Raised on Rainwater

NOTE: I have been holding this post since late February. I wanted to post this on a rainy day, but instead we kept getting snow! I think spring is finally here and now is the time to share this post with you.

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A friend told me that Thailand is promoting Rainwater Jar Culture. This is an old tradition in Thailand that had started to fade away, then was revived about the time I came to the United States. Rainwater is pure water, and that's a good thing since much of the water in Thailand is not safe to drink.

My friend was surprised to learn that I grew up drinking nothing but rainwater. Chanthaburi is by the ocean, and by the time river water reached us it wasn't fit to drink so every family had at least a dozen rainwater jars for collecting rainwater. You could tell how many kids were in a family by how many rainwater jars they had. The Prasomphol house had two dozen jars like these.

Rainwater is good for you but if you drink rainwater it is important to use fluoride toothpaste because there is no fluoride in rainwater. Also no arsenic, animal waste or other contaminants.

Rainwater jars are a very old tradition in Southeast Asia, but I do not think they would work so well here in Minnesota because they work best where there's lots of rain.

Update: My apologies. I thought I had waited long enough but I was wrong. Parts of Minnesota south of the Twin Cities got up to eight inches of snow yesterday. I do not think rainwater barrels would work very well for Minnesotans.