Distilled Water

[Coatue]

Is distilled water safe to drink? Apparently there is a "leeching minerals out of your body" fear that comes with it. I refuse to drink Jersey tap water and i guess the only other choice would be bottled water like Poland Spring.

[TylerDurden]

Try bottled water (high alkaline water(PH 7.8 to PH 8.4), IMO, is the healthiest and the best-tasting). Distilled water does indeed leach minerals from your body. I once did an experiment where I only drank distilled water bought from a local health-food store. It was eerie - it taasted great, but I never really slaked my thirst on the stuff, needing to drink far more of it than if I had drunk alkaline mineral water. Avoid distlled water like the plague.

[Hannibal]

Adding a little good quality salt to the distilled water is a good idea.

[raw]

Try bottled water (high alkaline water(PH 7.8 to PH 8.4), IMO, is the healthiest and the best-tasting). Distilled water does indeed leach minerals from your body. I once did an experiment where I only drank distilled water bought from a local health-food store. It was eerie - it taasted great, but I never really slaked my thirst on the stuff, needing to drink far more of it than if I had drunk alkaline mineral water. Avoid distlled water like the plague.

how many people can afford alkaline water to drink? do you know the cheaper source to get them?

[TylerDurden]

how many people can afford alkaline water to drink? do you know the cheaper source to get them?

I buy 5-litre bottles of high-alkaline mineral water at 1 pound 19 pence a kilo each, here in the UK. I never drink more than 3 litres a day, usually much, much less than that.

[RawZi]

    Distilled water tastes very flat to me.  Still, I'd prefer a good distilled water over tap.

    Wouldn't it be great to live in a community that shared a water alkalinizing machine, maybe a kangen?  I think they're about $7,000.00US.

[raw]

    Distilled water tastes very flat to me.  Still, I'd prefer a good distilled water over tap.

    Wouldn't it be great to live in a community that shared a water alkalinizing machine, maybe a kangen?  I think they're about $7,000.00US.

in our future paleo village project, we can have the source of best drinking water. well water pool also nice to train some swimmers for the competition. more people we get, much better plan we can come upto.

[raw]

I buy 5-litre bottles of high-alkaline mineral water at 1 pound 19 pence a kilo each, here in the UK. I never drink more than 3 litres a day, usually much, much less than that.

another question tyler, what type of container do you get for the water? glass or plastic? i get headache right away drinking from plastic.

[yuli]

Personally I find the soft plastic containers disgusting (the ones you can squish)...
Sometimes there are waters sold in dark hard plastic containers (ones you can't squish), those are not as nasty but really the best are glass bottles for both taste and health.

Does anyone here drink sparkling water, I think some of it can be awesome. I like to swish it in my mouth till most of the bubbles pop then swallow it. I like the the carbonated water from GEROLSTEINER, comes in glass bottles (they have sometimes in plastic but i only get the glass), it is very high in calcium and magnesium. (http://s2.thisnext.com/media/400x400/Gerolsteiner-Bottled-Water_515921B8.jpg)

When I don't have the Gerolsteiner, which is often, I use a water canister filter thats installed right into my tap, it lasts 6 moths for a family so its a good deal for the money, the tap water here is not bad so with the filter I think its pretty satisfying, not the best either. If I am on the go and need to buy some water I go for the Perrier bottles in dark green hard plastic bottles.

Sometimes I go to the Russian store and they sell lots of mineral waters some of them taste of different minerals and some are bitter some are sweet etc, very strong tastes for water, I drink those rarely, I like plain tasting water and I like carbonated as well.

Some days I drink as little as half a liter of water a day (as I have said elsewhere raw meat make me MUCH less thirsty), some day up to 3 litres...sometimes I drink teas like crazy so I think that ups my total water intake.

When I went on nature vacation this summer 90% of the water I had I drank from the lake, I also bathed in it, brushed my teeth in it (completely natural toothpaste), and yes....we peed in it too, lol, I never got problems from it, it was great water  I guess my favorite water is from the lake for sure!

[Hannibal]

When I went on nature vacation this summer 90% of the water I had I drank from the lake, I also bathed in it, brushed my teeth in it (completely natural toothpaste), and yes....we peed in it too, lol, I never got problems from it, it was great water  I guess my favorite water is from the lake for sure!

Oh men! You're definitely a freak 

[TylerDurden]

another question tyler, what type of container do you get for the water? glass or plastic? i get headache right away drinking from plastic.

  Plastic, naturally, or I would likely be paying more.  I have no issues with plastic.


Re pissing in a lake or any other body of water:- I really find that a disgusting, foul habit. I used to go to Hallenbaeder in Austria(public swimming pools) where some truly revolting children would piss and shit into the water because their foul mothers didn't care. Then there have been times when certain acquaintances would say that they would like to urinate in a pristine mountain-stream in a national park, where I had to stop them(I mean, urinating there meant that others swimming in that small pool and the pools below would get that benefit. This latter behaviour appeared to be  more of a female characteristic(I suppose because men are not as self-conscious about pissing behind a bush).

Ah well, this internet-searching at airports is too expensive and, besides, I need to go to the gate.

[Alomonger Pete]

    Distilled water tastes very flat to me.  Still, I'd prefer a good distilled water over tap.

    Wouldn't it be great to live in a community that shared a water alkalinizing machine, maybe a kangen?  I think they're about $7,000.00US.

