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TIL why you're not supposed to cook or drink hot tap water - it's the lead (and other heavy metals) (www.epa.gov)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/til@lemmy.ca
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Hot water dissolves lead more quickly than cold water and is therefore more likely to contain greater amounts of lead. Never use water from the hot water tap for drinking, cooking, or making baby formula.

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[–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Okay so this might be a weird question but, what's the difference between undissolved lead and dissolved lead? Like, if there's undissolved lead in cold water isn't that still a problem? Why is it dangerous (or more dangerous) if it's dissolved?

Clarification edit: Because you heat the water in your own home, so the lead would be still coming in through the supply, right?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    The difference is that solid lead stays in the pipe and doesn't get to you, the dissolution matters because the lead from the pipe dissolving is how it gets in the water in the first place. You aren't really making any lead that was already in the water worse, but a lot of people live in older houses that have lead pipes or copper pipes with lead solder. If your house doesn't have these, then it's really not an issue.

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