If you drink it 100% of the time, it can be, long term, bad for you because your metabolism will slow, your urine production may increase, and that may deplete your electrolytes. So, long term, it’s not a real wise idea to drink distilled water (exclusively).

If you drink it from time to time, and also drink other waters, juices, etc., then there’s practically no risk at all.

Yes, It’s 100% fine
A lot of what you may hear with people doing the water diet (I know you’re not asking about water diet but I’ll get relevant in a sec) getting sick is because they aren’t doing it right.
With distilled water, it can clean out your body. Cleansing it. Things that can throw it off and be bad is drinking a bunch all at once, for too long, etc. Going back to the water diet, that’s a thing that people do for 14 days where they only drink distilled water and spring water and don’t eat, in order to totally cleanse their body.. they gradually drink more and more. But, after doing the diet, they stop for a good year, year and a half. They do this process of drinking gradually plus stopping for the following reasons(and to answer your question):

Drinking it suddenly, all at once without a gradual build-up shocks your system

It can mess with pH which is why you’d also drink spring water

It can cause vitamin/mineral plus other deficiencies

It does cleanse your system so you do need to give it time to replenish a bit

here’s a link talking more about the benefits and drawbacks

Even though distilled water might be slightly acidic, your stomach is much more so. Your stomach can handle it (normally*), esp. since the water will dilute your stomach acid and reduce the acidity there. But don’t drink too much of any kind of water. That will disrupt your electrolytes and might kill you. It has happened to many people before.

*I can’t drink plain water when I have a stomach flu. I have to drink Gatorade.

The pH of distilled water in theory would be 7, but can vary, typically 5.6 to 7. But other water can vary even more, in general, and other things we drink regularly vary much more, even up to pH 2. So yes, distilled water is safe to drink.

pH = 0 => Battery Acid which is very strong Hydroflouric Acid
pH = 1 => Hydrochloric Acid secreted by stomach lining
pH = 2 => Lemon Juice, Gastric Acid, Vinegar
pH = 3 => Grapefruit Juice, Orange Juice, Soda
pH = 4 => Tomato Juice, Acid Rain
pH = 5 => Soft Drinking Water, Black Coffee
pH = 6 => Urine, Saliva
pH = 7 => “Pure” Water
pH = 8 => Sea Water
pH = 9 => Baking Soda
pH = 10 => Great Salt Lake, Milk of Magnesia
pH = 11 => Amonia Solution
pH = 12 => Soapy Water
pH = 13 => Bleach, Oven Cleaner
pH = 14 => Liquid Drain Cleaner such as “Draino”
(chart from http://osumex.com/_whatisph.php)

Hmm, nothing above 7 or below 3 looks appetizing to drink.

DRINK THE ACID RAIN

I found this to be an interesting question, and one that I hadn’t previously thought much about, so I did a little research of my own to find this article.

Apparently the best answer for health is “to drink the purest water that you can” which will naturally be slightly acidic – and that’s a generally good thing, as explained in the article.

I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for the question.

We’ve been drinking RO water at home for years. So far, so good.

Actually, it’s not the acidity that concerned me, since I am aware that the stomach environment is a lot more acidic. But I was wondering if my fellow jellies knew about potential harmful health effects, like due to dilution of electrolytes, maybe?
Now, I’m not talking about drinking distilled water exclusively, for your normal daily allotment of 8 cups. 2 or 3 cups is more like what I had in mind.

You need to eat a balanced diet so that you replenish your minerals and electrolytes. Potassium from bananas, etc. Don’t worry about salt. Food in America has more than enough.

@2davidc8 – no problems with your plan

Yes! It is safe! 100% safe. It is pure H2O!

@varushka – some of the expensive water websites claim that distilled water will demineralize the body. Probably true if one ingests only distilled water. Healthy foods generally have enough minerals etc. to make up for it.