[the__alchemist]

It sometimes does feel like a challenge. Including dimensions other than the work/life balance causing stresses.

I'm 37 years old. Last weekend, I found out cooking with and drinking tap water set to hot mode is hella bad for you! Leeches heavy metals, brews bacteria, the works. I've been doing that every day for coffee, tea, pasta etc my whole adult life. Oops?

[polotics]

Depending on how your tap water is made hot, drinking it may be ok: if you have an electrically heated tube-coil that warms the water just as it is flowing, or if you have an heat-pump system also with a last-second water-heating flow through the heat-buffer. Then you are ok. Any hot water that is kept a while before it goes out the tap, you should not drink. Also of course it must then be kept above 50C, or you've got a serious bacteria risk. This is assuming the plumbing is not lead, but who the hell has leaded plumbing still?

[tommoor]

You've been drinking hot water from the tap your whole life?

[lowercased]

as opposed to...? Are you meaning just "hot" without heating it up further somehow (kettle, microwave, etc)?

[cassianoleal]

I'm not GP but what I do is

    cold tap water -> filter pitcher --> kettle
                                     `-> drinking glass

I occasionally drink cold water straight from the tap but it tends to taste bad so I try to avoid it.

Of course, there's the issue that most kettles are made of plastic or at least have some plastic components so how do you keep it microplastics-free?

There's no winning, I guess. :D

[chipgap98]

Do you have a source for this?

[atomicnumber3]

I don't know about sources, but I do know:

- if you go to lowes, many of the fittings for hot water pipes are made of lead

- my cold water supply doesn't sit in a big 50+ gallon tub for 1-2 days at a time (I don't think we fully empty it but every other day, on kid bath night)

- old hot water heaters will fill with sediments and other buildup

So like, on a scale of drinking sewage to drinking dew collected from the leaves of Yggdrasil? It's probably about the same as drinking (cold) tap water. But also like, given a choice, I'll probably go for the cold tap.

[Rapzid]

Lowes sells supply line hot water pipes/fittings made of lead? Are you certain?

[jmort]

Probably https://www.epa.gov/lead/why-cant-i-use-hot-water-tap-drinki...

https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/21471/is-hot-tap... has some more sources