Drinking distilled water for good health

Whether it's from a spring, osmotically-filtered, run through activated charcoal, or wholesome as the driven rain, your drinking water isn't really clean unless it's been distilled. Drinking distilled water frees you of the worries of contaminants altogether, because what you're getting is chemically pure water. Water distillation is great for your health. At more than 70 percent water, your body needs pure water to run its various processes, from blood production to digestion. Distilled water's the ideal choice for healthy bodies, because it's squeaky-clean already.

What is distilled water?

Distilled water is water boiled until it's chemically pure -- nothing but H2O. The distillation process is simple; you make distilled water much like you'd distill liquor. First, you filter the water to get out most of the contaminants; then you heat it in a distiller. Lighter materials like chemicals usually boil off early on, and are discarded. The steam from the boiling water is collected and cooled, and viola! Pure distilled water. Anything left in the containers -- usually stuff like dirt, dust, pollen, etc. -- is tossed out too. Distillation also helps deodorize the water, since it takes everything foreign out of it.

What does it taste like?

Ideally, pure water shouldn't taste like anything. Minerals and other contaminants (like chlorine) are what lend flavor to tap water. That's fine for regional beers, but your health is much safer if your water doesn't taste like arsenic or algae. In practice, distilled water tastes bland. Sometimes it takes on the flavor of the packaging, whether that's metal, plastic, or cardboard -- but that's not much of a price to pay for the purest water in the world.