Mike Adams reveals lab results showing six of seven tested bottled water brands contained microplastics, ranging from 6 to 43 particles per 10 liters, while a withheld bargain brand had zero. Using fluorescence microscopy and hot needle tests, Adams confirms polymer filaments between 50 to 100 microns, attributing the lack of FDA action to corporate influence. He warns that undetected sub-5 micron particles likely exist in human blood and organs, urging consumers to switch to high-quality filtration systems like the Berkey to avoid systemic contamination from unregulated water sources. [Automatically generated summary]
I'm Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, and I'm in CWC Labs right now where we have tested seven popular off-the-shelf water products that is bottled water for microplastics contamination.
And what we found is pretty concerning.
We also found one brand that has no microplastics in it that we could detect, but all the other brands, the six out of seven, had some pretty concerning levels of microplastics.
And what we're going to show you here today is some of what we found, including the microscopy photos of the actual polymers that we physically filtered out of the water using a 0.2 micron filter paper, combined with special microscopy techniques and some dyes with fluorescence, excitation by certain wavelengths of light, in order to determine that they are polymers and some additional tests as well.
We'll get into some of that.
But remember that we are living in a world that's contaminated with microplastics now, and this is part of the reason why.
So let's go to the first slide here.
Water sample A.
This is the worst one we found, and we found 43 microplastics particles in 10 liters of water.
So for each of these, we have normalized the testing to 10 liters.
And we're not showing you the brand name here.
If you want to see the brand names of these, and I'll explain why, but if you want to see the brand names, you need to log in as a customer of HealthRangerStore.com or Bright.shop.
And if you are a silver-level customer or higher, you'll be able to see the full report with all the brand names revealed.
The reason I'm not showing you that right now is because these companies would try to sue us for going public with this information for a number of reasons.
Number one, these are very large global corporations.
They have a lot of money, and it could cost us tens of thousands of dollars just to show you who they are.
So, you know, we can't cover all those legal costs in order to do this.
Secondly, we were only testing about 10 liters of these products.
We don't have the capacity to run around the country and buy, you know, thousands of liters of their different products from different grocery stores and Walmarts and whatever else and get a big picture view of how many microplastics are in all their products across the country.
That's a job for the FDA.
But the FDA is not doing that, nor is the USDA.
Well, we can't do it either.
We don't have that kind of funding to do that project, although we'd love to, but we can't.
So we just went out locally and bought them at a grocery store and just through a good faith effort to show the public what's in these products.
And you're going to see here, you might even recognize the bottle.
You know, it's got a blue cap.
It's got a certain size and shape.
You know, this is a very popular bottled water product and it's got a lot of microplastics in it.
Let me show you what else we found.
Going to the next one is this is a microscopy image.
We use a red dye with fluorescence and this shows you some of the particles that we found and the background texture that you're seeing there, that's the filter paper texture.
And so it's just the red pieces, those are the actual microplastics.
Let's go to the next one.
Here it is, just another shot, the same water sample showing you some different microplastics particles that we found.
And then let's go to the next slide.
Now we're using royal blue light to show you a little bit more contrast here in this image.
So we're just trying to show you some of these plastics that we found in different ways.
We also use a specific kind of hot needle test to confirm that they are polymers in addition to the fluorescence and the dyes and the wavelength excitation under the microscope.
All right, moving on.
Oh yeah, here's another one, another particle.
All right, let's continue.
Next slide.
Water sample B. For water sample B, which is another very popular brand with a green lid, a green cap, 29 particles we found in 10 liters.
So roughly, for every liter that you drink, you're going to get at least three or almost three pieces of microplastics.
And you might say, well, how big are those pieces?
Well, the ones that we found, some of them were, you know, 100 microns.
Some of them were smaller, like 50 microns.
The filter paper we're using is 0.2 microns.
But we may have missed some in our visual inspection.
There might be more than what we found, possibly.
And also these numbers could vary lot by lot, which means it could vary in different parts of the country as well.
That's another reason why I'm hesitant to show you brand names publicly, because these numbers may not be the same in the Northeast or on the Pacific coast or in Canada.
