It is an unfortunate and ironic reality that even though we need to drink plenty of water to survive, there can be a lot of hidden dangers that lurk in even the clearest glass of untreated water. Human history reflects that some of our biggest enemies have often been the smallest: diseases like cholera, giardia, and typhoid have run rampant.
Learning How Long to Boil Water to Make it Safe for Drinking: It’s in Our DNA
However, long before germ theory and modern medicine, after the discovery of fire, people had already started to realize that just like cooking food not only made it tastier but safer. It should be no surprise, also that people applied the same logic to figuring out why and how to boil water. How long we’ve survived as a species is directly related to our ability to figure out how we integrated water safety into daily life.
Just like cooking food, adding herbs to make teas, and finding water-heavy carb sources like cooked rice and pasta – made it far less likely that people would get seriously ill after hydrating. While chemical pollution and other toxins have required us to continue to find new ways to treat our water, boiling water to kill pathogens has been one of the most simple and surefire ways that have kept us alive as a species.
The Modern Era: Re-Discover How and How Long to Boil Water for Drinking
A lot of basic survival skills have become more of a lost art than a necessity, including boiling water to make it potable. For most people in industrialized nations, knowing how long to boil water to make it safe is something done only for either backcountry camping or for emergency conditions. Whether planning for a long adventure in nature, traveling internationally where water safety is not guaranteed, or simply trying to be prepared the next time a disaster strikes, read on to find out boiling time and other tips for drinking water safety.
Timing is Everything
Science time! How long you should boil water depends on where you are at – literally. As the elevation above sea level rises, the temperature at which water boils decreases. In order to kill germs and bacteria, you need to consistently keep the water temperature at or above a certain level. In order to make sure that your unwelcome visitors do not stay in your water, you have to boil water for longer, the higher up you are. These are the recommendations from the leading health organizations around the world:
- While this is a case where “more” can indeed be “more,” the minimum for how long to boil your water before it is ready for drinking should be at least one minute at a full, rolling boil, particularly if you are at or under 3,500 feet.
- Between 3,500 and 6,500 feet, best to play it safe and keep your water boiling for a full two minutes at least.
- If you are at a higher elevation – at or above 6,500 feet – you will need to boil your water for at least three minutes to make it safe.
- If you are at extremely high elevation, such as at or above 10,000 feet, you are best to add an additional 2 minutes onto your boiling time.
This is NOT a rolling boil THIS is a rolling boil
Boiled Water: It’s Not just for Drinking!
It’s easy to forget, but consistency can literally be a matter of life or death. After all, it doesn’t matter how long you boil your water for drinking if you do not apply the same logic to all other uses where you come into contact with water. Take, for example, tooth brushing, preparing food, treating an open wound, or even simply touching your face after hand washing: while technically these uses do not include “drinking,” it is easy to casually forget that it doesn’t take much for bacteria to take advantage of you!
Whether “roughing it” on a camping trip or adapting to daily life in a community where the tap water can’t be trusted, make sure you get in the habit of storing potable water wherever and whenever you need it – and that if you have kids, you are also instilling that same habit in them as well.
Hydrovos: Taking the Guesswork out of Making your Water Safe
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