Yes, you can drink distilled water; it is safe. Distillation boils water into steam and condenses it back, leaving minerals and most contaminants behind, so what you drink is water with almost nothing else in it. The practical differences are taste and purpose: it tastes flat to most people, and it exists mainly for appliances and equipment, not for the dinner table.
What distillation removes
Boiling and recondensing leaves behind dissolved minerals, salts, metals and most other dissolved material, and the heat handles microorganisms along the way. Among the things removed are calcium and magnesium, the two dissolved minerals that the USGS definition of water hardness is built on, which is why distilled water is completely soft and leaves no scale. That property, not health, is the reason the jug exists: steam irons, humidifiers, CPAP machines and car batteries all want water that deposits nothing.
Why it tastes the way it does
The taste of ordinary water is mostly its minerals. Strip them and the result reads as flat or slightly odd to most palates, the same effect people notice with reverse osmosis water before a remineralizing stage. Nothing about the flatness is harmful; it is the flavor of absence. Some people never mind it, others cannot finish a glass. If you keep distilled water around for appliances, drinking it occasionally is a non-event either way.
Where it fits, and where it is the wrong buy
Distilled water makes sense wherever mineral deposits cause problems: appliance reservoirs, aquarium top-offs, mixing solutions that call for it. As an everyday drinking supply it is an expensive way to solve problems most taps do not have, and buying it by the jug forever costs more than treating your own water once. If flat-tasting, mineral-free water at every tap is somehow the goal, that is really a treatment question about your supply; and if what actually bothers you is scale and stiff laundry, a softener addresses the cause, as our water softener installation guide explains.
Questions people ask about can you drink distilled water
Is drinking distilled water bad for your teeth or bones?
No credible mechanism supports that worry at normal consumption. Diet supplies the minerals that matter; distilled water simply contributes none of them.
Is distilled water the same as purified or spring water?
No. Distilled means boiled and recondensed. Purified covers several methods including reverse osmosis, and spring water is groundwater bottled with its minerals intact.
Can I make distilled water at home?
Countertop distillers do exactly that, trading electricity and hours per gallon for jug independence. For drinking purposes, an RO system usually delivers similar water faster and cheaper.