Drinking distilled water is safe, and for most households it is also unnecessary. It removes dissolved minerals along with contaminants, which makes it useful when you have a specific problem to solve and pointless when you do not. The question worth asking is what you are trying to avoid, and whether distilling is the cheapest way to avoid it.
Find out what you are actually avoiding
Most people switch to distilled water because they distrust what comes out of the tap, not because they measured anything. If you are on a community water system, that utility publishes an annual Consumer Confidence Report of what was detected, and the EPA maintains a finder for it. Read yours before committing to a lifetime of buying or boiling. Very often the report shows the thing you feared is not present, and the real complaint is chlorine taste, which a carbon filter fixes for a fraction of the effort.
What daily distilled water is actually like
It tastes flat, because taste in water comes largely from dissolved minerals and there are almost none left. Coffee and tea made with it are noticeably duller, and many people go back to filtered water for that reason alone. A home distiller runs in batches over hours and uses electricity as heat, so producing everything a household drinks is a chore. Buying it by the jug is worse: you carry plastic home every week for water your own tap could provide with a filter.
When it is genuinely the right call
It makes sense as a stopgap while a real contamination problem is being fixed, when a doctor has recommended low-mineral water for a specific condition, or where a device manual calls for it. It is also reasonable if you rent, cannot plumb anything, and want treated water without installing equipment. Those are real cases and they are narrower than the marketing suggests. If you plan to drink it indefinitely, treat it as a considered decision, not a default upgrade.
The alternative most households end up with
Carbon filtration for taste and chlorine, or a reverse osmosis system for a broad range of dissolved contaminants, gives you treated water on tap without a batch process. Reverse osmosis water is close to distilled in mineral content, and a remineralizing cartridge takes the flatness off if that bothers you. Whichever you choose, base it on a test rather than a worry. Our well water testing guide covers ordering a panel if you are not on a municipal supply.
Questions people ask about is it good to drink distilled water
Is it good to drink distilled water instead of tap water?
It is safe, but usually unnecessary. A carbon filter or reverse osmosis system solves most tap water complaints with far less daily effort.
Will distilled water leach minerals from my body?
That claim is not supported. Drinking water is a small part of mineral intake compared with food, which is where calcium and magnesium mostly come from.
Why does distilled water taste flat?
Taste in water comes largely from dissolved minerals and dissolved gases, and distillation removes nearly all of them, leaving very little for the palate.
Can I make coffee with distilled water?
You can, but extraction suffers without some mineral content, so most coffee guidance recommends filtered water with a trace of mineral instead.