Tag : distill

Most of us take for granted that the water flowing from our tap is clean and pure. We compare our tap water with the standards of much of the world and we reassure ourselves that the water in our drinking glass is safe. But we should be asking an important question: “safe” and “pure” compared to what?

The practice of purifying our drinking water with chlorine was pioneered by the military a century ago. It began to be commonplace in the U.S. in the 1930’s and was widespread by World War II. Chlorination has been a major boon to human health: the spread of water-borne diseases that still claims millions of lives around the world soon became a thing of the past in the developed world. That, as they say, is the good news.

But remember Dr. Mixon's first rule:  “Anything strong enough to help is strong enough to hurt!” That applies to chlorination of water in a surprising way. Chlorination very effectively kills bacteria, parasites, and viruses.

In the past in talking about water fallacies, I’ve gone over alkalinity, ionization, and generally discussed why there really isn’t much you can do to improve your water besides cleaning it.

I prefer distillation because it cleans to the highest standard, which is practical with our current state of science and engineering. This is not to imply that filters don’t work; they do. A filter will remove some or most of the chlorine, most of the dirt, and most of the nasty critters that may be coming out of your tap. On the other hand, a good distiller will remove essentially all of it. A good illustration of the limitation of filters verses distillers is to try putting saltwater through a filter.