Why You Should Boil Your Drinking Water

[Brian]

I just heard this, and it makes more sense than anything else I’ve heard:

It’s not (usually) bacteria, it’s because the mineral content is so high that it causes kidney stones. If you boil the water briefly some of the minerals will precipitate, making it safer for daily consumption. Go looks at your shower head and you should see evidence of this.

[Ben]

I have googled this one before.

There is no link between mineral content (water hardness) and kidney stones.

[Charlie]

TIL that hard water is pretty safe in general.

[PingZhu]

I always feel suspicious whether the bottled water they deliver is really pure water or mineral water as they claim. And the water machine can be really dirty if it is not cleaned regularly. So boiled water is a better option for me

[les]

given the chlorine, etc. added to tap water, bacteria is probably not a concern however, if you are concerned about heavy metals (lead, etc.) know that simply boiling water does not remove them – worse is that the pure water is lost via the boiling (steam) thus after boiling you are left with a higher concentration of metals to water than you started with!

you can purchase a water filtration system that is fitted on your sink (replete with its own tap) or if you could find one of those jugs that has a filter fitted on it (brita is a brand that i bought at “HOLA” on hangkong road that is pretty good). problem here is that over time you will have to go out and buy mineral supplements as you will get no minerals via that filter.

for the record, when the guy came to install the water filtration system i made him test several of the commercial brands of water commonly sold (ie. nongfu spring, cestbon) and they were actually pretty clean.

[Author]

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