Recently, one of the most popular website health advocates in America wrote in his newsletter that “distilled water is more dangerous than tap water.”
After reading the article — and knowing that the information shared was far from accurate — I asked Michael Donaldson, PhD., Research Director here at Hallelujah Acres to respond. Here is what Dr. Donaldson said:
Some health advocates still claim that distilled water is dangerous to our health and discourage people from using their distillers. One advocate even said that distilled water is worse for you than the tap water it started with. While there is a sliver of truth there, the whole article puts distilled water in a false light. Such health advocacy is irresponsible. Here is the rest of the story... Two main issues need to be addressed here: (1) the co-purification of organic contaminants with water distillation, and (2) the long-term health effects of drinking low-mineral water. You will see that using a distiller is still the best, most consistent way of getting clean, pure water. It is true that some organic chemicals can evaporate with steam during the distillation process. All distiller manufacturers are aware of this issue; it is not a new development. The solution has been in place for many years, including the distillers made by WaterWise, the distillers distributed by Hallelujah Acres. Organic compounds that have a very low boiling point escape through the vent hole in the tube that collects the steam out of the boiling chamber. They will evaporate long before any steam is generated and collected as pure water. Organic compounds that have a boiling point very close to that of water will be easily absorbed in the post-distillation carbon filter (made of granulated coconut shell charcoal). Since the water is very pure and hot, the absorption capacity of the carbon filter is not lost to fouling due to bacteria, viruses, spores, or minerals. In situations where you know you have high levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), a pre-distillation carbon filter can be used to eliminate the problem before it gets into the air. So, VOCs are really a non-issue with water distillers. This argument is just a straw man tactic. Now, the second issue of drinking low-mineral water (which includes distilled and reverse osmosis water) has been thoroughly addressed before by Hallelujah Acres. You can download the full research report here. There are some potential adverse effects of drinking distilled water. It may pull a SMALL amount of minerals from the body. For most people this will not be a problem. For a person with marginal mineral intake, this could lead to long-term negative health effects. For people interested in long-term optimal health, losing a small amount of minerals from the body might be a concern. The best solution to the low-mineral (distilled) water issue is to add a concentrated solution that remineralizes, alkalizes, and lowers the surface tension of the water. This solution is called WaterMax and is available from Hallelujah Acres. (Just 1 tsp of WaterMax remineralizes and alkalizes a whole gallon of distilled drinking water.) When WaterMax is added, the resulting water has ionic minerals in it that the body can fully utilize, unlike the rock minerals that the water originally had in it. WaterMax water is alkaline, with a pH of about 8.2. This is not too alkaline for long term health, as it comes from very bioavailable calcium and magnesium ionic salts. The surface tension is lower, improving the water’s ability to hydrate thirsty body tissues. Another good solutionMy Experience With Distilled Water In 1976 I was told I had colon cancer. My mother had just died of colon cancer after going the traditional medical route. I went looking for a different option and heeded the advice of my good friend Brother Lester Roloff. He told me to change my diet rather than accept the medical modalities of chemo, radiation, and surgery. After consuming the traditional Standard American Diet (SAD) for the previous 42 years of my life, I started consuming a 100% plant-based diet. It was a diet very similar to the diet God gave Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 1:29. Brother Roloff also encouraged me to consume lots of freshly extracted vegetable juices because if I wanted to get well I needed to eliminate the things that had caused and were feeding the cancer: all animal sourced foods (both flesh and dairy), refined sugar, white flour, and table salt. I took Brother Roloff’s advice, made the diet change and almost immediately started to get well. At about the same time, someone else encouraged me to change the type of water I was drinking. For the previous 42 years of my life I had been drinking tap water, never thinking it could be potentially dangerous and harmful to my health. The type of water I was encouraged to consume was distilled water. Wanting to do all I could to help my body recover from that cancer, I bought a large, square edged (hard to clean), stainless steel water distiller and started making my own distilled water. Today, after 35 years of drinking distilled water, I am well and 77 years of age. Has my personal experience with distilled water proven to be the hazard that this popular health advocate claims? Absolutely not. One of these claims regarding distilled water was: “Long-term use can invite health problems, because its