Mineral content of desalinated water

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Thumbs Up

But the issue at hand is desalinated water on a boat. The danger is that you are getting too much minerals not not enough. These guys are saying 250ppm TDS is acceptable. How much is too much?

No, it is not that simple. It is not how many minerals, but which ones.


The EPA limit for TDS is 500 ppm (secondary standard--aesthetic effects). Any yacht RO that is operating correctly can meet this standard.

[Jim Cate]

But Thin, Ca and Mg are both found in many things that we all eat regularly. We don't depend upon our drinking water for our entire input of minerals, do we?

Jim

[bstreep]

As others have said, this is about TDS for desalinated water.
As a molecular biologist and long time "reefer" (one who keeps marine life, not the other...), I can tell you with absolute certainty that anyone or any site that blames/claims a hazard from drinking R/O water (home R/O units), is absolutely absurd. Knowing this, it's hard to "prove" much of the "internet science" to the satisfaction of many folks. So I'll do this very simply:


Rainwater has a TDS of between 5 and 10ppm of TDS. Typical output from a home RO unit (not RO/DI, which is near 0, and we use it to make salt water for reef dwellers) is between 10 and 20ppm. Rainwater, I would think most would agree, is safe to drink.



If you still don't agree, then sure. Buy supplements from those folks who have a dog in the hunt, selling water supplements.



Seriously, it's absurd. The biochemistry just doesn't happen the way they claim it does.

[CassidyNZ]

My watermaker runs at 200 -300 ppm TDS. The water in our rain tanks at home measures routinely at below 20ppm. We drink a heck of a lot more water at home than we do on the boat and we’ve been using this tank water for every purpose needing water for probably a decade now. It has never made us sick.

When we load shore water at our club, it is also tank (rain) water. Make us sick? Not likely.

[Lepke]

I've used RO water exclusively for the last 10 years. I never use dock water. I don't get sick or have mineral deficiencies. I also spent years at sea drinking distilled water and eating food cooked with it w/o problems.
I use more pre and post filters than most people and my tds runs about 150. After making water I always flush the system with fresh, so it's always sitting in fresh. If you're not careful about the high pressure setting, it will push more stuff thru the membrane.

[UFO]

You are Guaranteed to get more sick from long term drinking of Municipal water (pretty much anywhere in the world) than RO water!

[GRIT]

Well, I'm not one to believe everything I read. Nor had I read anything of the sort before experiencing it myself. The internet wasn't as pervasive then, 2006, as it is now.

But, I'm telling you, I was quite sick. Then one day offshore, for no real reason, I started drinking my wife's bottle water (mineral water) and things improved dramatically. I later sourced a mineralizing cartridge for our watermaker, and never had an issue since. This was 2006.
Now, perhaps it's pure coincidence, and maybe there was something wrong with our watermaker, or tanks, or my stars weren't aligned with venus over the moon or something. But other things, like my incessant craving for peanuts on our offshore passages (in hindsight, I think it was a craving for the salt on the peanuts), heart fluttering, lethargy, and a general malaise (much more than normal). I can't give you all my reasons/evidence, as I've forgotten many of them. Nor will I attempt to convert your thinking. But sure as rain is wet, that water was making me sick.

Comparing well water, or sistern water is not scientific, since most sisterns are made with cement, which typically has calcium, which could leach into the water.

To those who say it's impossible, or absurd; I simply disagree. I've experienced it myself, and am not simply hypothesizing. Just because you use RO water exclusively (as we do) doesn't mean you're not mixing it with coffee, tea, juice crystals, etc. You probably eat better offshore than I do, since I suffer from mal de mer, my food intake takes a hit when we're offshore.

My guess is that I was lacking certain minerals, (calcium and magnesium) due to the fact that my only "drink" is water, and I don't eat much offshore. I'm not saying everyone will get sick, but I certainly did. Perhaps I'm more prone to it than others, but if you'd been there, I wouldn't need to explain this to you.


Cheers.
Paul.

[Pegu Club]

We use a Rainman RO system on our boat, we range between 80 and the low 200s on our PPM meter relevant to where we make water. A thread like this one comes up every so often and the same points are made throughout those threads. As to which minerals still left in the water one makes can’t be particularly relevant in which a healthy diet of the correct food items will give one all one needs to be healthy, ( yes there is likely an exception to prove the rule) throw in a binge on junk food and beer every now and again and you’ve got yourself covered. From all of what I have read this is a non issue. It seems we humans like to have things to worry about, some of those things are worth ones concern, others, not so much... it seems to me that Grit had a dietary issue more so than a RO water issue, jmo.

Fair winds,

[GRIT]

Originally Posted by SVHarmonie

A couple things here. First off there is NO scientific basis for high purity water “sucking the minerals” out of your food. NONE. This is one of those things that sounds all fancy and is dressed up with pseudoscience, but that is all it is.

I was an engineer for a major drug company, and we produced a lot of VERY high purity water. Somehow, the rumor got started among the workers on the factory floor that this high purity water would kill you if you drank it by exploding all your cells, or some such nonsense. Somehow, the rumor KEEP going even after I drank a liter of this water every day for a week.

Desalinated water runs from about 200 to 400 PPM TDS measured as Sodium chloride. This is higher salt content than a lot of city water systems that get their water from surface supplies, and lower than many than use well water.

Almost nobody gets much in the way of “trace” minerals from the water they drink anyway. Minerals come from food. Human beings can live just fine on 100% mineral free water. Rain water come pretty close, nobody dinking from a cistern ever suffered from “trace mineral deficiency” because they drank rain water.

And Jim: "He drank RO water for a year. Then he got sick. No causality is shown by this sequence of events, nor does his apparent recovery later after adding supplementary minerals. Unless he also stopped eating during that year, there were plenty of other mineral sources for his body... plenty!

