When you first think about the tap water, you realize it may contain some impurities and contaminants, but you wouldn’t believe it can be so dangerous for your health. To convince you the tap water is not good for cooking, here are some arguments and a solution that can keep you safe and healthy.
Why is the tap water dangerous
- The municipality recycles the water people use, which means that your tap water is actually recycled water that has already been used before and has undergone a filtering process that hardly eliminates some of its impurities. Then, the water has been treated with chlorine in order to kill the bacteria and germs in it, which is the main reason the tap water has that strong chlorine smell.
- Even though the water coming through your pipes is not recycled and it comes from a well, it is filled with various pollutants and contaminants that make it very dangerous to your health. Tap water may be colorless, but it is full of residues and deposits that we can not see with the naked eye, but all these small particles can affect our health once the water reaches into our bodies.
- The pipes that transport the water are the very old, dirty and rusty, not to mention that most of them are made of lead, which is a very dangerous material that often gets into the water and then into our body. A high level of lead in the human body can cause serious damage on the brain, the nervous system, the blood’s red cells and the kidneys, so removing the lead from the tap water is an important aspect.
How does water interfere with your cooking
- The first time your food comes into contact with the tap water is when you wash the fruits, vegetables and meat that you will cook and this is also the first opportunity for the bacteria and contaminants in the water to get into your food. You can only avoid this situation by installing a water filter that will eliminate the deposits and contaminants in the tap water. By simply installing a small filter on your kitchen sink, you will benefit from pure drinking and cooking water. If you want a full protection, go for a whole house water filtration system which will deliver clean water to all your water sources, thus protecting you on the outside as well, since these contaminants can also affect our skin, our hair and our nails.
- If you need to use water to prepare your food, make sure you use cold water, as it contains less lead than the hot water, so if you think that you are saving time and gas by using hot water directly from the tap, you should reconsider. The best you can do is let the cold sit at room temperature for a few minutes before boiling it, to allow some gasses to evaporate.
- By boiling the water, some of the contaminants and residues will vanish, but this doesn’t mean that it will be completely safe to use for cooking. There are particles in the water that don’t disappear even during boiling and the only way you can get rid of the harmful bacteria, contaminants, heavy metals, gasses and other impurities in the water is by using a water filter. We recommend a whole house water filtration system. It is more expensive and more difficult to install. Nevertheless, it will pay off in a couple of years, since you will no longer have to buy bottled water. Moreover, such a system requires less maintenance than smaller filters.