Stop Buying Bottled Water

Distill, don’t filter

Don’t drink the water in Mexico! How many times have you heard that? It’s the reason every Los Cabos resident and tourist goes through multiple plastic bottles of water every day. If you’re sick of spending money on bottled water, and/or hate the amount of waste it generates, there’s an alternative for you: distilled water.

The distilled water camp says their method is better than filtered water and water that has been through reverse osmosis, which is the method most bottlers use. These fuss budgets say many microscopic contaminants make it through common water filters and end up in the water you drink. And we know where that goes!

Also, when water filtering systems become clogged and neglected they can turn into breeding grounds for bacteria. If this happens, filtered water can actually become more icky than the water that flows into your house.

Some people feel that distilled water made from a water distiller is actually too pure, arguing that water distillers are so effective in purifying water that they also remove the good minerals that are in that water. However, food, not water, is the main source of minerals people need. People get over 95% of the minerals they need from their food, not from water, so get over that argument. And to get the very small amount of good minerals that may be contained in the water, you have to drink all the bad minerals and all the other pollution and contaminants along with it.

The method behind distilled water is similar to the natural water cycle. Just as rain is produced from evaporation followed by condensation to liquid, water distillers produce rain inside a chamber as regular tap water is heated and vaporized into sterilized steam and then condensed back to its original pure liquid state. All the contaminants including viruses, bacteria, organic and inorganic chemicals, toxins, heavy metals, cysts and other pollutants are left behind as the water turns to steam. Distilled water is the way nature intended it to be, as newly formed as fresh rain.

For those who are thinking about the last time they store-bought bottled distilled water and it tasted flat, remember, that water sat in warehouses and on store shelves for weeks; that is not the case with homemade distilled water that’s made fresh daily. In fact, there is no taste at all because there isn’t anything in the water to taste in the first place. Nothing can taste as clean and pure as distilled water when it’s made fresh and stored appropriately for future use.

Locally, you can buy a counter top distiller that puts out four gallons a day, and costs less than $250 or you can buy an easy to install under the sink distiller that puts out 20 gallons a day and will cost you about $2,000. The under the counter gadget is fully automatic, meaning it turns itself on and off and cleans itself. You pour water out of an additional faucet at your sink. You can also hook it up to your refrigerator so you have nice tasting ice cubes. You just have to tap into the water supply line, install an auto drain line and plug it in. It’s 21” x 13” x 15” and draws 1000 watts, runs on standard household 120 volts and requires 8.5 amps. So do it.

Now for the really bad news. Some free lance jerks are going around the barrios selling five gallon bottles of purified water that they’ve filled from the tap.