Water and Health

Clean water is essential for detox. Whenever we are in Bhutan, we try to make sure that water for making beverages/soups/rice and even general cooking, is filtered.

This isn't always possible - when eating out, or when invited for meals, we make do with what is given.

But when we are cooking for ourselves, or for our guests, Puro is a readily accessible brand that we could obtain at any local hardware shop there.  So why not avail ourselves of clean water?

Tap water goes into the top-half of the container, and after running through the filtration candle, the filtered water seeps down to the bottom half, which is then ready for boiling for drinking water.

Invariably, the white filtration candle becomes stained and coated with impurities.

Seeing that, we often boiled and re-boiled the water!

Public Libraries Singapore release findings that re-boiling or over-boiling will cause the water to lose dissolved oxygen, which may cause your drink to taste "stale" or "flat".

Stanford Alumni magazine suggested that warning against re-boiling water probably goes back to the days when water sources were more suspect.

While boiling water kills potentially-dangerous microbes, it also concentrates inorganic poisons.

The magazine also stated: "If you're using clean water, you can re-boil it as many times a you want - it won't affect your health."

Suffering the ill-effects of water-borne disease, especially on a trip around Bhutan, can really set one back. So whenever possible, we try to ensure drinking or cooking water is filtered before being served as tea or coffee, soup or gravy, which mask water which is sometimes yellowish.  Generally, boiling should get rid of micro-organisms, but we've seen folks whose digestive system gets worked up more than others.

For plain drinking water, we simply buy the bottled brands sold on the local market.