Distilled Water

I was in a box store bathroom the other day and the old guy next to me was urinating and it smelled chemical 4 feet away. I later thought of how the average American over 60 takes 5 pharmaceuticals per day. I thought how it was getting in the water supply every day as excretion. We know of the birth control pills in the water what about all the others..

Another reason I am so glad I only use distilled water.

 

Regardless of what Ray Peat says about distilled water, I would rather drink from a tap water source that has been filtered to remove heavy metals, bacteria, chlorine. No issue with fluorides, as it's not used by our water utility. I like to think that we've always drank water from sources that contain minerals. The little bit of minerals in them is not to be taken as a justification that distilled water is little removed from them, and thus fine for drinking. Considering that many people with good bone structure hail from places with water that contains plenty of minerals, especially those from mountainous areas where minerals are dissolved in water from the long passage of water through the mountain, more minerals should be considered as better than the absence of minerals. It's not only the electrolytes sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium that we need, we also need trace minerals as well. Where can we get these trace minerals if we don't actively make sure we get them? It's hard enough that we have to take the extra effort to make sure what we eat has enough that we don't incur deficiencies, so why deprive ourselves of water that can meet some of our mineral needs, no matter how little it contains? Especially so when it is so natural for us to drink water.

Just think. Can you breathe pure oxygen? So why drink distilled water? Is pure oxygen available in nature or is it air that's available in nature? Is distilled water available in nature, or is it mineral water? Did we get to this stage of our evolution by drinking mineral water, or distilled water. Perhaps if the earth would change such that the only water available is distilled water, we would adapt and evolve. Bur right now, mineral water is the norm that is used to hydrate us. Not long ago, distilled water was only used to refill car batteries and to make clean solutions for hospital use. Why did we get to this point where there is distilled water for drinking and we are even debating it? Someone certainly sold us on the need for something we used to not need. Think about it.

 

Who are these people? Are they the only people to have good bones in the whole world?

Yes. Prior to modern chemicals, the only exposure to air pollution was from smoke, which could've easily been avoided by not breathing in the direct path that the wind is blowing the smoke from your fire. So that means for all of human history, there was pure air and only starting about 150 years ago did a lot of new chemicals come into the picture.

Yes. Rain water is distilled water. It does not collect minerals in the air because there are none in the air. Distilled water is what feeds the life of the planet for plants that grow and produce oxygen. All of that comes form distilled rain water. There is some oxygen that comes from the ocean but I'm talking about the green trees and all plants for food for all herbivorous/omnivorous animals, all of their food comes from distilled water. Humans are tropical animals and it rains a lot in the tropics. We collected rainwater in some kind of collection tank/smaller containers which is another tool we used just like we used other tools for cooking and shelter etc.

You don't know what minerals are in any random stream, river, pond or lake. It could be extremely low levels of minerals or very high which is toxic epically if it's metals that you don't want. That particular river just might have high mounts of lead or cadmium. It could also have other non-mineral toxins. In a natural context, if you collect rainwater yourself, you know there is nothing in it, unless you did it in a city with bad air.

We are meant to get minerals from food. Minerals are in the soil.

The problem is organic vs inorganic minerals.

"What we as scientists and the public have never realized is that minerals collected in the body from water are all inorganic minerals, which cannot be assimilated (digested) by the body. The only minerals that the body can utilize are the organic minerals (from fruits and vegetables). All other types of minerals are foreign substances to the body and must be disposed of or eliminated.”

“Distilled water then is water of the purest kind. It is odorless, colorless and tasteless. The divine purpose of water is to act as a solvent. In nature, water in evaporation is so fine that your eye cannot perceive it as it is drawn up into the clouds. Then it falls as rain, keeping the earth from being parched and burned. As a solvent, it dissolves rocks and soil. It figures in the transport of nutrients into plant life.

In the human body, water fills similar functions. …Distilled water acts as a solvent in the body. It dissolves food substances so they can be assimilated and taken into every cell. It dissolves inorganic mineral substances lodged in tissues of the body so that such substances can be eliminated in the process of purifying the body. Distilled water is the greatest solvent on earth —the only one that can be taken into the body without damage to the tissues."

The Choice Is Clear by Allen E. Banik

 

Why don't you go to Singapore and look at the bone structure of its inhabitants? And then go to the places where there is hard water, and look at the bone structure of these people. You can't tell these people to drink distilled water and develop as they did.

