You’d think grabbing a gallon of distilled water would be the safest, most boring purchase you could make at the grocery store. There’s no need to debate with yourself on what flavor to purchase and scrutinize the ingredients for questionable additives.
It turns out that assumption just got a lot murkier for Midwest shoppers, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration officially announced on January 8, 2026, that it is tracking an ongoing recall involving thousands of gallons of distilled water sold in plastic jugs after a foreign substance was found inside some containers.
The recall affects 38,043 gallons of Meijer Steam Distilled Water packaged in 1-gallon plastic jugs. According to the FDA, the water may contain a floating black substance. The agency has not yet assigned a classification to the recall, which would determine how serious the health risk may be.
What Shoppers Need to Know
Meijer initiated the recall on Nov. 13, 2025. The affected jugs have red caps and can be identified by the barcode, UPC 041250841197, a “best by” date of Oct. 4, 2026, and lot code 39-222 #3. The product ID is listed as 472859, with Meijer item code 477910.
The recalled water was sold at Meijer stores across six Midwest states: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
The FDA said consumers should not drink or use the water. Customers can discard the product or return it to a Meijer store for a full refund or replacement. No additional details were released about the source of the contamination, but the FDA said the recall remains under review.
The Stakes Are Higher with Distilled Water
Unlike spring or purified drinking water, distilled water serves specific medical purposes where purity isn’t optional, but critical. The CDC explicitly warns people to use only distilled, sterile, or boiled water in neti pots for sinus rinses because tap water can harbor brain-eating amoebas.
CPAP machine manufacturers strongly recommend it for the use of humidifier chambers that help sleep apnea patients breathe at night. Tap water use in this case causes mineral buildup that could damage the equipment and create bacterial growth. The same goes for humidifiers and other medical devices.
Essentially, when you buy distilled water, you’re specifically paying for purity. It’s supposed to be water stripped down to H2O and nothing else. So when “floating black foreign substance” shows up in a product marketed as the cleanest water you can buy, it defeats the entire reason people reach for distilled water in the first place.
Sources: FDA, allrecipes