Re: Drinking distilled water

Pure Water Issues
Distilled and Reverse Osmosis Filtered Water
By Sang Whang
Water is a strong solvent; therefore, it carries many invisible substances: minerals, oxygen, nutrients, waste products, pollutants, etc. Pure water without any substance is as un-natural as a pocket of vacuum within a normal atmosphere. A pocket of vacuum will suck in any and everything around it until the pressure becomes equal to the surrounding.

Likewise, pure water will leach out any and every substance that it can dissolve from the substances that it comes into contact with, until its content is homogeneous with its surrounding or the water is saturated with substances so that it can no longer dissolve anymore substances.

Since the creation of this planet, rainwater has been washing down minerals from the mountains into the ocean. Ocean water has been saturated for a long time with specific minerals, yet rivers continue to carry down the minerals. The result is that at the bottom of the ocean there are tons of mineral deposits precipitated. If we knew how to recover the minerals from the bottom of the ocean, we would be very rich.

Distilled water and RO (reverse osmosis) filtered water contain no minerals, simulating close to pure water. This pure water should be neutral with a pH value of 7. However, it measures acid pH! The reason for this phenomenon is that pure water sucks in carbon dioxides from the atmosphere. Although it measures acid pH, there are no acid minerals in that water. If pure water is stored in plastic bottle, the water smells plastic.

For this reason, distilled water or RO filtered water should be stored in glass bottles or special plastic bottles that can block carbon dioxide penetration. Coca Cola was bottled originally in glass bottles only. Then came the plastic bottle and it lost the fizzles. Then better plastic bottles came out that didn't lose carbon dioxides; still plastic-bottled Coca Cola has to have expiration dates. Carbon dioxides penetrate through plastics, making pure water acidic.

In the 1950s distilled water was sold in drug stores with the label "Not for drinking"! Distilled water was used to fill car batteries and steam irons. Distilled water is not healthy because it will leach out valuable alkaline minerals from our body. However, I realize that I cannot change some people's mind.

I am often asked if it is OK to alkalize distilled water. I wish people would not drink distilled water; however, if one must drink distilled water, it is better to add than not to add.

If one must drink pure water my advice is to boil the water from RO filtered water or distilled water to evaporate the dissolved carbon dioxide and thus to raise the pH of the water. Carbon dioxide evaporates at a much lower temperature than alkaline water. You will be pleasantly surprised to watch the pH increase as you heat the water.