I've done of a lot of research into the best drinking water and other than having convenient access to a good quality spring, Pristine Hydro seems like the best home filtration system going.  Some day I'll get their countertop unit for $1.2k.  www.pristinehydro.com

[miles]

Re pissing in a lake or any other body of water:- I really find that a disgusting, foul habit.

I concur.

[infinitenexus]

I just use a Brita filter.  Bottled water is a huge ripoff and produces tons of waste.  What's the consensus here on Brita filters?

[Alomonger Pete]

I just use a Brita filter.  Bottled water is a huge ripoff and produces tons of waste.  What's the consensus here on Brita filters?

It doesn't do a very good job of filtering the water.  I'm sure there is still chlorine in it; it tweaks my thyroid.

[RawZi]

I've done of a lot of research into the best drinking water and other than having convenient access to a good quality spring, Pristine Hydro seems like the best home filtration system going.  Some day I'll get their countertop unit for $1.2k.  www.pristinehydro.com

    I'm going to try a Berkey with fluoride attachments.  It's also a counter-top unit.  Altogether it's 3-400US I think.

    http://www.berkeywater.com/Other_Products/PF_2.html

[raw-al]

I find that plastic bottles leave a bad taste.

I like Perrier and I have no idea if it' a bad idea, although I can only take small amounts of it at a time.

Does anyone know if Perrier is a bad idea?

Water is not my favourite generally anyway and I rarely have more that 1/4 cup a day.

I find that Brita filters leave a strong bad taste in the water. My theory (or maybe I read it somewhere) is that when the filter stops the bacteria, silt and chemicals, they build up there and fester and then spill the resulting soup in the water.

I have made a device that allows me to filter (Brita) tap water straight into a 5 imperial gallon glass bottle that I invert into a porcelain jar that dispenses it. My GF likes it and drinks a lot of the water daily. The only way I can drink it is if she puts a 1 litre jar of it in the sun all day and I have it from that supply.

Since I started raw I gave up tea. I don't miss it.

[infinitenexus]

Interesting, I've never noticed a bad taste from brita-filtered water.  I just want drinking water that's not full of fluoride and all the other crap in tap water.  I guess I could always build a rainwater collection system, and then filter that.  I just need to find a way to do all this without using so much plastics, also.  Ah, a never ending battle I suppose.

[raw-al]

I never noticed the bad taste of water till after marriage i found out that my ex was extremely picky about the water to the point where it was a deal breaker on what house to buy. I became picky and the only water that I truly like was from a spring where I lived in Labrador. It was soooooooo good. Cool fresh and somehow it was tasty. It was the only time I ever drank a lot of water.

One Ayurvedic author Dr Vasant Lad (I believe) says that carbon filtering water is not good. I think because it changes it's electrical properties (?).

The only processed water that I have ever liked was from a device made in Japan (I believe) where water processing is apparently quite an art. It was very expensive (600 to 800 Canadian$ ?). My Vaidya friend was given one to try it out and the water was very good. To me it tasted alkaline. There was a bunch of people who owned one of these things locally, that swore that it cured a legion of diseases. I met the people who made the claims and listened to their stories. I came close to buying one, but then I was drinking the spring water at the time and figured it was overkill.

This device had several stages to it including a carbon filter, then the water flowed over a variety of stones (specific types). The filters were not cheap and had to be changed periodically. (My friend didn't bother to) But the water was very good and my friend agreed to this also. We have very different body types.

[donrad]

First I put in a reverse osmosis (RO) filtering system which gets pretty close to distilled. I even have a meter that shows total disolved solids (TDS). RO water like distilled does not contain any minerals however. We need minerals for strong teeth and bones, among other things. So I took mineral supplements.

The Brita filters and others like them use activated carbon to filter the water. This removes foul taste, organic compounds, and odor but leaves the minerals. In theory.

After researching and experimenting I ended up with a whole house activated carbon filter that uses standard filter cartridges. You can get these at hardware stores and even Wal-Mart. I hooked the whole-house filter up to a single water tap for just drinking water. This allows the water to slowly go through the filter and so it takes a long time to use up the carbon's filtering capacity and is more effective. This system is way less costly than Brita and way more effective. It is also what most bottled water companies use.

I bought some beverages in glass bottles and re-use these for my daily water supply while out and about. Makes nice tea too. The minerals give the water a pleasing taste.

[raw-al]

Donrad,

Many years ago I had a large filter which used some sort of silver and carbon to filter the housewater. This was basically for my wife who could not tolerate our housewater.
 
Which Reverse Osmosis filter did you use?

I wonder if you were to take the water from that and run it over stones obtained locally, if this would give the mineralization, just like the filter I described. My theory would clean the crap out of the water and re-mineralize the water. You could maybe use your TDS gauge to determine if it worked. Your taste buds would be even more effective.

You could experiment with various stones or even precious stones to get the desired effect.

Ayurveda describes the effect of all metals and gems/stones. A quick reference to these can be found in Dr Vasant Lad's book "Ayurveda the Science of Self~Healing". These can be picked up at very reasonable prices as you are not interested in the jewelery quality stones, and their effect is transferred to the water. Their affects can be personalized to your own health issues or tastes as appropriate.

I have tried some of these ideas before and though they were effective I never thought to try it on a larger scale as in regular daily drinking water.