For context, I live in Hong Kong where most people drink tap water after boiling first. Some may install water filter but may still boil the water. Very few drink bottle water unless they're outside and too lazy to bring their own bottles.
Now, I'm researching whether I can drink tap water in Iceland (I'm going there in August), and while it looks like the answer is affirmative, almost no web article mention whether I need to boil the water first. People in Japan (a country I've visited a few times) also seems to be used to drink tap water directly without boiling.
The further I searched, the more it seems to me that in developed countries (like US, Canada and the above examples), tap water is safe to drink directly. Is that true? Do you drink tap water without boiling?
It sounds like a stupid question but I just can't believe what I saw. I think I experienced a cultural shock.
Edit: wow, thanks so much for the responses and sorry if I didnt reply to each one of you but I'll upvote as much as as I can. Never thought so many would reply and Lemmy is a really great community.
2nd Edit: So in conclusion, people from everywhere basically just drink water straight out of tap. And to my surprise, I checked the Water Supplies Department website and notice it asserts that tap water in Hong Kong is potable, like many well-developed countries and regions.
However, as the majority of Hong Kong people are living in high-rise buildings, a small amount of residual chlorine is maintained in the water to keep it free from bacterial infection during its journey in the distribution system. Therefore it is recommended to boil the water so that chlorine dissipates.
So, in short, I actually do not need to boil the water unless I hate chlorine smell and taste. But I guess I'll just continue this old habit/tradition as there's no harm in doing so.
Do you have any research or articles that summarizes these findings?
I was skeptical as well so I did a quick web search and the first couple articles I found do seem to support that there are potential risks to ingesting fluoride. This article claims that fluoride has a minimal effect on dental health but has potential for other healtb risks, and this article compares the efficacy and risks of several methods of adding fluoride for public consumption.
I suppose I've only ever heard negative views of fluoride in water supplies from people who say it's bad 'because the government puts it in the water and I don't trust the government' or worse conspiracy theories that it's somehow put into the water to control people etc.. And the people who espouse those type of theories also tend to be the type who also don't 'believe' in science and deny objectively proven facts about reality. So it's interesting to see that maybe there is some actual science-backed merit behind the anti-fluoride movement.
Based on my read of the second article, in the US at least it seems like fluoride addition is regulated and low enough that the health risks are minimal and there still is some dental benefit from it. It seems like an even better option would be to stop adding fluoride to water and make topical fluoride treatments available to everyone from a dentist.. But we can't even get universal healthcare so universal dental care doesn't seem likely to happen.
Thank you for doing the research!