Why Distilled Water?

Inorganic Minerals vs. Organic Minerals

By Michael Dye

What is Distilled Water?

Distillation is nature's way of purifying water.  When the sun heats water, this causes evaporation, an example of distillation on the grand scale.  Vapor rises from the surface of water, leaving behind all its impurities.  These water vapors rise and cool as air temperature in the upper atmosphere drops, and the vapors change from gas to liquid, becoming water, ice or snow.  If our atmosphere were not polluted, each drop of rain or snow would be pure H₂O.

The production of distilled drinking water is man's attempt to copy nature's form of water purification .  As with evaporation in nature, distillation actually removes water (in the form of steam vapor) from the heavier materials that are its impurities.  Other types of water treatment attempt to remove contaminants from water, rather than removing water from the contaminants.

In the boiling chamber of the water distiller, tap water is heated to 212 degrees, killing  bacteria and viruses.  The heat produces steam, which rises, leaving behind inorganic minerals, chemicals and other contaminants in the boiling tank.  As the water temperature rises, the light gases boil off and are discharged through the gaseous vent.  A stainless steel condenser cools the steam, turning it into distilled water.  This water passes from the condenser through an optional post carbon filter, and the purified distilled water is collected in a reservoir.

Why is Impure Water Unsafe?

Water constitutes, regulates, flows through, cleanses and helps nourish every single part of your body.  But the wrong kind of water - with inorganic minerals, chemicals and other contaminants - can pollute, clog up and turn to stone in every part of your body.

In his book, Water Can Undermine Your Health, Dr Norman W. Walker offers a good account of what water - and its impurities - can do in our body.

To start with, everything you eat or drink goes into your stomach and then into 20 to 25 feet of small intestine, he explains.  From there, food can go one of two ways:  That which can be assimilated is transferred to the liver for distribution to the rest of your system; while most of what cannot be utilized is passed on as waste into the large intestine (colon).

But Dr. Walker notes, "liquids pass readily through the microscopic blood vessels in the wall of the small intestine," so "whatever the liquid contains in colloidal form goes along with the liquid right into the liver."  He defines a colloid as "any substance in such a fine state of particles that it would take from 50,000,000 to 125,000,000 particles to measure one inch."  This includes inorganic minerals, the most common of which is calcium (lime).

Once this liquid reaches the liver, he writes, "it is completely divested and cleared of everything whatever that was a component part of the liquid, except the hydrogen and the oxygen which, together, form the water molecule.  Water containing nothing but hydrogen and oxygen is pure water, and this is the only kind of water which the blood and the lymph can use in their work... Whatever mineral and chemical elements were present in the water when it first reaches the liver, are segregated by the anatomizing processes in the liver and are either passed on into the blood stream or are filed away as reserve material."

What impact do minerals in water have on our health?

So, what is the cumulative effect of collecting these mineral deposits in the body?  Dr. Walker writes that if a person drinks two pints of water a day, this will total 4,500 gallons of water over a 70-year lifespan.  If it is not distilled, Dr. Walker estimates these 4,500 gallons of water will include 200 to 300 pounds of rock - inorganic calcium (lime), magnesium and other mineral deposits - that the body cannot utilize.  He notes most of these inorganic minerals will be collected by the body's water, blood and lymph systems to be eliminated through excretory channels.  But some of this 200 to 300 pounds of rock will stay in the body, causing stiffness in the joints, hardening of the arteries, kidney stones, gall stones and occlusions (blockages) of arteries, microscopic capillaries and other passages in which liquids flow through our entire body.

It is vital at this point to understand the difference between organic and inorganic minerals.  Water flowing through or on the ground collects inorganic (non-living) minerals from the soil and rock through which it passes.  These are not minerals that humans or other animals can utilize.   Only plants have the capability of transforming inorganic minerals from the ground into living, vital, organic minerals we can use for nourishment.  For this reason, we cannot absorb any minerals from eating finely-ground rocks or soil from our garden.  We must allow the plants in the garden to take in these inorganic minerals through their roots from the soil and transform them, by the process of photosynthesis, into organic minerals that we can utilize.  Inorganic minerals from the earth are absorbed into ground water, so we cannot benefit from minerals in water any more than could benefit by eating rocks or dirt.

Because inorganic minerals cannot be absorbed into the cell wall as nutrition, they become distributed elsewhere in the body, causing arthritis in the joints, kidney stones, gallstones, hardening and blocking arteries, etc.

The most common mineral in ground water is calcium carbonate (lime), which is also a primary ingredient in making concrete and cement.  If you have ever seen a large stalagmite or stalactite in a limestone cavern, you can visualize how this hard rock forms, one drop at a time in a cave...or in the inside of your arteries, a kidney stone, in your joints, etc.  Another way of actually seeing these mineral deposits is to pour water from your kitchen sink into a pan.  Put that pan of water in the sun and let it evaporate.  Or if you are in a hurry, boil it.  Either way, once the water has evaporated, you will find a solid coat of mineral deposits left on the side and bottom of the pan.  These are the same deposits left in your arteries and the rest of your body.

Paul Bragg, an early pioneer of health foods, emphasizes that it is a fallacy of the medical profession to say that hardening of the arteries - known as "arteriosclerosis" - is a result of old age.  Actually, he notes, hardening and blocking of the arteries is caused by the consumption of inorganic minerals from water, along with table salt and the waxy saturated fat (cholesterol) and acids from a meat-based diet...not old age.  (As evidence of this claim, it could be noted that at the age of 95, a physical at Johns Hopkins revealed that Bragg had the arteries of a 20-year-old.)

Bragg adds, "If we examined our arteries closely, we could see that calcium carbonate and its affinities are lining these pipes and making them brittle - beginning to turn our body into stone."

While water containing minerals is a primary contributor to these deposits, Bragg emphasizes that drinking the proper amount of distilled water is the way to flush out cholesterol and mineral deposits from our arteries and other body parts.  "Remember water is a flushing agent," he notes.  If one needs an idea of how effective water is in washing away mineral, look at a river bed...or the Grand Canyon.  The hardest rock in the world is constantly being eroded and washed away by water.

Reprinted from "God's Way to Ultimate Health", by Dr. George H. Malkmus. Used by permission.