What RO water actually is

RO water is water with almost everything dissolved in it removed. That includes the contaminants you wanted gone, and the calcium, magnesium, potassium and useful trace minerals that were dissolved alongside them. The result is safe, clean and close to empty.

The overstated argument

You will see claims that demineralised water "pulls" minerals out of the body. This gets repeated a great deal online, usually without a source attached. Your body regulates mineral balance through diet and kidney function, and a glass of low-mineral water is not a meaningful threat to that.

The understated argument

The opposite position — that water minerals are irrelevant — misses three things.

First, availability. Your body cannot produce minerals, that is a fact. So, it is dependent on the food and water you intake to fulfill its mineral needs. The food that we eat is low on mineral content mainly due to soil depletion and modern farming methods, something which is not in our control. Water minerals become all the more important owing to this fact.

Secondly, quantity. Water is not a marginal part of the diet. Several liters a day, every day, is a meaningful volume, and small contributions across a large volume are not nothing. Water is a modest mineral source in most diets, not a zero one.

Thirdly, taste. Dissolved minerals are what give water body and flavour. Their absence is why RO water tastes flat, and flat water is water people drink less of. If a purifier quietly reduces how much your household drinks, that matters more than any mineral figure.

Adding M-Shot to your water gives you the macro, micro and trace minerals your body needs, while improvising the taste of the water as well.

So: do you need to?

You do not need to remineralise in the sense that you will come to harm otherwise. But if RO is your household's main drinking water, restoring minerals is a change that improves the taste and puts back something the purifier removed which is essential for you and your family’s wellbeing.

How to do it

The practical options are a mineral cartridge, an alkaline filter, or concentrated mineral drops like M-Shot. Our guide to RO water remineralisation compares all three.