Why am I not surprised that a bike retailer in Portland is carrying copper water bottles for large money, and spreading claptrap about unspecified health benefits? Has *Portlandia* become a documentary?
Copper was one of the first metals used by humans, after gold. Neither of them were used because of any virtues as elements; they were used because they were easy to work: low melting temperatures (easily reached by wood fires) and soft (workable with stone tools). Plus: Shiny! People have been making cooking vessels out of copper for as long as they've been working copper, but raw copper was rapidly replaced by copper alloys (bronze and brass) and by raw copper pots lined with tin. Although copper is an excellent heat conductor, it is also highly reactive, especially with acids. It puts nasty poisonous stuff into your food. There are unlined copper food vessels, but they're all for very limited food exposure. The primary ones are copper bowls for whipping cream or egg whites; the chemical reaction between the liquids and the copper gets the whipped cream/egg whites stiffer faster. Unlined copper is also used for high-quality plumbing, because copper is antibacterial. But the water isn't supposed to sit around in the pipes forever. You need dietary copper. But all the copper you need is in your diet. It is perfectly possible to overdose on ingested copper (especially if the container has developed that decorative green verdigris), in which case the symptoms are quite nasty: Cirrhosis, kidney failure, Alzheimers, low blood pressure, brain necrosis. As a counter to the Ayurvedic claim (shhhhhyeah, right), let's note that there's a condition called "Indian childhood cirrhosis" (i.e., cirrhosis in kids who aren't old enough to have bashed their livers in with alcohol); this condition has been linked to boiling milk in unlined copper cookware. Call me a Western medicine bigot; but if Indian moms have been cooking milk in copper pots for centuries, watching their kids get sick, and not putting two and two together, then it's hard to appreciate the diagnostic rigor of of Ayurvedic medical practice. I am a big fan of copper decorative items. Wilier Triestina's copper *chromovelato* is a stunning color. I've got copper bike tchotchkes of all sorts, including a plated copper travel mug that makes it onto the bike fairly often, and the copper version of the Crane Karen bell (actually copper-plated aluminum: more expensive and cheesier-sounding than the brass bell. If anyone's got the solid copper bell Jitensha used to stock and they're willing to sell it, let me know). I have actively fantasized about copper-anodizing a set of centerpull brakes to mount on my dark green Raleigh, for the *City of Lost Children* look. But aesthetics shouldn't be a suicide attempt; I wouldn't use copper in ways that endager my safety or impair my health. I wouldn't carry my water in unlined copper, just as I wouldn't have brakes made out of solid copper. No matter how pretty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper#Folk_medicine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_toxicity Peter "saw a couple of *chicas* in downtown Oakland yesterday with Mason jar beer mugs, and nearly crashed as I rolled my eyes" Adler Berkeley, CA/USA On Friday, November 13, 2015 at 12:23:41 PM UTC-8, Beth H wrote: > Rivelo (Riv dealer in Portland) is carrying a water bottle made of copper. > It looks gorgeous. Does anyone know anything about the rewards or risks of > drinking water from a copper bottle? > It looks an awful lot like the one pictured here: > http://www.amazon.com/Travellers-Copper-Bottle-Ayurvedic-Benefits/dp/B00XTQM7FI/ref=pd_bxgy_79_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1HV10VSKRVP66797WN2H > Beth in pdx -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
