My still is stainless.  I can produce water as low as 0.4 PPM and typically
about 0.7 microS.  There can’t be much iron or nickel in the water.  There
are many kinds of stainless steel, each with different characteristics.
“Surgical” stainless does not release much into distilled water. DW is very
aggressive compared with water with even a small amount of solute.

James-Osbourne: Holmes

-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Nolan [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2001 6:58 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: CS>Stainless dangerous?

In digest #935 "Environmental toxins and plastics....", wolfcreek1 wrote:
"On all the holistic animal health discussion lists I'm on and according to
our homeopathic vet, one is never to feed or water an animal in plastic,
aluminium, or galvanized materials.  Same goes for humans.  The plastics and
PVC's leach out the materials they were made with, thereby contaminating our
liquids and foods. It used to be stainless steel and glass were the only
things you could cook
with, now I understanding stainless leaches cooper and nickel when heated,
which can lead to toxicity of these minerals."

For sure there is a justifiable concern when it comes to using aluminium
cookware, but stainless steel? Are there actual studies showing significant
levels of leached copper or nickel? Are we talking atoms per litre? Don't
people wear copper bracelets as an arthritis aid, and for that matter, is
there any copper in SS? How many homeopaths/naturopaths that warn against
using something as proven inert as SS, also sell or recommend some brand of
"colloidal minerals" that, if you read the list, contain small but
detectable levels of lead, mercury, cadmium, aluminium, arsenic, thorium,
uranium (yes, uranium!), and more goodies like those? In far greater amounts
than any trace coming off SS implements. Seems to be a certain consistency
problem among some alternative health advisers! Guilt by association in the
area of plastics is another problem - how does plasticiser-filled PVC make
an inert plastic like HDPE dangerous? All plastics are not created equal.
Let's not go overboard, folks.

regards, Kevin Nolan