R/O Water, good enough to drink?

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Do you drink from your R/O water?

  • Yes

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0
Years back I worked for a company that rented and installed r/o units to residential and commercial for drinking water exclusively. Been drinking r/o exclusively for over 7 years now though I don't have di system. Taste better than Chicago city water though. It is the same basic process that regular drinking water from many top name water companies use to filter their water.
 
Drinking RO/DI

Okay, in my "EXPERT" opinion. Yes, you can drink RO water. I'm in the Navy. We spend 2/3 of our life on the ocean. We have 2 RO's onboard. They each make about 12,000 gallons of "drinking" water per day. The only thing we add is bromine to kill bacteria. With a crew of 340 people, nobody has gotten sick and/or died from the water. (we have a few DDG's in San Diego and they haven't reported any issues either) The DI water is where the danger comes in. It removes ALL impurities from the water. We use that stuff to wash down gas turbine engines and cooling water for equipment because there is nothing in the water to allow corrosion. DI water will make you sick in large or regular quantities. Simply because there aren't any minerals your body needs. Remember, even the ocean has trace elements in the water. Just as lakes, streams, or a well which is where you get your drinking water from.
 
Its also important to note that water for the most part is not the only source for those nutrients/elements that the DI removes that the RO doesnt. A good RO filter will bring the TDS down to a level below 10 and often below 5. So thats 5 parts per million of disolved solids. Compair that to most folks tapwater that will range from 75-300ppm. The DI goes one step further and takes the 5-10ppm RO water and takes it down to basicly 0-1ppm range. So what you end up with is pure H[small]2[/small]O. If the water was the only source for these minerals then yes you would be up the creek with otu a paddle but there has to be alternate sources for those minerals. Im sure non of us would be consuming the DI water in great quanties (5+gal a day). Im no expert but I would have to belive that only in massive quanties would the water do any real harm.
 
I'm sure it has more to do with osmosis than nutritional value. DI water is an incredible solvent, and it's going to pull ions out of your cells. That can't be good.
 
Wow, I am amazed how popilar this question became. this just came up as curiousity since I try to drink at least 1 gallon of water daily and was concern about RO/DI water, I guess thier no need to worry if I eat 4 times daily.
 
I think the consensus seems to be that RO water is fine for drinking, but DI may or may not be so.
 
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