When I dig up the soil and drink water from it, I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be sick because of all the bacteria, pollutants and chemicals in this water. I can’t drink tap water, river water, or even the rainwater where I live for this reason, too.
However, somehow when I take water from these sources and feed it to my plants, I can trust that the water I will consume later when I eat the fruits or leaves (in the case of vegetables) from these plants will be safe for me. Why is that?
I guess what I hope to know is: When plants take water from the underground, where do all the bacteria, pollutants and chemicals go? Are they filtered by the root and stem of the plant? Or are they “killed” by some kind of immune system that the plants have?
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EDIT: Thank you everyone for answering. I did not expect so many replies, I think I understand this topic much more now. I used to think that water in fruit is always sterlized and completely safe to drink, but apparently that is not the case.
A lot of comments also asked where I live that I cannot even drink tap water straight from the faucet. It is my understanding that in Europe and North America, tap water is often safe to drink, but that is not the case at all in many developing countries. In fact, I remember being VERY surprised when I first saw American people drinking from fountains in parks or filling up a glass of water straight from the kitchen sink in Hollywood movies.
I live in Vietnam. The tap water here mostly comes from rivers, and it undergoes all the filtration and chemical treatment that we can give it, but we are still recommended to at least boil the water first before drinking.
When I was a kid, we did not even have a system to deliver tap water to every homes, even in the capital city (Hanoi). That was as recent as the early 2000s, (I was born in 1993), and most people used to drink and cook using either water from well or collected rainwater. But nowadays, many wells in my city are found to have lead, arsen and heavy metals in it, and rainwater is recently reported as unsafe to drink basically anywhere on Earth because it had “forever chemicals” in it that will never decomposes and can cause cancer. Tap water and bottled water are basically our only options, though the goverment still recommend boiling tap water or at least filter it one more time before drinking/cooking with it.
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An answer in three parts
> When I dig up the soil and drink water from it, I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be sick because of all the bacteria, pollutants and chemicals in this water. I can’t drink tap water, river water, or even the rainwater where I live for this reason, too.
It is important to recognise the nuance in this.
Rainwater is generally considered safe IF it isn’t the first water to run off your roof. This is because birds and other animal poop on roofs, the first bit of rain is full of that junk, but the water later in a storm is fine to drink. @NatePetroski on TikTok has a bunch of videos going over the rainwater collection system he has for his homestead, including a first-flush diverter that collects that first portion of mucky water. Some rainwater will be a nonstarter like acid rain, but that’s an exception rather than a rule.
River Water is generally potable, the danger again comes from the ecosystem around it. For instance water downstream from beaver dams is considered dangerous because beavers often carry giardia, the parasite responsible for “Beaver Fever”. In this case it is not the water that’s bad, but an additive that will only effect a localized area.
As for tap water, that should be potable. Most tap water comes from municipal water sources which receive treatment. If you are on city water and there is no boil advisory, you should be able to drink straight from the hose or tap.
I myself live on a farm with a well, which is literally digging a hole and drinking the water that comes out. Wells should be kept clear of livestock pens for the reasons listed about for rivers, but groundwater has historically been pretty safe. I regularly drink from the hose in the summer, the kitchen tap only has the iron and Sulphur filtered out (which are pretty minimal anyways) and the bathrooms go through a water softener. But in the rvent of disaster, we could survive on water straight from the well.
> However, somehow when I take water from these sources and feed it to my plants, I can trust that the water I will consume later when I eat the fruits or leaves (in the case of vegetables) from these plants will be safe for me. Why is that?
Setting aside the aforementioned reasons that the water is probably safe for you as well, and that some things in water that harm you can also harm plants, plants have their own filtration systems.
> I guess what I hope to know is: When plants take water from the underground, where do all the bacteria, pollutants and chemicals go? Are they filtered by the root and stem of the plant? Or are they “killed” by some kind of immune system that the plants have?
A little bith of Column A, a little bit of Column B, and some from Column C.
Some things are filtered before they ever get into the plants. Either filtered by the soil, or by the root system.
Some things are destroyed by the plant as it performs its processes. Much like when we eat something sloghtly dirty.
And some things just stay in the plant, like heavy metals. These can lead to you potentially eating something without realizing it.
This is to say nothing of plant who actively poison water, such as cactuses which take in drinkable water but if you were to drink cactus juice then you would become sick.
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