RO - H2O - Water Supply Issues

WrinkledNugSack

WrinkledNugSack

Well-known member
About a year ago, I got into an unprompted conversation with someone (couldn't describe him as a friend, but if I lived closer he would be) who is a long-term employee of a very large plant store. He began talking about RO water and that about 20 - 25 years ago (I think he said), they used RO water at the shop. During their lunch breaks, they would drink the RO water instead of taking from the tap.

At this time, he said that he had been doing quite a bit of doctoring, because he was suffering from chronic joint pain.

One day his boss walked through the lunch room when they were all having their lunch break and noticed people filling their cups with the water. Apparently, he made an off handed comment about "Why someone would drink RO water when they had mineralized water to drink". (From the tap)

I forget a lot of the details, but the gist of his story was that water is the most common solvent on earth, which has a very high desirability to dissolve whatever it touches. Mineralized water has already been exposed to a myriad of elements so the ions aren't nearly as (re)-active as RO water is. He warned against RO water because you have to not only add nutrients to the soil, but add additional nutrients because the ions in the RO water are going to lock a percentage of the nutrients up.

He said, that after thinking about this for a while, he stopped drinking the RO water and chose the tap water instead and within a number of months, his joint pain went away and hasn't returned.

I've always intended to pose this question to a doctor or scientist to see what they would have to say about it... basically, "Can RO water with it highly re-active ions, draw minerals out of the human body and potentially cause a problem like joint pain.

Interesting question hey... and if it's a possibility, might it change the way that some people water their plants, feed their plants, and change what they drink.

Bear in mind, that I'm no scientist so my descriptions of the theories or processes aren't/may not be scientifically accurate, but I think most people will understand the point I'm trying to make.

Comments?
 
I could see this being more of an issue in water only super soil applications. In hydro, youre adding all that stuff back in, in your desired amounts so I dont think it would be an issue in that application.

As far as for consumption, thats over my pay grade.
 
In hydro, it would probably help, because grow after grow, you could be assured that your nutrient values stayed the same. However, I am a soil grower and know f-all about hydro systems, so my "assumption" is merely that!
 
Calcium and magnesium (the correct ones) are essential for a person. Much of that is removed (at least in our tap water) to help keep the water pipes/lines free from mineral build ups. Chlorine and/or chloramine is then added to kill germs. From what i understand, cholorine didn't work good enough, because much of it would dissipate before it got to the end of the lines. You can easily let chlorine 'air out' in a bucket overnight. Chloramine, from what i've gathered, will stay a stable germ killer unless it hits organic matter. Dunno how true that is about chloramine, but i was lead to believe that it will remain in that overnight bucket, until it has something to attack until it has depleated itself.

Just to be certain, i used to add a little bit of plant matter, green or not, to the bucket. In these later years, i've just ph'd and ferted the water, let it stand, at least overnight, and it seems to be all good, without adding a bit of plant matter. So, i dunno.

As far as for drinking, i always use RO, if possible. I add dried greens to most everything...home dried stuff(carrot tops, beet tops, leaf celery, etc) to soups. At the table, there's the liberal topping of Za'atar, which is mostly wild oregano or thyme with ground roasted sesame seed. I figure that covers the mineral intake. I use that darn Za'atar on most everything...I'm hooked! Eggs, meat, veggies... We also, grow beets most every year, and we eat quite a lot of them, nutrition powerhouse, that one! Most any of the root veggies or dark greens will contain a goodly amount of minerals.

Now that i'm not doing root veggies, I just rely on the greens. If you garden, or know someone who does, the really good greens are often tossed. Carrots, beets, cruciferous...I try not to waste them. They keep well, for a long time, dried.

Had too many untested wells, and really don't care for a lot of the junk that can happen in tap water...not that R/O gets all the drugs and chemicals, but it's the best that i can do. Having been multiple metal poisoned, (went through I.V. series to remove some of it), i'm leary. If suffering from unknown illness, forcing (and i do mean forcing) the docs to give you a thorough (not JUST lead) metal test could be helpful. Then, many of them are not concerned about elevated stuff like aluminum, cuz they say that the body naturally has some, and has ways of ridding. Well, that's great, but there's 'some' and then there's 'overload', as far as i'm concerned. I've no idea why stuff like aluminum is still on the food shelf...granny and mom used to use alum to keep the pickles crispy...and we had pickles at every evening meal, and snacked on them heavily. And as far as anti-perspirants...the entire household used the spray powder, the entire house had a thorough bombing of it, every morning.

Anyway, done ranting for a while...
 
I am in a community that regularly gets "boil water advisories", so the tap water is out. I have a well paying job so I can afford the $2.50/18 litre jug of either mineralized RO water, or unmineralized... come to think of it, it may only be heavily filtered water, then either replace the minerals or not... I'll have to ask today.

I always get the mineralized water after that conversation with the garden centre guy, for both my plants and for drinking. Other than always making sure the ph is right, (I should say "periodically making..." because I sometimes forget in my hurry and old age) it works well for the plants.

The question about drinking the unmineralized stuff, is as much of a nerd thing as it is a true health concern. I have joint pain but I've lead a rough life, particularly in my youth and I think the joints are just worn out. Science as I age becomes more and more intriguing to me, because I was pretty good at ignoring it in school and through my earlier working years, but now I've slowed down enough to appreciate what some people have to study... for me, it was the bottom of a beer bottle for a long time, so I am quite adept at picking one of them out at any given moment. (Although, I haven't used my well honed proficiency with such a skill for over 30 years)

My personal health really wasn't the catalyst for this conversation as I hope to have a massive heart attack in my sleep some day and and that will be that. Didn't the old timers ad arsenic to pickles to make them crispy too?

I well know the most dangerous thing that I can consume and that is always an immediate threat to myself and others is a bottle of whiskey... drinking a little tainted water would likely only make me fart... and when you're an old man like me, that's dangerous enough!

​

 
So it's supposed to be actual RO water that is re-mineralized and of course, for every scientist that says that its safe to drink, there are apparently others who say its not... I would ask Dr. Steve (of Weird Medicine podcast), but I think his algorithm blocks "out of country" e-mails/comments.

For anyone who doesn't know about his channel, it can be quite entertaining... he centres on men's health "he says", but really its all encompassing.

But, if you don't have "nerd-like" tendencies, it probably won't appeal to you.
 
I dont know much but I thought that distilled water is "empty" and RO still has a bit of stuff in it because the filters dont remove everything.
With that said, I flushed a plant with straight RO once a long time ago and the plant reacted poorly, wont be doing that again.
 
I would think that there is a wide variation even in RO water based on who is servicing the system... there is no (or at least very little likelihood) that one jug of distilled water is much different than any other IMHO.
 
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