minerals are evaporated out. So to try to maintain mineral balance, it sucks minerals out of your body.” This is not a true statement! Distillation does not cause the “minerals to be evaporated out.” Quite the opposite; these inorganic minerals are LEFT BEHIND in the boiling pot. Only the water is evaporated out. This is a GOOD thing, since inorganic minerals are the ones that cause kidney and gall stones and join with cholesterol to form plaque and hardening of the arteries. This health advocate also claims that distilled water “sucks minerals out of your body”,thus contributing to mineral loss from the bones, resulting in weak and porous bones that will easily fracture. This has not been my personal experience with distilled water. Several years ago, after drinking exclusively distilled water for over 30 years, I fell from the top of a ladder. From where my head was when I started the fall to where my head landed below on a railroad tie was 16 feet. I did manage to break the fall somewhat with my arms as I was landing. If my bones had been demineralized and weakened by consuming all that distilled water over the previous 30 years, I should have had multiple fractures. But I didn't. My eye did swell shut for a few days, but I did not have a single broken bone — and I was well into my senior years at the time of the fall. Rhonda's Bones Are Strong, Too Just a few weeks ago, a pick-up truck here at Hallelujah Acres suddenly backed up as Rhonda was walking behind it. The truck hit her and she flew to the ground, bouncing her head on the concrete and landing on her hip with full force. She walked away with some scratches and slight bleeding — but not a broken bone. Rhonda is now 65 years old and has been drinking distilled water exclusively since we were married nearly 20 years ago. We hear constant medical news about how easily older folks break their bones (especially hips). So how is it that Rhonda could walk away from this horrific impact, especially since she had been drinking distilled water all these years that supposedly demineralize and weaken her bones? The Real Reason Bones Become Brittle It’s not distilled water that demineralizes the bones and makes them subject to easy fracture, but rather an acidic diet. Animal flesh, dairy, sugar, and refined wheat flours are all acidic. In an effort to neutralize this acidity, the body draws alkaline minerals from the bones to neutralize the acidity. An acid diet is the cause of low bone density, not distilled water! If distilled water was the cause of low bone density and porous bones, both Rhonda and I would have suffered multiple fractures from the falls we experienced. Obviously our bones were extremely strong to survive these falls without fracture. How do we account for this? The Hallelujah Diet Builds Bone Density The Hallelujah Diet removes all highly acidic substances. In other words, we stop consuming all these acid forming foods. As a result, the body has no need to remove the alkalizing minerals from the bones to neutralize the acid. Thus bone density is not only maintained - it is increased! The Hallelujah Diet provides the body with a consistent supply of bone-building, alkalizing minerals in our green smoothies, multiple vegetable juices, and large salads - all high sources of organic, alkalizing minerals. In addition, The Hallelujah Diet advocates resistance exercises, along with stretching and cardiovascular exercises. These exercises, especially the resistance exercises help to build and strengthen the body's bone structure. Distilled Water Does Not Spell Disaster The highly acidic Standard American Diet (SAD) along with a sedentary lifestyle is a prescription for disaster — in terms of overall health as well as bone structure. Conversely, a mostly raw, 100% plant-based diet including plenty of vegetable juices, daily exercise, and purified distilled water builds a strong immune system, strong bones, and a long, healthy life. EDITOR: For a more in-depth article on the importance of maintaining an alkaline environment within the body see the Health Tip article titled “Acid or Alkaline? Your Life Hangs in the Balance”.is to squeeze some fresh lemon juice into a glass of distilled water. This will remineralize the water and add some alkaline minerals to it as well, along with a great taste. When all of the options for purifying water are considered, the best solution is to use a distiller in combination with an activated carbon filter. To get truly pure water, we want to remove chlorine or chloramine, fluoride, arsenic, lead, industrial organic pollutants, pharmaceutical residues, viruses and bacteria, and rock minerals from our drinking water. There isn’t a single process that does all of this, but in tandem you can produce pure water. Activated carbon does an excellent job with organic contaminants, but doesn’t do much with mineral or metal contaminants. Distillers do an excellent job with minerals, viruses, and bacteria. Certain filter resins remove some minerals (arsenic, fluoride, lead) under acidic conditions. Reverse osmosis units rely on activated carbon to remove the organic contaminants. These units do purify the water, but bacterial fouling can be a problem, resulting in reduced performance over time. The best method is to combine an activated carbon filter and distiller to fully remove all of these contaminants. This method yields pure water consistently.
