Best drinking water

Before any question of therapy comes a simpler one: what should you drink every day, and how much?

Most adults do well on somewhere between two and three litres of total fluid a day, more in Kolkata's summer, more again if you work outdoors or physically. Thirst is a reasonable guide for most healthy people. Pale straw-coloured urine generally suggests you are drinking enough; dark yellow suggests you are not.

The distilled water argument

This site has long carried material on distilled water, and in 2012 Andrew Norton Webber described it on These Changing Timez Radio as the best site on the subject. The case its advocates make is that distilled water is free of dissolved solids, chlorine, fluoride, agricultural runoff and industrial contamination, and that the body is better served drawing its minerals from food rather than from water.

There is a real counter-argument and readers should have it. Long-term exclusive consumption of demineralised water has been examined by the World Health Organization, which has raised concerns about low-mineral water and mineral balance. Drinking water contributes meaningfully to calcium and magnesium intake in some populations. If you drink distilled water exclusively, you need to be confident your diet is genuinely supplying those minerals.

My own view is that the quality of what you drink matters a great deal and that most people think about it far too little. Whether distillation is the right answer for you is a question worth taking seriously rather than settling from a website — including this one.

Practical points

Drink at room temperature rather than iced, particularly with meals. Ayurveda is firm on this and ordinary digestion tends to agree.
Sipping through the day suits the body better than large volumes at once.
Drinking a large quantity during a meal dilutes digestion. Before or well after is better.
Store water in copper or clay if you can. It is a long tradition and it keeps water cool without refrigeration.
Whatever the source, know what it is. Municipal supply, borewell, RO and bottled water are all different products with different problems.

Please read this first

This site is a personal account and a record of traditional practice, shared for information. It is not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and not a treatment for any disease. I am not a doctor.

If you are unwell — and especially if you have a serious illness such as cancer, diabetes or heart disease — please stay under the care of a qualified physician. Nothing here should replace or delay that care.