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What exactly does the “optimal” drinking water look like? This largely depends on each individual’s nutritional requirements and dietary habits. There are basically three aspects of water that determine its quality.
- Contamination
- Acidity
- Nutrients
Contamination
Anything that you find in water that is not desirable for health reasons is a contaminant. Some examples of harmful contaminants include heavy metals like lead and cadmium and organic contaminants such as bacteria, viruses, and protozoa (giardia lamblia and cryptosporidium). Even things we purposely add to our water, such as chlorine (perchlorate, chlorite, chlorine dioxide) or fluoride, are generally not optimal but rather a lesser of two evils. These help to keep our tap water free from organic contaminants at a relatively low risk to our health, but it is not 100% benign. Though the benefits of chlorination far outweigh the risk, it is not optimal to be drinking it.
Update*: Perchlorate may not be as harmless as once thought. Go figure.
Acidity
While there is a myriad of ways to filter, disinfect and purify water, the most foolproof method is distillation. However, drinking purely distilled water has some risks of its own. There are two main problems with distilled water. The first is that it’s highly acidic if it is not neutralized to some extent. There are two debatable points in this regard. Some argue that distilled water is NOT acidic. This is bullshit, it clearly is, and it due to the carbon dioxide in the air, forming carbonic acid. I distill water almost everyday and have run a number of different pH tests including good ole’ fashion litmus tests and higher end probe and meter tests. I typically find values to range from 4-5.5 depending on other variables such as ambient temperature, air quality, time of exposure and contamination. While these low pH values (high acidity) aren’t necessarily harmful, some research suggests that at least slightly more alkaline water (pH > 7) is better than acidic water. Fortunately, there is an easy solution to prevent distilled water from being too acidic, just add a small amount of sodium bicarbonate, an overall beneficial compound. Keep reading for the detailed formula.
Word of caution about using distilled water: It can be quite damaging. Never put it in a plastic container. And never store it in metal for long. Glass is the safest option since distilled water does not react with a high quality glass. I would avoid feeding distilled water to plants and pets and don’t use it with other products such as water fountains or water pumps. Most products will specify this in their manuals, which I always read every last word because I’m a nerd. Using for cleaning however is great, except on surfaces it could damage, such as my dresser.
Nutrients
A bigger concern than acidity is the nutritional content of water. It has been proposed that distilled water “leaches” minerals from the body. There is still some debate as to why this happens. My personal opinion is that distilled water doesn’t “leach” nutrients (although maybe a little), but rather by drinking distilled water you are removing a significant source of essential minerals, non-distilled water. Based on my research, it seems that most people are generally deprived of many micro-nutrients as it is, especially minerals. An all-natural diet, meaning one that is absent of artificial fortification and supplementation, is typically very sparse in the following minerals.
- Calcium (only dairy products seem to have sufficient levels of calcium)
- Magnesium (as much as 30% of the population in developed countries are likely to be deficient in magnesium)
- Potassium (as much as 20% of the population in developed countries are likely to be deficient in potassium)
- Sodium (typically, adequate amounts are only found in seafoods and processed foods)
- Zinc (for vegetarians)
Even a very well-balanced diet can lack adequate amounts of each mineral, compounded by the fact that our overgrown crops are becoming less and less nutrient dense due to a variety of reasons including soil depletion. But, this idea seems strange. How can we humans thrive as well as we do if we’re chronically underconsuming vital nutrients? The answer lies in our water supply.
I decided to look into the natural mineral composition of various water sources. And perhaps surprisingly, I found a neatly fitting data point. The prevalence of minerals in many natural water sources seem to almost exactly make up for the deficiency of these minerals in our foods. Here are some examples of a mineral composition analysis of various water sources.
This particular source did not look for zinc, but other analyses show that zinc is often present in natural water sources in relevant amounts, sometimes in too HIGH of a quantity, which is usually more of a risk (when it comes to natural water sources) than not having enough. (https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/chemicals/zinc.pdf)
Not all natural water sources are perfectly balanced though, in fact few are. Some sources have too much calcium which can cause calcium buildup in arteries and lead to other issues. More often than not, minerals are stripped from the water in different processing steps while leaching too much of another mineral such as copper or iron as it flows through our pipelines. The result is often too much of one thing and not enough of another. Don’t get me started on bottled water…ugh, the PLASTIC. Even some BPA-free bottles have issues with leaching chemicals, but that’s a discussion for another day.
The solution to balancing your mineral profile is to have complete control over it. In short, the best method is to distill water and then remineralize it with exactly what you need. One problem with this approach though (and there are others), is that not everyone has the same needs. For example, a heavy meat-eater likely does not need to supplement zinc but could very well be deficient in potassium and magnesium. A person who avoids processed foods and doesn’t load up on table salt might commonly suffer from a sodium deficiency. Chronic dairy consumers probably don’t need calcium and in fact might actually have too much of it.
The only viable solution to this problem is to monitor what you eat. I have been tracking every single food item I’ve eaten for several months and have concocted the right mineral balance for myself. Every person is different, so I will share what my formula is but this does not necessarily apply to you. The only way you can know what you are lacking is to either get tested or monitor your diet.