They could be totally different depending on the bottler and their protocols and how well they wash the bottles or whatever they're doing.
The calibrations of their machines that are the filling machines and the machines that put on the lids, etc.
So it's baffling to me that we're finding this large number of microplastics in these bottled water products.
And I wish I could tour one of these facilities in order to better understand where these microplastics are coming from.
But they are there.
We are finding them.
We are pouring a large amount of water through filter paper and then using these techniques of dyeing and fluorescence under the microscope and absolutely finding these.
Let's go to the next picture, which shows you there's a fibrous type of polymer particle that we found.
It's not a hair and it's not cellulose.
We use techniques to eliminate those.
This is some kind of polymer that is a filament polymer.
Not sure what that is.
And let's go to the next slide.
Here we go, some other contrast photos showing you the different shapes of the polymers that we are finding.
Next slide.
And the high contrast.
Now, this is a pretty large one here.
I just want to give you an example.
Do you see the scale here?
So that's 100 microns, that length right there, which means that this microplastic is, it looks like it's at least a couple hundred microns in size.
That's a bigger chunk.
But my understanding of microplastics is that they may actually be more harmful at the smaller sizes, maybe like one to five microns.
And we may not have captured those.
We may not have been able to find them visually after running them through the filter paper.
We were only able to spot the larger chunks.
But there may be smaller chunks present.
We just don't know yet.
All right, moving on to the next one.
Water sample C.
This is another popular brand.
These are all popular brands.
This one, 14 particles in 10 liters.
And okay, well, that's a lot better than the other brands, but it's still, you're getting on average more than one particle for every liter of water that you drink there.
And since we drink a lot of water, especially springtime and summertime, you know, in the office or whatever, you can get a lot of exposure to microplastics just from drinking bottled water.
Another reason to use a water filter.
All right, continuing.
The next slide.
These are just some of the particles we found in water sample C. Next slide.
Here we go.
Some more.
And then let's continue to the next slide.
Water sample D.
We found seven particles in 10 liters.
So on average, less than one particle per liter.
And you might recognize the packaging there.
It's a larger container.
But that's how it's sold.
So we just bought what was available off the shelf in whatever format was offered.
So that's interesting.
Let's go to the next slide.
We're showing you what we found in that product.
Again, different shapes of the polymers.
Next slide.
Water sample E also found seven particles in 10 liters.
Cleaner than the original samples that we were testing, but still maybe more than what you want to consume.
And this is bottled water with a white or kind of almost a translucent clear polymer cap on it.
Next slide.
And here's some of what we found in those products.
Remember, this is being filtered through a 0.2 micron glass fiber filter.
Let's continue.
Next slide.
Water sample F had six particles in 10 liters.
Let's take a look at those slides.
Next, there's what we found there.
And remember that our dyeing technique actually causes the polymers to look red.
So this is one way to identify polymers.
And then next slide.
There's one brand of water that had zero particles.
This brand of water is not what you would associate with high quality water.
That's what's funny about this.
This is actually a bargain brand of water.
It's the basement bargain brand.
This is the stuff you buy when you've run out of money.
And it was the cleanest that we found.
So bizarre.
So zero microplastics detected in this brand.
And if you want to see the name of this brand, all you got to do is log in at healthrangerstore.com.
If you're a customer, if you're silver, tier, or higher, then you'll be able to see the report that shows all the brand names.
So you can see what to avoid and what to buy if you trust these numbers and if you assume that they're true in your area as well.
You could also log in at bright.shop.
That's our new online store, part of the bright universe, bright.shop.
Again, if you're silver, tier, or above, you'll be able to see the PDF and another video of me walking through these results and you'll know which brand is ultra clean, at least in terms of microplastics.
Now, let's go to the last slide here because this is a comparison of what we found.
So out of the seven samples, they range from 43 particles in 10 liters all the way down to zero.
And what's shocking to me is that samples A, B, and C are probably the most popular brands in retail today.
And sample G, the last one here, is the bargain basement brand.
So I don't know.
I would have expected the opposite, actually.
