIDE OF THE GARDEN.
(1) 4”X 4”, SIX FEET LONG. CUT INTO FOUR EQUAL PARTS, 18” EACH. THESE ARE THE CORNER POSTS OF YOUR GARDEN. THE 2” X 8” BOARDS WILL BE SCREWED TO THE POSTS FOR EASY ASSEMBLY.
3½“ #14 WOOD SCREWS
DIY Raised Bed Garden
Start with two of the 2” x 8” boards that were cut in half (these should be 4’ long) for the short side of the garden. Drill two guide holes on each end of each board where they will be screwed to the corner post.
Line the boards up so they are flush with the top and side of a corner post.
Screw the boards to the corner post. The corner posts should be a couple inches longer than the two plank boards on one end. This is good. Those corner posts will be going into the ground to keep your garden in place.
Drill the other side of the planks to another corner post.
Repeat the process with the other two side planks and corner posts. You should have the two short ends of the garden now with the four corner posts attached.
Drill two guide holes on either end of the 8-foot long planks.
Line two of the 8-foot long boards so they are flush to the corner post of one of the sides. It is easiest to do this with the legs of the corner posts sticking up in the air.
Screw the long boards to the corner posts.
Repeat the process with the other two long boards. Now you should have an upside-down garden box!
Right the garden box and use the legs of the corner posts to mark where they will go in the ground. Note here that it is find to place your garden over pre-existing lawn. No need to dig up the grass or turnover the dirt. This will all be killed by the weight of the soil you’re about the throw on it. Plus, all the decaying organic matter will act as compost to your plants growing above.
Dig a few inches into the soil to make room for the four legs of your garden box. You may need to loosen up the dirt beforehand.
Place your garden box into the holes, making sure your planks are reasonably flush to the ground. You can use a level here. It may take a few attempts and re-digging to get this right. It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just needs to hold soil!
Fill your garden box with the highest quality, organic soil you can find. I like Coast of Maine Organic Raised Bed Mix for this purpose. Fair warning, this will be expensive, but in subsequent growing seasons you should be able to simply supplement your existing soil with some compost and replant. In other words, your initial investment will pay off for years. Fill the box to the top, as it will settle after watering. Reserve some soil to cover your seeds.
I do not subscribe to the notion of neat, little garden rows organized by species. Instead, we encourage survival of the fittest and throw a mix of seeds all over the garden. The result is a beautiful, tangled burst of green that you thin out by eating over the course of the season. See below for the exact seeds I use in my raised bed gardens. The plants in this mix will reach maturity at different times so you will have a harvest throughout the spring, and potentially even into the winter. Grab your seed packets and spread evenly over the soil. Do not premix the seeds—spread them out one by one!
Cover your seeds with ¼” or less of reserved soil.
Water gently, with your hose on the lowest sprinkle setting.
Keep your seeds moist until the seeds germinate, then begin daily, deep watering.
Many of the ideas in this post were adapted from The Urban Homestead by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen. If you want to learn more about urban gardening, please check out this book.
This blog post was all about how to start a container garden.
What to Read Next
I so enjoyed sharing my guide on how to start a container garden. Below, I’ve shared a few other gardening guides that share my experience on other important gardening topics!
Hey friend! Today’s blog post is all about answering the question, “Is your drinking water safe?” In this post, I share how to find out!
A couple weeks ago, I received an unassuming pamphlet in the mail titled “Your Drinking Water” from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA). You should have received something similar from your water supplier. Why? The pamphlet is actually a federally mandated annual Consumer Confidence Report (CCR) that provides a summary of your drinking water quality and sourcing. You should receive this report before July 1 every year (I received mine in the last weeks of June.)
This blog post is all about, “Is your drinking water safe?”
The Consumer Confidence Report must disclose any regulated contaminants that were detected in the water system along with the level and associated standards. Regulated contaminant levels that exceed the standard in the year covered by the report must be disclosed along with a description of the relevant health concerns.
Luckily, the Boston CCR reported test results for only nine regulated compounds (barium, mono-chloramine, fluoride, nitrate, nitrite, total trihalomethanes, haloacetic acids-5, total coliform and radium). There were no violations of national or state standards.
Hey there, I’m Leslie, founder of PunkMed! I am passionate about living a sustainable and eco-friendly life! I hope that my blog post on safe drinking water helps you on your own journey to wellness. Feel free to poke around my site more resources!
Questions to Ask – Is Your Drinking Water Safe?