I want to emphasize that TOO MUCH of any of these minerals can be harmful. In fact, one of the reasons why potassium deficiency is so common is because it can not legally be sold in single dose amounts greater than 99 mg, which is far below the RDI. Potassium poisoning is a serious risk and can occur in doses of only 500 mg if ingested with no dietary fibers or other substance to slow down the uptake rate. This implies that potassium is best consumed in relatively low doses, in or with whole foods, and consistently throughout the day (every meal) to ensure adequate intakes. These demands are even higher in athletes and sick individuals, think Gatorade and Pedialyte.
Remineralizing Distilled Water
What is the best way to remineralize distilled water? There are a variety of concentrated mineral products on the market, but this leads to the second problem of remineralizing distilled water…trust in the product. It would be asinine to go through all the trouble of making our own pure, perfectly mineralized water just to unwittingly recontaminate it. Outside of doing our own testing, all we can rely on is the word of the manufacturer, consumer reviews, and 3rd party testing providers such as Consumer Labs. Although this doesn’t guarantee quality, it’s the best option we have right now.
After looking through literally hundreds of potential mineral products to add, I decided to get a variety and mix and match them, since none seemed to have what I considered the best balance (for me) and getting every mineral separately seemed a little daunting and maybe too obsessive. The three products I chose are:
I chose these products in particular because together they have a good blend of magnesium and zinc, as well as sodium, potassium and a few other desirable nutrients such as lithium and chloride, although they are only particularly high in magnesium and zinc. But it turns out to be a good balance for me, based on what I eat. Although there is no calcium in these (which I wish there was), I make my own eggshell capsules which contain the remainder of the calcium I need in my diet, along with some occasional dairy products, but not too much! There is also pretty low levels of potassium and sodium. This is fine too as I eat a lot of fruit to obtain the potassium I need (plus we don’t want high doses). Although potassium is still surprisingly difficulty to obtain adequate amounts of, especially as a high intensity athlete, and the fruits sure do come with a lot of sugar…As a result, I have considered purchasing a 4th additive that is primarily potassium either in chloride or iodide form, but that decision is still pending. Finally, the sodium levels are still somewhat low but sodium is easily supplemented in the form of table salt and is virtually in all processed foods, usually in amounts way too high, so I have the opposite problem and often seek to avoid excess salt.
UPDATE: I have since decided to add an additional ingredient, iodized sea salt. After monitoring my intake of iodine and sodium, it is still difficult to obtain adequate amounts and proportions in natural whole foods which is why I have decided to add these additional components.
So what is the formula I use? It contains distilled water, sodium bicarbonate, and trace amounts of each of those three liquid mineral supplements. Below is the exact recipe followed by the total nutritional content.
Cloudy Drinking Water Formula
- 2.8 L distilled water
- 0.6 mL NaCHO3
- 2.5 mL Hi Lyte
- 2.5 mL 40k Volts Mineral Trace
- 1.25 mL ConcenTrace Mineral Trace
- 99 mg Potassium (in an amino complex)
- 0.6 mL Iodized Sea Salt
Or for the non-metric users…
- 0.75 gallons of distilled water
- 1/8 tsp of sodium bicarbonate
- 1/2 tsp of Hi Lyte
- 1/2 tsp of 40k Volts Mineral Trace
- 1/4 tsp of ConcenTrace Mineral Trace
- 99 mg K
- 1/8 tsp Iodized Sea Salt
Tip: When making this, it’s best to first add all of the ingredients to the container that will be collecting the distilled water rather than adding them later. This helps buffer the water as soon as it collects so that it does not absorb as much carbon dioxide from the air.
The resulting nutritional profile is:
Nutrient | Amount (mg) | %DV |
---|---|---|
Magnesium | 268 | 63% |
Zinc | 3 | 27% |
Sodium | 180 | 19% |
Potassium | 228 | 5% |
Chloride | 1325 | 52% |
Sulfate | 60 | NA |
Lithium | 1.5 | NA |
Boron | 1.9 | NA |
Iodine | 0.03 | 20% |
While this is not perfect, it does address some of the inadequacies of my diet while removing much of the risk of water contaminants. I have reviewed my local municipal water reports in my area where these is a big risk of industrial AND farm run off. Moderate levels (below legal-action limits) of chlorine, haloacetic acids, TTHMs, barium, chromium, nitrate, copper, and lead have all been detected. The lead is most concerning since there is NO “safe” level of lead. Lead also tends to vary much more from home to home since the source of lead is typically at the end-point, the plumbing in homes rather than the water source. In addition to the borough reports, I ran my own analysis to confirm these results.
Here is a fun picture that shows exactly what was in my drinking water all these years…
This is the remaining sediment in many gallons of my tap water after distillation. The only thing it does not capture is the volatile compounds as they would be evaporated away.
But hey, now I have tasty clean home-made drinking water that matches my almost-exact nutritional requirements, cheers!
References
- https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientsindw.pdf?ua=1
- https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/80400525/Articles/NDBC32_WaterMin.pdf
- https://www.ngwa.org/what-is-groundwater/About-groundwater/dissolved-mineral-sources-and-significance
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5318167/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1495189/