Distilled Water Association

Water Education through Science and Engineering

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Distilled Water for Dogs, Yes With an Asterisk

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We want the best for Fido. Dogs are our best friends, our most loyal friends and of course, we want the best for them. We drink distilled water because that is, without a doubt, the best water a human can drink. But what about our furry friends with the wet nose? Is Distilled Water the best water they can drink?

Yes and No. And by the way, for a more exhaustive explanation, look at our article Distilled Water for Dogs. First, let’s talk about the bad stuff. Your dog’s diet is not as complete and diverse as the diet from a human. In fact, it can’t be. We all know what happens when we give a dog human food, also known as table food. The dog’s digestive system doesn’t process it very well, usually you can tell by your dog’s behavior (sickly, lethargic), by his stool (diarrhea), vomit, and in extreme cases death. If you give your dog nothing but distilled water, day in and day out, all day, every day, it’s likely to cause your dog some problems.

Now let’s talk about the good stuff. Pure water actually helps cleanse the body, not just of humans, but of some pets as well, including dogs. It may even help prevent infections in the urinary system of the dog. So, definitely distilled water is good for dogs as long as it’s given in moderation. A couple of time as week of distilled water should be OK for most dogs.

The other days of the week, you can still give your dog distilled water but you’ll have to add minerals, which is pretty simple. Distilled water with minerals is way better than any other kind of water because it kills two birds in one shot. One the one hand you have clean water that has been stripped of all the bad stuff: contaminants, chemicals, impurities, etc, etc. All components that over time may make you and your pet sick. On the other hand, by adding minerals to water you now have water that’s clean and pure and it only contains the good nutrients, the minerals, which are essential for everyone.

Now most healthy humans get all of their minerals and nutrients from food so, you don’t have to add minerals if you don’t want to for your own consumption, but for your dog and other pets, you’ll have to add it most of the times. You can add minerals to your own water if you prefer the taste, if you want the extra minerals (hey, it makes you healthier!), or if you workout a lot and need to replace your “fake” sports drinks with your own re-hydrating water; you can even add some citruses and make your own flavored super healthy sports drink.

Speaking of working out, if you have a very active dog, a dog you take for long walks or who runs around the yard frequently, adding minerals to his distilled water will help him re-hydrate quickly as well, it will work wonders for the health of your pet.

Why You Need to Add Minerals to Reverse Osmosis Water

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Reverse Osmosis water (ro) is pure and clean, scientifically speaking, it’s almost as pure and clean as Distilled Water, which means to the average person, both types of water are essentially equivalent to each other. So why ruin something so clean and pure? Why Would you want to add minerals to a water that’s completely clean and pure?

Several reasons, it turns out. And we’re writing this article thinking you already know about Adding Minerals to Reverse Osmosis Water so we’ll just concentrate on why you have to do it. Actually, let us be clear, you don’t have to do it if you’re a healthy person. If you’re not at the top of your game, you may want to consider adding it to your water.

Let’s talk about what reverse osmosis and distilled water are. They are types of water so pure, that everything has been removed from them. You cannot notice this when you shower or turn on the faucet but normal water that comes into your home has many impurities in it that are obviously invisible to the naked eye. A common impurity found in many parts of the world is calcium. After many times in the shower, you’ll notice in the shower head white residue forming to the point that if you don’t clean it, water has a difficult time coming out from it. Imagine that having to go through your kidneys! Not a good scene to look at…

But, when you have a super high level of water filtration, like Reverse Osmosis and Distilled water, everything is gone from the water. And that leaves us with a small problem. What if you’re a person with a compromised immune system or what if you’re drinking nothing but water as part of your fasting diet, can you still drink pure water? Well, the issue is that, since you’re not consuming enough foods to give you all the minerals that you need (which is the way normal people get all of their minerals and nutrients), then drinking a liquid that also has no nutrients and minerals can leave you severely malnourished.

So, that’s why you would need to add minerals into your water. Because all the good stuff has been removed through these two specific types of water filtration systems and you’re not getting the normal nutrients you would get through foods, like a normal person would, then you’re having to add all the good stuff back into the water.

There are also a couple more reasons why you would want to add minerals to water, for instance, if you’re an athlete and want to avoid drinking those high sodium, high sugar, power drinks, then maybe you want to make your own drink. Another example might be just taste; maybe you simply don’t like the taste of clean water after growing up with water that has high minerals (and other impurities).

Luckily, adding minerals to RO water is easy. Pour some water into a gallon container and drop a few drops to enjoy your mineralized water.

How to Add Minerals to RO water

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Minerals can easily and cheaply be added to any water, including distilled and reverse osmosis water

Reverse Osmosis water also known as RO water is among the cleanest types of water you can drink. Scientifically slightly less pure than distilled water but for all practical purposes it’s virtually the same thing. Clean, pure, water comes with a tradeoff: the removal of everything, including the good stuff, like minerals. It’s natural that after stripping everything from the water some people want to add minerals back into it. For everything about the minerals themselves, please read How to Add Minerals to RO Water. Here will concentrate on how to actually add the minerals once you already have them in your possession.

The first thing to consider is that most mineral supplements for water are designed to be mixed in large quantities of water (usually one gallon, or about 4 liters). That means you can’t really just turn on the faucet, fill up your glass, and add a drop of minerals concentrate.

If you do, the first thing you’ll notice is a very strong (unpleasant) taste, not just salty (even if most brands of minerals concentrate contain low sodium), but you may also detect too strong of a taste (some people have described it as metallic, while other people say it tastes grainy).

