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.
Water moves into the root. Water then moves through the root in one of 2 pathways- through the cells, or through the cell walls. Eventually, the cell wall pathway is blocked by waterproof suberin. This means that all the water has to move through the cell. Moving through the cells is good as it means the plant can control what stuff dissolved in the water enters the plant’s cells. Bigger stuff like bacteria and fungi can’t easily get in to cells as they can’t get through the cell membrane. Smaller stuff like dissolved heavy metals can’t get through the cell membrane as they are ions (they have a charge) and the cell membrane is nonpolar (no charge).
When making fruit, the plant is moving stuff by active transport into the fruit. This means that the plant is spending energy to put the things it wants in there. The plant will choose to put tasty stuff like sucrose into the fruit as it wants animals to eat it and not get sick so that the plant can spread its seeds elsewhere.
Plants filter the water, but that doesn’t mean it’s always safe. Bad earth could lead to bad fruit too.
…Also the fact that not everyone around the world can drink from their tap water is really sad.
From what I’ve read about turtles, some turtles can eat poisonous mushrooms and be fine, but if you then eat the turtle, you will be poisoned by the second hand toxins. Using the same reasoning…
Plants are reasonably safe to eat, but that doesn’t mean you should raise your garden with sewerage water. The plants can cancel out some harmful stuff, but keep your wits about you. Don’t pick berries next to the shuttered chemical plant from the 50s or next to a livestock waste pool. You are what you eat, and that goes for the plants as well.
There is a bit of both.
Just like if you stuck you hand in soil, as long as you don’t have any cuts on it, no bacteria/fungi/virus will get into your system as there a similar type functioning barrier in the plants root system.
Also like if you had a cut in your hand, if the plant has a some damage that allows bacteria/virus/fungi into its system, plants have an immune system which will fight off the infective invaders. If the invaders are too much either in numbers or aggressiveness, and avoid the immune system, then the plant gets an infection. This will make the plant look unwell, and because it is in the soil, the plant will start rotting as other bacteria invade the weakened infective plant. The plant will not look good, likely smell bad and is not something that you would consider eating.
If the veg/fruit looks healthy and smells like it should, etc then it is very unlikely to have any infective agent within it. If you take sensible measures for cleaning, you clean off any infective agents on the surface. Cooking will also kill off infective agents
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