digest
Short Summary
Main recommendation: Drink distilled water or reverse osmosis water at home, and when buying bottled water, choose glass bottles over plastic. Dr. Berry argues these waters are healthy and that common claims that they leach minerals from the body or make blood acidic are unsupported, while municipal tap water often contains chlorine and fluoride and few meaningful minerals.
Key Points
- Distilled water is recommended over plastic-bottled distilled water, because distilled water is more aggressive at pulling substances from plastic, especially when stored long-term or exposed to sunlight or heat.
- Dr. Berry says he found no research supporting the claim that distilled or reverse osmosis water pulls minerals out of bones or the body, noting that the stomach is already saturated with sodium and chloride by the time the water arrives.
- He states that distilled and reverse osmosis water do not make blood acidic, since stomach acid is orders of magnitude more acidic than any water or coffee, and the body cannot tell which water was consumed once absorbed.
- Alkaline water claims are dismissed for the same reason: stomach acid cancels out any alkalinity before absorption.
- Municipal tap water is criticized for chlorine and fluoride, which he says can interfere with iodine absorption by the thyroid, and for containing very few meaningful minerals.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions: Use a reverse osmosis filter installed under the sink as the main household drinking and cooking water source. Use distilled water when possible, but avoid storing it in plastic. If buying bottled water while traveling, buy only glass-bottled distilled, reverse osmosis, or mineral water. If collecting rainwater, let it rain 15 to 20 minutes before collecting it in very clean containers. He recommends getting minerals from food or an electrolyte supplement, noting that he and his family add an electrolyte drop to coffee, tea, and water, focusing on magnesium, potassium, sodium, and chloride.
- Distilled water has a pH of exactly 7; reverse osmosis water may temporarily lower pH by absorbing carbon dioxide when exposed to air, but this has no meaningful effect once swallowed.
- Dr. Berry says spring or well water can be good if uncontaminated; his grandmother's deep well water tested with a few minerals and no contaminants.
- Municipal water in his county had problems with excess fluoride and chlorine, leading to repeated boil alerts, which he says do not remove fluoride.
- He notes that coffee and tea have a pH of about 4, similar to reverse osmosis water in acidity claims, and says the same stomach-acid reasoning applies.
Bottom Line
According to Dr. Berry, filtered distilled or reverse osmosis water is a sound choice, and he says the most important factor is removing contaminants like chlorine and fluoride rather than avoiding water that lacks minerals, since he recommends getting minerals from food and supplements.
