Distilled water is safe to drink. Boiling water to steam and condensing it back leaves behind minerals, salts, metals and most contaminants, so what you are left with is about as pure as household water gets. The real questions are what it tastes like, what it costs you in convenience, and whether it is the right tool for your problem.
What distillation actually removes
Steam carries almost nothing with it, so dissolved solids, heavy metals such as lead and arsenic, nitrate, fluoride and hardness minerals all stay behind in the boiling chamber. Bacteria and other organisms do not survive the process. The gap in the method is volatile compounds that boil at or below the temperature of water, which can travel with the steam unless the distiller includes a carbon post-filter, which is why most household distillers have one.
Why it tastes flat
The USGS defines hardness as dissolved calcium and magnesium, and those are exactly the minerals distillation takes out. Along with dissolved gases, they are what gives ordinary drinking water its taste. Remove them and what remains reads as flat or empty to most people. Aerating distilled water by pouring it between jugs restores some of that, and some households add a remineralizing cartridge. None of this is a safety issue: it is the reason many people dislike drinking distilled water day to day.
The mineral question in context
Drinking water contributes only a small share of typical dietary calcium and magnesium compared with food, and public health bodies have not set a minimum mineral content for drinking water. If your diet is reasonable, distilled water is not depriving you of anything meaningful. If you have a specific medical condition or are advised on mineral intake, that is a conversation for your doctor rather than a water treatment decision, and this site does not give health advice.
Where a distiller fits, and where it does not
A countertop distiller is slow, uses electricity to boil every batch, and produces small volumes, which makes it a good answer for drinking and cooking water in a house with a difficult supply, and a poor answer for whole-house treatment. If your issue is hardness scaling the appliances, distillation does nothing for the water reaching them and a softener is the correct system. If your issue is dissolved contaminants at the kitchen tap, reverse osmosis usually delivers the same outcome faster and without the power draw.
Questions people ask about is it safe to drink distilled water
Is it safe to drink distilled water long term?
Yes for a normally fed household. Drinking water supplies only a small share of dietary minerals, and no health authority sets a minimum mineral content for it.
Why does distilled water taste flat?
Distillation removes the dissolved minerals and gases that give water its taste. Aerating it or adding a remineralizing cartridge restores some of the flavor.
Is distilled water better than reverse osmosis water?
They end up similar in purity. Reverse osmosis produces more, faster, without electricity to boil; a distiller needs no drain line and copes with almost any feed water.