But that's why we do these tests and we let the tests speak for themselves.
And that's why I'm happy to share this with you.
Lastly, I want to say that every water filter that is a quality water filter would remove these particles.
But I'm not sure about the cheap water filters, like, you know, the $30 filters where the water runs through them very quickly, like a pitcher filter.
I'm not sure they would because the water moves through them too quickly, it seems to me.
But the good high-quality water filters like the Berkey's, for example, will absolutely remove these microplastics and other chemicals at the same time.
You can also use other techniques to remove these microplastics, but most people don't.
Most people just open the bottle and drink the bottle and they're swallowing these microplastics.
Contaminated Blood and Organs00:03:59
And the science is showing that people's bodies are more and more contaminated with microplastics all throughout their systems, throughout their blood and organs, and even in men.
Your testes may be full of microplastics.
It's almost like we're being embalmed while we're still alive, you know?
They have so much polymer in our bodies that when someone is buried, you know, the body doesn't decompose.
You're left behind with like a human-shaped polymer skeleton or something.
It's crazy.
So we are absolutely infested with microplastics.
We don't yet know all the health effects of these microplastics.
Some people are very concerned and say that they're devastating.
Other people say they're harmless and they pass right through your body.
Yeah, I'm not sure I believe that because they're being found in the brain.
They're being found in the testes.
They're being found in heart tissue, etc.
So clearly they're not all just being eliminated automatically.
They're sticking around.
So the best advice that I can give you on this is to avoid exposure.
Make sure your food is clean.
Make sure your water is clean.
Use water filters where possible.
And make sure that you're purchasing food and supplements and personal care products from an organization like ours that does heavy-duty laboratory testing on nearly everything that we sell.
So healthrangerstore.com is where you can shop with us or Bright.shop.
They're both essentially pointing to the same store.
You can get laboratory tested foods, superfoods, storable foods, nutritional supplements, and much more.
And remember, we test for heavy metals, lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, and others.
We test for glyphosate.
We test atrazine.
We test mycotoxins, aflatoxin being one of them.
We also test for salmonella, E. coli, yeast and mold, total plate count, listeria for some products as well.
So we do comprehensive testing across the board for our products.
And even though we don't sell water, we do sell lots of food and supplements.
And if you want them to be ultra-clean, shop with us.
I think we do more testing than anybody in the world that is a manufacturer and a retailer of their own product line.
Nobody even comes close from my knowledge.
I've never heard of anybody doing what we do because it's expensive.
It's expensive.
It takes a lot of time, effort, and money to do the testing that we do.
But as a result, you get ultra-clean foods and products at healthrangerstore.com or bright.shop.
So thank you for watching today.
And, you know, shop with care when you buy bottled water or foods or supplements or anything else.
Make sure you're buying clean products that have been tested.
Oh, hey, one more thing I want to show you here.
I forgot.
We did a hot needle test on this, which is where we use just a little Bunsen burner there.
We heat up a needle in order to melt the polymer from the heat.
And that's the final identity test of the substance that we are identifying as a polymer.
Polymers melt in a certain specific way that's unlike cellulose or other organic fibers, things like that.
So we use a hot needle test, and then when we put the hot needle, let's go to the next slide.
When we put it next to the polymer sample, it melts.
Here we go.
Next slide.
Oh, wait.
I'm sorry.
Show it.
There it is.
That was a little video there showing you what happens when we put the needle next to it.
I'll probably demo that again live on another video.
There's another test right there.
See?
See how it shrinks?
So that shows you that these are polymers that we are finding.
In addition to the red, the fluorescence under certain wavelengths of light and the specific dye that we use.
So yeah, the needle looks huge on this because these are microscopy videos.
All right, that's the presentation.
Polymer Melting Demonstration00:00:38
And reminding you, if you want to see the actual brand names here, just log in to your account at healthrangerstore.com.
And if you are a silver tier customer or higher, you'll have access to the full downloadable PDF as well as another video explaining all this with the brand names mentioned.
So thank you for watching.
I'm Mike Adams, the Health Ranger.
Take care.
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