Monday, August 29, 2005

The Great Distilled vs. Mineral Water Controversy

I've been thinking this matter over. I think I was too extreme in contending that only distilled water should be drunk. This was a reaction to my deeply resenting the many poisons that have been put in our water, to wit: F, Cl...etc. as well as the many pollutants that are being dumped in it and what the water picks up from pipes (the pipes in Tzfat are old are still made partially of lead).

Our ancestors drank a combination of water that came from springs as well as rain water, which they collected in barrels and wells. Rain water is distilled, of course, but it is not nearly as "pure" as artificially distilled water and should not be.

A mikveh tahara that humans create must be a combination of rain water and spring. From this I would learn that both are needed to purify on the physical level as well.

I have concluded, then, that if we are to live in our natural state we should be drinking a combination of distilled water within which many compounds are dissolved and mixed by the time it got to us as well as spring water, which is, quite naturally, part rain water too.

I have concluded that we should shoot for a balance of drinking both insofar as we are able to.

I do not think that drinking distilled water should be reserved only for times of extreme need for detoxification. We are in a contstant need of detoxification, but a balance should be struck.

Let us hope that we are not so alienated from our bodies that we cannot hear when our body calls for the one or the other or both.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel