permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

negiliblek wrote:

> > So I have a difficult time believing that removing trace amounts of minerals would 
> > significantly increase water's ability to take away wastes.
> [snip]
>
> The 99.999% water tank is labeled with a poisonous label label as required by OSHA's material data safety guidelines.  I asked why and was told that 99.9999% pure water will strip all the elecrolytes and minerals necessary for human physiology to 
Yep, that was my point. Thanks for adding this useful anecdote.

Distilled water is not better at removing waste and toxins--that all 
occurs long after the water has been metabolized and processed by the 
body, when it's on the way out, so to speak. But distilled is really 
good at stripping out essential minerals while it's on the way in, as 
it's being metabolized.

Much of the water we drink doesn't just pass through as though the body 
is a filter followed by a waste dump. which seems to be how a lot of 
people visualize it. Instead, a lot of water is chemically broken into H 
and OH and added to other elements (carbon, mostly) to be turned into 
other substances, like protein, cell membranes, etc. Much of our urine 
and other things that carry away wastes don't come from the water we 
drink; they come from water molecules that are produced during 
metabolism. At least, that's the western science view. Intake of 
nutrients (like water), metabolism into body components, and processing 
of wastes occur each at different times and different places in the 
body. That's why I don't buy the idea that one form of water will be 
better at taking away wastes than others. But I sure agree that what 
kind of water you drink makes a difference in health.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com