The answer is no. You can't breathe pure oxygen. Not good to breath in pollutants certainly, not good either to drink pollutants. But air has oxygen and carbon dioxide, just as mineral water has minerals.

I've never collected rain water. Neither did our ancestors. Do you?

People and animals drank from water sources such as ponds, rivers, lakes. Did the tap water come straight from rain, or thru bodies of water?

Where do you get water when it's dry season? Your rain water is not available all throughout the year.

So the reason for drinking distilled water is because there are pollutants and toxic metals in any other source? There are contraptions that exist, and they're called water filters.

Is the corollary to that to mean that we aren't meant to get minerals from the water we drink?

Salt is inorganic. Does it apply? Be coherent.

So what if distilled water is water of the purest kind? Sure, if you use it to make solutions that aren't contaminated with other minerals, it serves it purpose. Like when you make 0.9 % salt solution as an isotonic solution. Or when you use it to refill acid lead batteries to make sure you're not introducing contaminants to the cell. But what purpose does drinking water of the purest kind do? Is the calcium and magnesium content going to harm you or help you? In a lifetime of drinking water, how much minerals do you fail to take in because you're drinking distilled water? How much calcium is being leached from your bones to make up for the calcium deficit that is introduced with each sip you take? Is everyone as well-informed as you such that they have enough intake of elemental calcium each day? Distilled water gives them squat of any mineral, and any mineral they can get from water is better than nothing. Do you just show up when you're not late? Isn't it better late than never?

Why do you want to use distilled water to dissolve inorganic mineral substances lodged in tissues? Perhaps for a short time period you would. But that is only temporary. If you do it as a regular practice, that's overdoing it and you end up doing more harm than good. You take away minerals from the tissues themselves. Why do that? You need them.

 

I was in the E.R. Once with a construction worker who was brought in by ambulance ,he was unconcious , his heart stopped right after arrival...they worked on him to no avail, he was a young guy. I asked the paramedics what happened. It was a hot day, he was sweating alot and quenching his thirst with distilled water.the distilled water diluted his electrolites. Gatorade!!!TAP water,anything but distilled water.

 

deleted, misread a few of the posts.

 

Nano filtration sounds like the ultimate solution to me but seems impossible to buy a suitable filtration membrane yet.

 

Saw an independent study of pitcher type gravity filters, bottom line was that the Zero water pitcher was the best, and the Brita was on the bottom. I switched over to the Zero pitcher.

 

I think the problem with those pitchers is that the filters need to be replaced quite often and most people dont do that. Also I just dont like my water sitting in plastic all day.

 

I used to think that as well but then read a number of scientific studies on mineral content of water and they say the opposite. The paper I posted has a bunch of lab experiments that proves that mineral absorption is actually more efficient through water than through food. These minerals are mostly used in their free ionic states in the body so being complexed to an organic molecule would only make it harder to utilize. Think of Na and K as electrolytes for example.

I am still open however on this and if you have any scientific research that shows that inorganic minerals cannot be utilized than I would be very grateful to see it. Otherwise it seems that this is just a very common myth among distilled water proponents.

 

He was already dehydrated. If he drank "mineralized" water at the same point in time that he drank distilled, he still would've been dehydrated because it was too late. Also, you don't know the context. He could've had heart arrhythmia or some other disease. I've drank nothing but distilled for 3 days with no food at all. Nothing happened. I've seen people in person drinking distilled water while on a water-only fast up to 30+ days. Their heart didn't stop and they didn't lose their electrolytes.

I'll read that paper when I have time.

As Peat said, it's harmless, let's look at it again:

"Distilled water is fine. The idea that distilled water is harmful probably derives from the fact that in areas where the water has a high mineral content, people have been healthier on average than in areas with naturally “soft” water, but that involves several factors, especially the fact that hard water doesn’t dissolve as much lead from the plumbing (such as soldered connections of copper pipes), and also that agricultural products in those areas are likely to have a higher trace mineral content. Generally, water is softer in areas with higher rainfall, and that means that people in those regions are more likely to have less sunlight, and a vitamin D deficiency affects mineral metabolism. In general, it’s best to drink water only when you’re thirsty."-RP

