subject: Water fast Facts - How Pure is Distilled Water? [print this page] Water fast Facts - How Pure is Distilled Water?
Water can be distilled much like alcohol. Heat is applied to a source of water, either natural spring water or municipal tap water. Once the water is heated enough to release water vapor, the water vapor rises into a series of tubes or pipes where it condenses, it then drains into another vessel and is distilled water. The water when it is vaporized, or in its gas phase, also called steam, it is at this point water is its most pure. This process is known as distillation, and is from the 2nd century B.C. from the Mesopotamian arc that is now Iraq. Perhaps being independently "discovered" in Pakistan earlier in a much more primitive fashion. By the 1st century A.D. it had arrived in the west in Hellenistic or Greek culture.
O to answer the question how pure is distilled water, here it is It is pure not only because it is boiled killing all pathogenic life in the water but because of the extremely small nature of the simple water molecule. When distilled there is no chance for heavy metals, copper, chlorine, iron, lead, or any other common household water contamination to travel alongside the water in its gas form. In short many of the problems of clean water are therefore solved, producing exceptionally clean pure water. The purity of distilled water produces a paradox for the health conscious. Human history has been shaped by the desire for clean water as a basic necessity of life. Yet the purity of distilled water means that it lacks some of the trace elements the human body needs. Some of these elements, historically, have been derived from water so the lack of calcium, trace salts, and magnesium. It seems that humans have a predilection towards these trace "contaminates" in moderation, many people find the taste of distilled water much less pleasing than soft water, which on the spectrum of drinking water is somewhere between the heavy mineral content of hard water and distilled water with its extreme purity.
