A guy told me that drinking the permeate water from a reverse osmosis system can be harmful to your health!
He said the reason being is there are no minerals in it and the water will have a tendency to pull minerals from your body!
Anybody here ever heard of that?
Reason I ask is, at the sugarhouse we make our coffee with it!
Coffee has minerals in it doesn't it?
Reverse Osmosis does reduce a number of ions and minerals including calcium and magnesium. However these are easily replaced with a healthy diet. Eat your vegetables.
Most of the information about negative health effects of drinking demineralized water come from a World Health Organization report. A lot of water purification systems companies have latched on to the negative aspects of this report to promote their systems.
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientschap12.pdf (http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientschap12.pdf)
The negative health impacts largely address populations that have limited access to other sources of clean water, and minerals over a long term. If you are concerned, a multivitamin and mineral supplement should provide all of the minerals your body needs.
Here in NZ it's still common to collect rainwater for household use in rural areas. That's pretty much zero minerals.
Only thing I can think of is fluoride, which is present in most groundwater. A lack of that is bad for teeth, especially for kids.
Growing up we had little tabs of it each day to make up for what we missed drinking rainwater.
They use RO's to treat drinking water if you have bad water . Also are sending then to 3rd world country's that do not have safe water .
I always heard you were going to eat a bushel of dirt before you die. I think it'll all work out in the end.
I worked for one lady that was drinking, oh I don't remember, I installed some fancy gizmo that made the water acid or alkaline or there were gerbils inside doing their thing but supposedly it would cure what ailed her. What ailed her was the packing peanuts behind her eyeballs had shook loose but that's another story. I was asking another client about it, he's a doc. His take was it wasn't harming her or helping her, our body just about immediately adjusts those things unless you just go crazy overdosing yourself.
I wasn't really all that concerned about the affects on ones health since we don't drink it exclusively, I was just wondering if the guy I heard that from was just blowing smoke, or if there was some truth to it!
Chuck, that water that is coming off the evaporator wouldn't that be distilled water? if it is maybe you should bottle it and sell sell it. Maybe make as much $ as the syrup.
The steam that comes off of the evaporator is absolutely, distilled water!
We do bottle some, to use in batteries and such!
I don't know if the water from the RO is considered distilled or now, I do know that there are no minerals in it though!
The guy I mentioned in the OP said that if you're drinking the permeate water (the water from the RO) exclusively, that the water will actually pull minerals from your body!
True or not, I don't know, that why I originally posted!
The source of minerals to replenish those that are lost from our bodies generally come from the foods we eat, not from the water we drink. The concentration of minerals in water is always so relatively low that we would have to drink huge amounts of water to provide the daily requirements for good health.
I do know that minerals in water effect taste of foods and water we ingest. The taste of coffee is directly effected by the quality of water used which is why some people do not like the taste of coffee when they are away from home.
Don't drink the RO water, Bring it from home and you know for sure you have good water.
Yup, it's about as pure as it can get!