Such anecdotal evidence is the source of many fables relative to diet and medicine.

The science ain't with him..."


Has science proven that it is not possible? I read that article from the WHO too, and they seem to have reason to believe there's a difference between soft and hard water, when it comes to one's health. There will be levels of susceptibility, as in all things, but will you dismiss out of hand, that report?

Science hasn't proven that consciousness is possible, though most of us will agree it seems likely.

I'm relating to you an experience I've had, Jim. What was it I was eating that would contribute "plenty"?
Do you know what I was eating? Are you familiar with my diet?

I'd suggest to you that your conclusions are based on very little information. I can't relate the whole story, and my observations in a simple post. So I boiled it down to a short, relatively concise, post.

I try not to discount your experiences, as I respect most of your posts, but my experience was certainly real. I'm not some hypochondriac, or excitable conspiracy theorist, it happened just as I said it did.

I know how argumentative CF can be, so when I say something that could be contentious; believe me, I've considered my facts before contributing.

Cheers.
Paul.

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by Thumbs Up

Grit said for certain that it made him sick.

True, that is what he said. Then he also stated "as I don't drink coffee, tea, alchohol, sodas or juice, as a rule"

Most yachties I know drink in no particular order, tea, coffee, wine, gin and beer. Sometimes in quantities that might not be good for them.

I think most of us eat and drink a diet that is pretty varied and therefore not a problem, other than perhaps too many cakes.

Perhaps the solution is a jug of Pimms with lots of fruit, one a day should do for the crew to avoid scurvy

[a64pilot]

“real” as in the RO unit my Father had for hemo dialysis if run through copper pipes or metal pipes in general over time will deteriorate those pipes.
The reason is pretty simple, water is the universal solvent, the purer the water is, the more solvent like its properties are.
Our watermakers output is no where near pure, In fact it’s awfully close to municipal water supplies, just without the chlorine and fluoride.
However I have wondered for a long time if our watermakers salt content isn’t much higher than normal drinking water, a measurement of TDS means total dissolved solids, it’s doesn’t differentiate what solids. Water from back home I’m certain the solids were mostly limestone (calcium carbonate).
But I’m pretty sure my watermakers solids mostly salt. So is a TDS of salt of say 300 PPM too high?

[mikedefieslife]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

But Thin, Ca and Mg are both found in many things that we all eat regularly. We don't depend upon our drinking water for our entire input of minerals, do we?

Jim

Exactly. Why worry about the magnesium in your drinking water measured in PPM when you get over 140mg from eating 100g of chocolate, or over 20mg from a 100g potato, and a similar amount from cheese, or nearly 30g in a banana.

Similar story with calcium. Pretty much anything you eat is going to eclipse the amount of minerals in water many many times over.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

But Thin, Ca and Mg are both found in many things that we all eat regularly. We don't depend upon our drinking water for our entire input of minerals, do we?

Jim

Read the studies. They were written by smart guys and cannot be dismissed as nonsense or non-science. You can, of course, disagree. Most municipal RO systems remineralize for this and for corrosion reasons.

In the studies it is explained that absorption is somehow different. Most municipal RO systems remineralize for this and for corrosion reasons.

These are NOT my ideas. I don't have a dog in the fight. I'm only sharing peer reviewed and globally accepted studies. It is interesting that no one has commented on the content of the reports, presumably because they did not read them. Isn't that strange? The OP asks if there is science and I provided the links. No one cares about the science?

"Although drinking water is not the major source of our calcium and magnesium intake, the health significance of supplemental intake of these elements from drinking water may outweigh its nutritional contribution expressed as the proportion of the total daily intake of these elements. Even in industrialized countries, diets deficient in terms of the quantity of calcium and magnesium, may not be able to fully compensate for the absence of calcium and, in particular, magnesium, in drinking water. For about 50 years, epidemiological studies in many countries all over the world have reported that soft water (i.e., water low in calcium and magnesium) and water low in magnesium is associated with increased morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease (CVD) compared to hard water and water high in magnesium. An overview of epidemiological evidence 153is provided by recent review articles (12-15) and summarized in other chapters of this monograph (Calderon and Craun, Monarca et al.). Recent studies also suggest that the intake of soft water, i.e. water low in calcium, may be associated with higher risk of fracture in children (16), certain neurodegenerative diseases (17), pre-term birth and low weight at birth (18) and some types of cancer (19, 20). In addition to an increased risk of sudden death (21-23), the intake of water low in magnesium seems to be associated with a higher risk of motor neuronal disease (24), pregnancy disorders (so-called preeclampsia) (25), and some cancers (26-29)."

[GRIT]

Originally Posted by mikedefieslife

Exactly. Why worry about the magnesium in your drinking water measured in PPM when you get over 140mg from eating 100g of chocolate, or over 20mg from a 100g potato, and a similar amount from cheese, or nearly 30g in a banana.

Similar story with calcium. Pretty much anything you eat is going to eclipse the amount of minerals in water many many times over.

So: 1400ppm in chocolate, 200ppm in a potato, and 300ppm in a banana.

The recommended daily allowance of magnesium is 400mg for a grown man.

Yes, but can you quantify how much our bodies absorb through these mediums, as compared to a liquid? And are minerals contained in "food" used in the same way as minerals absorbed through "drink"? Meaning, are they present in a form that's as readily absorbed as that in water? And how much of these minerals is absorbed by the RO water, as it passes through the intestines?

If I can get all the Magnesium I need through Chocolate, I assure you, a lack of Magnesium wasn't the problem.

Cheers.
Paul.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

...Our watermakers output is no where near pure, In fact it’s awfully close to municipal water supplies, just without the chlorine and fluoride....

No. The TDS is similar, but the distribution of minerals is completely different.