2 October

I post this every year or so, in case it helps somebody. Chlorine in water is absolutely vital, for public supplies, to keep nasties out of the water. Today they tend to use chloramine, a longer-lasting form of chlorine which makes sure it gets to your tap without nasties. Unfortunately chlorine/chloramine is also a bit of a biological poison, it's why if you buy fish for an aquarium they'll die very quickly if you don't pre-treat the water. And it stinks. There's some evidence it kills healthy bacteria in your gut by drinking it, and also on your skin by washing in it. So how to get the best of both worlds - no nasties in the water and no chlorine/chloramine in and on you? It's cheap and easy. Use vitamin C. A single tablet of it will completely de-chlorinate enough drinking water for a family for days. Buy a 10-litre or bigger dispenser and grind up a vitamin c tablet, adding it to the water when you refill. The water tastes beautiful too. This is the method many municipal authorities now advocate too, and aquarium owners have been doing it for ages too to keep their fish alive. And the practice of adding lemon or other citrus to water before drinking was probably onto something, although that can make the water pretty acidic. You can also get shower heads which contain vitamin c and de-chlorinate as you shower. Am trying one of these now, seems to work really well, and I don't get the chlorine stink or itchy eyes that we used to etc. Not sure if there's sufficient time for the vitamin C and chloramine to react within the shower head, but the reaction is known to be very quick chemically, and there's a noticeable difference for me.