Rainwater

[corndog-44]

Collecting rainwater in the wilderness is an easy way to get drinking water. But, is it safe to drink? Also, how can you make-up for missing minerals in rainwater?

[Rick]

You bet it's safe. Many countries rely solely on collected rainwater as did one of my grandfathers. Rain does, of course, clean the sky of pollutants and that is, in turn, collected as your rain water but unless you live near a heavily populated area (and you said wilderness) then there should be no reason not to drink it. As for the lack of minerals, if you are eating a healthy diet then that should not be a problem.

If you think about it, all water was rainwater at some point.:rolleyes:

[MedicineWolf]

I agree with Rick, but if near a populated area just boil the water.

[Rick]

Well, I don't know. Boiling may shed the water of some chemicals depending on the chemical's boiling point but it won't get rid of heavy metals. About the only way you could remove them is to strain the water with a filter design to remove metals (0.9 microns absolute I think) or distrill it.

[Tony uk]

Rain water is perfectly fine to drink (Unlees like the other posts you are in a populated area in which case is there not running or bottled water soled there?)

All rainwater is, Is water that has been heated to boiling point and then turning to stem it went into the cool atmoshpere where it condensed into water droplets

[wareagle69]

out of anything in the wilds the rain water would be the safest w/o boiling the fish are full of mercury only supposed to eat a couple of them a month the wild edibles can be full of chemicals leeching into the ground which in turn gets into the game that you eat, out of all that i think the rain is the safest but as joe diffie says "they sream into the night we got one life to live lets get it over with.

[Rick]

I've always believed we are not destroying the planet, only our ability to live on it. one hundred thousand years from now, the planet will be just fine and we'll probably be less than some memory of an old itch it had to scratch....and we have a brain (he said ironically).

[RBB]

When we lived in Alaska, all our drinking water came off our roof, though the rain gutters, and into a cistern. Great water, and none of us were ever sick - the entire time we lived there. The cistern also doubled as refrigeration.

[Nativedude]

All of my drinking water comes from either rain/snow run-off from my roof trough or from the river outside of my cabin. The river water I distill and bottle up. The run-off is stored in 6 - 55 gal oak casks (old wine barrels), which I bought in CA.