Advertisement
Trending

‘Did you know?’: Woman uses tap water to make spaghetti. Then she learns something shocking

‘I had no idea.’

Photo of Amelie Allen

Amelie Allen

2 panel image: on the left a person adds spaghetti noodles to a boiling pot of water and on the right a person explains.

Spaghetti lovers beware: hot water from the tap might not be as safe as you think.

Featured Video

Felicita Vidrine (@mind.body.mama on TikTok), a wellness and motherhood content creator, recently put out a viral video where she listed several reasons why using hot tap water might be dangerous to your health. As of publication, the video has over 26,000 views.

Wait—hot water can do what?

Vidrine opens the video with a question. “Did you know: when you use water to cook, you’re not supposed to use hot water from the tap?” she asks.

Advertisement

“‘Cause I’ll tell you all what—I had no idea,” Vidrine admits. “My a** sure has spent 30-something years using hot water from the tap so that my spaghetti water would boil a little bit faster.”

Vidrine says that the number one reason to avoid using hot water from the tap for cooking is potential lead poisoning. “Hot water dissolves lead in your pipes more quickly than cold water does,” she explains. “So hot water is more likely to contain lead particles.”

The other reason, she says, is related to the hot water tank. 

“So the tank is made out of metals, right? And those metals can start to corrode and break off, ending up with heavy metal in your hot water,” she elaborates. She adds that when it sits still in your hot water tank, water can also begin to stagnate and grow bacteria.

Advertisement

“The solution here is pretty simple but kind of annoying,” Vidrine concludes. “You just have to cook with cold water from the tap, and let the stove or the oven do the heating for you.” If you’re hurting for spaghetti in a pinch, Vidrine advises using an electric kettle to boil cold tap water faster.

“Good luck!” she calls out as the video ends. In the caption, Vidrine expresses her shock further.

“Yoooo apparently lots of people know this but I had NO IDEA,” she wrote, followed by tags about wellness journeys and home cooking.

Does anyone even have lead pipes anymore?

Commenters were torn between gratitude and skepticism for Vidrine’s advice.

Advertisement

“You don’t have lead pipes,” one user commented, followed by the eye roll emoji. This was a common sentiment throughout the comment section.

“Plumbers wife here,” someone else proclaimed. “He said this ain’t true all new homes are lead free.”

“Idk why I said lead first because the biggest reason is actually the disgusting hot water heaters…” Vidrine replied. “I’m sure you’re plumber husband knows all about them!”

Other users agreed and seconded Vidrine’s points.

Advertisement

“I was literally just explaining this to my boyfriend the other night and it doesn’t matter if you have lead pipes or not,” one woman said. “Do you really want the water that’s in your hot water tank in your food?”

Flushing out the real issues

Vidrine made three short follow-up videos in response to commenters doubting the danger of lead pipes in the modern world.

In the first follow-up video, Vidrine replies to a comment stating that their home doesn’t have lead pipes. The video opens with Vidrine talking to the camera. Behind her is a Google Image search for water heaters being cleaned out.

Advertisement

“Alright,” Vidrine starts. “So I know I said the ‘Number one reason’ was lead, but I really just meant the first reason I was gonna say. The actual reason is your hot water tank is disgusting.”

Vidrine then moves out of the center of the frame to fully reveal the pictures of people’s hot water tanks being flushed out. The bucket of old water is murky and rusty. “Disgusting,” she emphasizes. 

“And by ‘your hot water tank,’ I mean everyone’s hot water tank,” the on-screen text clarifies.

Vidrine’s Public Service Announcement

Vidrine’s second follow-up video is in a similar format. She’s responding to another comment about lead pipes, this time with an article from Colorado public utility agency Denver Water.

Advertisement

She opens with a disclaimer reiterating that she didn’t mean to call lead piping “the number one thing’ people should worry about when it comes to hot tap water. With that out of the way, Vidrine then jumps into the lead issue.

“But, lots of people do still have issues with lead in their home plumbing, as you can see here,” Vidrine states, moving offscreen so viewers can read the article behind her. 

The article is a 2017 public service announcement by Jimmy Luthye titled “Don’t drink or cook with hot water from the tap.” In it, Lythe makes similar points to Vidrine, stating that hot water can contain metallic parts from corroded water tanks, or lead from pipes. At the end, he urges the reader to be proactive in their safe water consumption.

“So lead is a concern for some people,” Vidrine says after returning to the screen. “But the number one thing—I have another video, you can go and check it out—is how disgusting your hot water heater is.”

Advertisement

Even the EPA agrees!

Vidrine’s fourth and final follow-up is in response to the comment from the plumber’s wife, and it’s very short.

“Hi, me again, sorry to bother you,” Vidrine says, standing in front of another article. “But just one more,” she says, moving offscreen to reveal the background.

Behind Vidrine is a question and answer from the Environmental Protection Agency website. “Why can’t I use hot water from the tap for drinking, cooking, or making baby formula?” the question asks.

Advertisement

“Hot water dissolves lead more quickly than cold water and is therefore more likely to contain greater amounts of lead,” the EPA responds. They urge the reader to never use hot water for any of the activities listed in the question.

“This one’s from the EPA,” Vidrine says, coming back into frame. “Goodbye!”

@mind.body.mama Yoooo apparently lots of people know this but I had NO IDEA. #wellnessjourney #homecooking #healthyrecipes #lowtoxliving #healthyhome ♬ original sound – flitzy | mindful mom life

So… is hot tap water really that bad for you?

According to Rochelle Bilow of The Spruce Eats, hot tap water is, in fact, more dangerous to cook with than its cold or room-temperature counterparts. In an article she published in 2023, Bilow reached out to both the CDC and Vermont’s Drinking Water Program Manager, Ben Montross. Both confirmed that the danger was real.

Advertisement

“Warm water is more likely than cold water to pull minerals, metals, and contaminants from boilers, hot water tanks, and pipes,” Bilow summarized. “Benign minerals, like calcium, can affect the flavor of your water. Hazardous materials—namely lead—can be seriously harmful, especially to children.”

She ended the article with advice from Montross to only drink cold tap water, and to flush out and clean taps and other appliances on a regular basis.

The Daily Dot reached out to Vidrine via TikTok and Instagram direct message, and the EPA via email.


Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.

Advertisement
 
The Daily Dot