There could also be some serious health problems if you drink too many minerals. The mineral brands available in the market are designed specifically to be soluble over several liters of water; depending on the brand, it could be anywhere between 1 and 8 drops per gallon. One gallon is 16 glasses of water. So, if you put one drop into one glass you’re taking about 16 times the recommended amount. If you’re working out and sweating profusely, then that’s probably not a problem to drink it but if you’re just going about your day and you take consistently 16 times the recommended dosage, that could be harmful. Look, even broccoli in high dosage is bad for you… everything good in life is supposed to be taken with measure.

Another thing to understand is that you can’t just add minerals to RO water and expect it to be ready to be consumed the second you pour those minerals, it’s not exactly coolaid. There’s a waiting period where the minerals need to be allowed to be dissolved into the water.

So, the solution is to fill up at least one gallon in a jug, and put the minerals in the jug. Then let it rest for 30 minutes or so. It’s best if you do Not put the water jug in the fridge prior to adding the minerals otherwise it will take longer for them to dissolve in the water. The warmer the water, the faster the minerals will mix with the liquid. After that, you can enjoy it anyway you like: either leave it out and drink it at room temperature or put it in the fridge to let it cool and enjoy it cold. By the way, you’re not forced to just drink the water as is. You can treat RO water like any other water; make coffee, tea, etc, etc.

Reasons for Adding Minerals to Reverse Osmosis Water

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There are many types of brands of mineral providers and to make manners more complicated, there are dozens up dozens of different types of minerals themselves. No need to worry, we got you covered in our article Adding Minerals to Reverse Osmosis Water. In this article, we’re going to talk about some of the reasons why you may want to consider adding minerals to Reverse Osmosis (RO) water.

To Add Taste

The number one reason people add minerals to their RO water is that they want to change the taste of the water. Many people have grown up drinking either municipal water (aka from the faucet) or bottled water (which could also mean spring water). Those kinds of water contain impurities, including minerals. In fact, depending on where you live, the water from the faucet might taste a lot of different than the water in a different city or town. Some people are just used to the flavor. Some people love their local water taste and can’t get used to a new taste. The same is true if you go from mineral water to no-mineral water, like Reverse Osmosis or Distilled Water. Your taste buds want some of those minerals and impurities. You don’t want to add the bad kind of impurities, like bacteria, feces, and contaminants that are found in some municipal water systems but adding minerals is definitely a solution if you’re trying to get your taste buds inline.

To Recover after a Heavy Workout

When you workout or exercise, you sweat and among other things, you lose some vital nutrients. We’re all familiar with sport drinks that are designed to re-hydrate you. Some of those sports drinks may have too much of one kind of mineral (like sodium) while at the same time containing too much sugar. Some people opt to make their own sports drinks by adding their own concoction of minerals. It feels great knowing what you’re putting inside your body and knowing you’re drinking super pure water like RO or Distilled, and you know the exact minerals you’re adding (and more important, the amounts you’re adding).

When You’re Low on Minerals because of a Specific Diet

We all know most people get all of the minerals and nutrients they need from food sources alone and so adding minerals to Reverse Osmosis doesn’t really make sense. However, some people may be under a special diet and that may mean eating less nutrients than a normal person would normally ingest from food sources alone. A good alternate (especially when comparing prices) to make up for the loss of nutrients is to add minerals to your RO water. Some people decide also they want to go on a fasting diet… if you’re drinking nothing but RO or distilled water after several dies you might start getting really sick (even die!) because you’re literally not getting any nutrients at all, your fuel tank is literally running on empty. The solution is to add minerals so you’re at least getting something (and you might even consider putting more minerals than the lower bound recommendation).

Adding Minerals to Reverse Osmosis Water

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Minerals can easily and cheaply be added to any water, including distilled and reverse osmosis water

People often ask how to add minerals to Reverse Osmosis Water after we explain to them how to add minerals to distilled water. The answer is the same. In fact, any kind of water, not just distilled or Reverse Osmosis can be remineralized in the same way. We have the full article on Adding Minerals to Reverse Osmosis Water which is in general directed on the various types of minerals you can put into distilled water so in this article we’ll explain the subtle difference between the two systems.

If you’re used to having a Reverse Osmosis (RO) water system you’re probably used to just filling your glass of water directly from the faucet. Very convenient indeed. The inconvenience comes with trying to add the minerals to the system.

We know reverse osmosis uses several filters under high pressures to spit out water that has virtually no impurities and virtually no minerals. It’s an almost instantaneous process with the only drawback being the expense of changing the filters every so often.

So, if you were to add minerals at any point in the process, you can be certain those minerals won’t make it out of the system and into your glass of water. So, what do you do? Well, you can’t just add the mineral drops to your glass of water because of two reasons. First, each drop, depending on the brand and type of mineral additive you use, is usually good for a whole a whole gallon, that’s about 16 glasses. So, if you put one drop into one glass, your glass of water is going to taste probably very sour, not just salty. Second, you need to let the drops of minerals actually mix in the water, and, once again, that depends on the minerals and brand you’re purchasing. Most of the time, after one drop, you need to let it set in the water for 30 mins or so.

So let’s go through the actual simple and easy steps. From the faucet where you get your Reverse Osmosis water (ro water), fill out a pitcher (at least one gallon), then simply add minerals according to your liking. One or two drops of minerals should be enough. If you’re making an energy drink, you may consider adding a lot more (you can look at the mineral content of various sports drinks, like Gatorade, and then do some quick math on how many drops need to be added to the water).

It’s also dependent on taste. Some people are used to the taste you get from water bottles or the water faucet at home (aka municipal water) and so it requires some trial and error to figure out the right proportion of drops to water to use. The tricky thing is that, for example, if you add one drop to one gallon and you don’t like the taste but then you add 2 drops and realize it’s too strong of a flavor, then how do you split one drop in two? The solution would be to get 3 gallons of water and put two drops. And you might still not like it then!