He was just answering the question about distilled water. I highly doubt that he personally owns a distiller because he doesn't even drink water because he doesn't need to because he gets plenty of water in the near gallon of milk he drinks daily, among orange juice. So he doesn't need a distiller except for cooking. Does everyone need a distiller? No, it depends on the quality of the water in your municipality. But it also depends on your worldview. It depends on what you believe about water and about health. You might not care. You might get cancer from using your tap water, even if filtered because only distillation removes everything (with carbon filter at the end point to remove VOC's which can evaporate but most home distillers have carbon filter endpoints). So you may get cancer or not. No one knows. You could thrive on your tap water and make it to 90. Who knows. It's a gamble. But in an objective context, steam distillation is the only way to remove everything. There have been a few instances of contaminated water supplies.

When you take a hot shower, you're breathing in distilled water. Same with a sauna. I want to have a distillation unit at the front end of my water supply so that all water used for cooking and bathing is clean.

About the inorganic minerals, to me, h2o is h2o. Water is water. If I were living in a natural environment and not eating a lot of salt, and eating a decent amount of fruit, I wouldn't even need to drink much water in the first place. If I collected rain water and water that I knew was clean by way of my village from the river then I would know that it was fine and I wouldn't need to add ground up rocks to it to make it "safe." I would get K, Mg, Ca from the local fruit, root, and leaf.

If you were out in nature and needed water to drink because you were getting the first signs of dehydration, and it rained and formed into a small pond near you, how long would you wait to drink the water? How long does it take to get "mineralized" in the pond? Watch out for animal droppings with deadly bacteria in there or coming all the way down the mountain collecting it as it goes. Maybe you can boil it first. It's distilled water coming from the sky and it's the source of all fresh water on the planet. We drank and can drink from ponds, streams and rivers but as I said, in todays world you don't know what's in there. But that is a separate topic from distilled water being harmful to consume, contaminated rivers is a different topic. You don't need to consume DW but just because you don't want to, that doesn't mean that it is harmful.

 

If I were out in nature, I would drink a cyanide-laced bottle of water rather than risk dying of dehydration. But it still doesn't mean I would go back home and continue to drink cyanide-laced water as a lifestyle choice. These hypotheticals you ask don't help the discussion as there is no worthwhile point to make other than the banal.

I don't want to drink distilled water only because I think it is harmful. And that is the point of discussion here, whether drinking distilled water or not. If we argue on the basis of personal preference, it is like arguing whether I prefer regular Coke or cherry Coke. But we are not reducing this discussion to a matter of personal belief or preference. I think that the element of objectivity is paramount here. While Ray Peat offers his view on distilled water as being fine, he is offering an opinion just as anyone can. But it is usual for Ray to cite references, and in this case he doesn't. But proving distilled water to be beneficial as a lifestyle choice over non-distilled water (that is not contaminated with pathogens and toxic substances) is a difficult thing. Since Ray does not perform studies other than personal experiments on himself, and since a definitive study on whether distilled water is good or bad for our health is a near impossibility given the scope that it entails, Ray has no choice but to offer an opinion. In the absence of definitive proof, we have to go back to arguing our point based on logic. I have given my reasons for stating that drinking distilled water is not healthy, and you have made your case as well.

I would just add that I have observed in caring for my koi Liebig's Law of the Miminum. I do not feed my koi food that has to be high protein, even as koi hobbyists and dealers would promote high-protein food as the answer for rapid growth. Yet I was able to raise my koi from 16cm to 83cm in a span of five years, which is a feat in itself since I'm told that it's very difficult for this type of koi to grow above 80cm in our conditions, and still maintain a great body shape as well as excellent coloration in all 3 colors - red, white, and black. Aside from providing a very healthy environment witb clean but not sterile water, I also make sure that the koi is able to obtain trace minerals aside from vitamins and electrolytes, as well as a good blend of macronutrients. I believe that trace minerals, no matter how insignificant they may seem in terms of quantity, are important in enabling the koi to grow to such size with beauty and with good health. If these trace minerals were lacking, no matter how much protein I feed my fish, as the other koi hobbyists would do, my koi would not have attained such size. Simply because it is lacking something to put everything in place. This is like being the worst player in a basketball team making the last shot in a championship game, and becoming the hero on account of the only point he made in the tournament.

