Replacing Vitamins and Minerals in De-Sal Water

[PADISail]

I read here a while back that a steady 'diet' of WaterMaker water with the minerals and vitamins leeched out of it is NOT healthy - I guess our bodies need those, as it will eventually cause bone deficiency and other physical maladies.

Where should I look for equipment to re-inject these items back into the De-salinated water ? Preferably automatically into the 'drinking water' path ?

[AndyEss]

How about popping a multi-vitamin/mineral supplement several times a week instead of building new injection systems? KISS baby KISS

[bstreep]

Don't worry about it. It's an internet myth. RO/DI water, from a home system, runs 0-5ppm. Rainwater, 5-10ppm. Typical watermaker? 300-400ppm. People have been drinking rainwater for centuries without adverse effects. You get plenty of minerals in your diet, unless you have an unusual diet.

[S/V Adeline]

From what I have read, if you rely on drinking water for calcium and magnesium (ie: not supplied by the foods you eat) you should re-mineralize the water.
thewatergeeks.com have tips on how to do this using various methods (one of which seems to be an inline filter)

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by PADISail

I read here a while back that a steady 'diet' of WaterMaker water with the minerals and vitamins leeched out of it is NOT healthy - I guess our bodies need those, as it will eventually cause bone deficiency and other physical maladies.

I believe that we (should) get the vast majority of the vitamins and minerals from the food we eat. I don't know that we get a whole lot from drinking water... except for water. Vitamin H2O.

If you're in the situation where your food supply is less than optimum - eg offshore for an extended period - then a daily multivitamin would help.

[john61ct]

The "leaching" argument is in unrealistic unhealthy malnutrition conditions.

With a normally varied healthy diet completely unworthy of concern.

[S/V Adeline]

Sorry for a second post that conflicts with the first, but I just did some googly searches and believe it might be a misconception. The WHO claims that inorganic minerals found in water (removed by RO membrane) are actually of little use and can be bad for humans. In a nutshell, it says our bodies are designed to absorb minerals derived from the soil, via plants that we consume or animals that consumed the plants for us.
So, there is a market to replace minerals removed from water, but the WHO says it's snake oil.

[bstreep]

Originally Posted by S/V Adeline

So, there is a market to replace minerals removed from water, but the WHO says it's snake oil.

Shocking, isn't it? Someone making something up on the internet, that isn't true, yet sells something to "fix" it!

[S/V Adeline]

Originally Posted by bstreep

Shocking, isn't it? Someone making something up on the internet, that isn't true, yet sells something to "fix" it!

Snake oil has always had its market. I am embarrassed that my research on making a DIY watermaker didn't involve more research on the mineral side of it. I briefly scanned over a page or two that said if we used it we might consider vitamins and never thought more on it.
If you think about it, did they really make anything up?
Your body needs calcium and magnesium - true
RO process removes them from the water - true
They just didn't mention the minerals removed were not the form you body needs (and may in fact be harmful)
I believe I, like many others, made assumptions that they hoped I would make. ::

[a64pilot]

The bottom line is there are RO units and water makers.
A good RO unit like the one my Father had to use for his hemodialysis made water at or near 0 ppm, it would actually leech metals from piping it was so pure, the municipal water here in Jacksonville tests about low 200’s, my Watermaker when desalinating sea water, it’s output tests low 200’s.

Now admittedly I assume the water here has as a contaminant mostly calcium carbonate as it comes from a limestone aquifer, while I assume my water makers contaminant is mostly sodium chloride.

[tarian]

MMM ok peeps water does not contain vitamins never has never will all your vitamin needs will come through eating food produce or derivatives off, or in the case of mineral content this is also probmatic as what water are you talking about ?mineral water as defined by the bottled maufacture and is bottled, comes through rocks and soil that filter the water in which the minerals are added but not all rocks and soil are equal EVIAN OR VOLVIC will have different mineral contents because the water falls through diffrent rocks so diffrent minerals Rain water contains very little mineral content or nitrates as most water we drink say from streams and rivers etc when we were cave men would then pick up minerals along the way. So water from your tap may have added mineral content or chemicals put there by the water companies to help tooth decay etc but not to give you a healthly diet.
So desalinated water is great it is the purest form of H2O and will taste great , get your vitamin and mineral fix through your food diet and dont listen to anyone else

[Captjohn4]

We have a water maker on board and used it exclusively on a 7 month trip through the Caribbean. Before we left my wife and I had full physicals (I am 75 she is 60) and complete blood work to check all levels. Good advice for anyone going to be away for along time. My doctor recommended a multivitamin daily. He understands the loss of minerals due to RO water.

Happy Sailing

John

[mjgill1]

We use this at home. It remineralizes the water and bumps the ph up just a bit.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Dsanduril]

Actually, the WHO has a mixed opinion on RO and demineralisation. There are a number of papers on WHO's website about the potentially serious risks of drinking demineralised water and balancing this with the fact that RO is generally pretty good at removing viruses and cysts that are frequently not dealt with by sterilisation techniques. Since the WHO's remit is overall health they come down on the side that removal of harmful pathogens generally outweighs the risks from demineralisation in places where access to clean drinking water is poor, but that it can be a significant risk in countries with developed clean water systems.

The critical piece, for sailing cruisers using seawater RO is that nearly all of this research is done on freshwater that has been RO treated. That generally results in TDS < 5ppm and nearly complete demineralisation. For those of us using RO on seawater, with a very best effort TDS of 100ppm, and usually several hundred ppm this research simply doesn't apply - we don't produce demineralised water as defined in all of the various research - the water produced by seawater RO is comparable in most measurements to a moderate quality land-based drinking water.

[roland stockham]

The minerals in water are definitly nutritionally insignificant, there are no vitamins. Taste however is effected. If you want to change the softness of the water (DS watter like rainwater is very soft) the best bet is the local hombrew shop. You can buy mineral addatives designed to match the composition of pure water to various springs made famous by traditional British bitters. Well you can in the UK and probably online.