Le Hollandais Volant

There is a widespread myth that drinking distilled water is harmful because it contains no minerals, therefore it depletes your body’s store of minerals. This belief is wrong on many levels.

First, there are places in the world where the water is naturally soft and contains little mineral content. I drank tap water in Ottawa (Canada) and various cities in Japan, and it was softer than Toronto water. Yet, there is no public health crisis or outcry about the water in these places. The people there are healthy and the water doesn’t need to be modified.

Second, all drinkable water has less mineral content than the cells in our bodies. The overall salt content of humans is around 0.4% by weight. In blood, it is around 0.9%, or 9000 ppm – this is why saline solutions for intravenous injections are prepared at this concentration. The water we drink is all hypotonic, yet our cells don’t explode every time we drink water.

If minerals from drinking water are largely ignorable, where do we get them from? From food, of course. Plants and animals incorporate minerals into their tissues, and we get our necessary minerals from the food we eat.

En gros, boire de l’eau distillée (sans minéraux) n’est pas dangereux, comme on le lit parfois. La plupart des minéraux qu’on absorbe viennent de la nourriture (hors eau) de toute façon.

Par contre, avoir sa propre distillerie d’eau à la maison… mouais. Perso j’aurais pas forcément confiance. L’eau du robinet est désinfectée, elle. Si la distillation n’est pas faite correctement, je doute qu’elle le soit.

L’accès à l’eau potable « propre » fait partie des choses qui ont à elles seules contribuées à l’amélioration des conditions sanitaires de l’humanité, et les régions à qui l’eau saine fait défaut sont encore celles où règnent les maladies..