Water from nature is not just about calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium, but also about the trace minerals that we don't even talk about. We don't know even if they are needed, but don't know either if they are not needed. But if in our species' development from simple life forms we have relied on water other than the purest form of water, as you say - distilled water, why are we now questioning the merits of this water that comes from nature that has been touched by minerals, and to not partake of this solvent with many dissolved minerals, however minute the quantities are. You simply can't get a device that will replicate how water is transformed from rain water, distilled as they come, as it winds its way from the clouds to the ground, through underground crevices and springs, into rivers and lakes, or glacier that's melted and flowed into rivers that grind against rock, and meander through fissures, into smaller tributaries and find their way thru eddies. If you still believe that H2O is just H2O, I think you need to get out of your world and take a hike or join the Sierra Club and learn to canoe or to kayak, or go spelunking and see underground rivers. And the taste the water that you fear to be contaminated with all sorts of toxins and pathogens. If you still fear that, bring a portable Pur water purifier that has iodine in it. I think you should not be kept from enjoying the fullness of water, and of life, because there are dangers to it. For me, distilling water is to rob water of its wholeness and its wholesomeness.

 

If you drink milk and juice, or fruit, what need is there for any kind of water anyway? Can't remember the last time I drank water.

 

I noticed in the Mercola article that he mentions that the nickel content of the distilled water can increase. I didnt give it much credence until I saw this on Amazon.
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1.0 out of 5 starsDangerous?
We purchased this until last July thinking it would be a positive step toward helping a family member with special needs. Unfortunately, he soon started experiencing rashes and skin eruptions. After many trips to various doctors, we ruled out food allergies and finally traced the problem back to -- the water from our distiller! We had the water produced from our unit tested and found that it was very high in nickel. We have contacted the manufacturer on several occasions to discuss this but have not heard back. This has been a terrible experience that we hope no one else has to experience. If you think you are taking precautions to prepare toxin-free water by using this unit, you may be doing the opposite by potentially adding carcinogenic nickel.
1.0 out of 5 starsJust tested positive for nickel in my blood
Beware, look up company name you can't get anyone. I just tested for high levels of nickel in my body due to this machine. Test!!! use a magnet and if all is stainless steal magnet should stick but if it does not stick it may contain nickel. The bottom of this distiller is stainless but the top where all the heat is , is nickel.. I have been very sick, like chronic fatigue syndrome and then some"

I think this is pretty plausible as the condensing tube is made out of stainless and could have a high nickel content. Somebody on another site mentioned they replaced the coiled tube with nickel free stainless.
I plan on having my water tested for nickel.

 

It seems that actually it is not distilled
Chemical characterization of rainwater at a high-altitude site "Nainital" in the central Himalayas, India. - PubMed - NCBI

Chemical characteristics and source analysis on ionic composition of rainwater collected in the Carpathians "Cold Pole," Ciuc basin, Eastern Carpat... - PubMed - NCBI

 

thanks for the info. nothing is as simple as it seems.

 

"The pollutants in rainwater samples were mainly derived from calcareous and dolomitic soil dust and specific local climatic conditions, long-range transport, local industry, and traffic sources."

As I've said, it can collect whatever particulates may be in the air at the time, which today, is everywhere because of industry. Pre-industry, only about 150 years ago, there was noting in the air. The only exception would be a nearby volcanic smoke source or wildfire in a specific area at a specific time. Which is even more of a reason to own a distiller, because even if I lived in the pure wild, far away from a city, the rainwater would still have stuff in it, never mind the river or stream, of course that's contaminated. Air pollution from China makes it to California. Over the whole Pacific Ocean. Nothing is clean anymore.

 

Natural sources were always in play:
"Principle component analysis also suggests that the first factor (i.e., natural sources, mainly dust, and sea-salts) accounts for ∼33% variance, whereas the second factor (i.e., fossil fuel and biomass burning) accounts for ∼18% variance of the measured ionic composition. "

 

We breathe in more natural dust than we could've drank in a natural setting. I don't care about dust and sea salts. I care about lead, mercury, other metals and chemicals. The fact remains that rain water is naturally distilled. Whether or not it collects things on the way down is outside of how nature makes fresh water. Those are two different things.

 

Did you stop the no-salt experiment? It would be interesting to know what your results on it have been/are.