Still, I had questions. For example, were these really the only compounds detected all year? How was the average calculated? Was it an average of all samples (hundreds of thousands per year) collected at all sampling sites across the water system? What about contaminants with emerging health concerns?
More information and monthly reports are available on the MWRA website for the curious consumer. There were even test results for a list of unregulated contaminants under the EPA’s Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring rule, which requires public water supplies to monitor a new list of up to 30 potential contaminants every five years.
Still, environmental groups like the National Resources Defense Council have criticized the EPA for the agency’s failure to add a single new standard to the National Primary Drinking Water Regulations in over two decades. And, if the contaminant is not regulated, for the most part—you are not hearing about it.
Safe Drinking Water Resource: Environmental Working Group’s Tap Water Database
My theory is that many of the people reliant on public water are unaware of their Consumer Confidence Report and ignore their annual mailing. For the modern consumer, most questions are answered by Google, and one of their first search results is surely to be the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) Tap Water Database.
During an internship at a local health department, I remember having a conversation with the head of the Department of Public Works about the headache the EWG site had been causing him.
“People call me, and they tell me we have unsafe levels of 1,4-dioxane in our water like we’re not actually testing this stuff,” he said, visibly frustrated.
EWG’s Tap Water Database actually uses the same publicly available data from your water supplier that creates the Consumer Confidence report. You enter in your zip code, and it tells you “contaminants detected above health guidelines” and other detected contaminants in your water supply. The database is a handy option to get years of your water supplier’s data in one user-friendly site.
The “health guidelines” in question are where this gets tricky. The health guidelines on the EWG’s site seem to be a moving target—for example the guideline for bromodichloromethane was proposed in 2018 by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, the guideline for nitrate was defined in a peer-reviewed scientific study by EWG.
The EWG’s apparent use of the strictest standard for each compound often leads to test results that seem to be over the “health guideline” but are under the legal limit, i.e. national standards. In the small town where I was working, the average nitrate level for 2015 was 0.817 ppm, over the “health guideline” of 0.14 ppm (cue the panicked calls to your local Department of Works) but not even close to the national maximum contaminant level of 10 ppm.
Safe Drinking Water – Private Wells
If you are one of the 13 million households in the United States that relies on private well water supplies for drinking water, then you are largely responsible for your own water quality testing. EPA recommends that you test your well water annually for total coliform bacteria, nitrates, total dissolved solids, pH levels, and others “if you suspect the presence of other contaminants.”
Of course, this lack of regulation may put those at risk who may not test regularly or who may not test for the specific contaminants that threaten their particular area. Your water quality may be dependent on what your neighbors are doing with their land— water is notorious for not respecting property lines. My work with that local Board of Health centered around a farm that was accepting tons of toxic soil from construction sites, thereby threatening the groundwater supply and neighbors’ wells.
If you have a private well, it might be worthwhile to do some research about local factors that may affect your water quality before you decide on a water quality test: the bedrock your water sits on, local landfills and industrial operations, and other concerns.
Key Takeaways – Safe Drinking Water
Drinking water presents a unique opportunity for exposure to potentially dangerous substances over long periods of time. Even when present in seemingly negligible amounts, the fact that we need to drink water every day means repeated exposure to a dangerous chemical that may linger in our water supply, potentially over a lifetime.
Water quality if one of the ways environmental racism can manifest. Recent headlines and active water crises like that in Flint, Michigan have unearthed the ways water issues affect Black, Indigenous, and people of color disproportionately and generally bred a mistrust in government’s ability to protect this precious resource. We all have a right to clean drinking water, although our definition of “clean” may vary (not to mention, the degree to which you are able to adhere to your definition will be a function of socioeconomic factors, where you live, etc.).
Still, it’s important to assess our water supply, interrogate our officials, and make personal decisions about how to source, filter and treat our water to the extent that we are able.
For example, I could see that in 2015, Boston’s water supply had an average of 13.1 ppb total trihalomethanes and be happy that the level was well under the national standard of 80 ppb.
Or I could see on the EWG’s site that this level was above California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment’s draft public health goal and start using a cheap carbon filter. Or, I could do a total rehaul and install a reverse osmosis system at the tap.
For more information on filtering your drinking water, stay tuned for my upcoming post on choosing a drinking water filtration system.
This blog post was all about, “Is your drinking water safe?”
What to Read Next —>
I hope you enjoyed my post today, where my goal was to answer the question, “Is your drinking water safe?” Below, I’ve shared a few other blog posts I think you’d like!
