Is your kettle harming you?

There’s nothing like a good old cup of tea. But here, I want to tell you about some random health facts to do with kettles!

1. Plastic kettles are not safe. You are basically drinking hot water mixed with plastic residue on a daily basis. BPA in many plastic kettles is very harmful. Repetitive exposure to BPA has been linked to obesity, learning disabilities, impaired brain development in children, breast cancer, diabetes, prostate cancer, asthma, heart/ cardiovascular disease and other health issues. People are trying to replace plastic as much as they can. Many experts link the cancer epidemic to our increased exposure to plastic over the last few decades. Try replacing your plastic kettle with a stainless steel or glass kettle.

2. Older style kettles containing nickel can cause skin issues. Boiling water in nickel eventually means some of that nickel gets into your body. Make sure your kettle does not contain nickel.

3. Don’t re-boil the water! When you first boil the water, many of the potential germs and parasites die. However when you re-boil the water, the dissolved minerals that have undergone a chemical change amass together and become significantly more toxic - some say, even carcinogenic. For example, nitrates turn to nitrosamines. Always measure enough for 1 cup of tea (or however many you actually need at the time) and don’t re-boil water. This is for your own safety and also helps protect the environment from unnecessary wastage.

4. Always check the water in your kettle. It can happen that if you never open the lid in your kettle, some insects may have got into the water and you are boiling and drinking insect-juice!

5. Finally and as crazy this sounds, be careful with hotel kettles. Some people boil their dirty underwear in hotel kettles to clean them! I know, WTF is wrong with people, right? Well, this has been said more than once, so fact or fiction, you don’t want to be the unlucky person that refreshes themselves with a lovely cup of tea and a side of underwear germs.

Parham Donyai

Founder
LA Muscle Group