"Do not drink coffee or tea onboard." - Why not? Most common pathogens are killed by 140F water, and tea and coffee extracts disrupt some pathogens. As long as the water has been kept hot for a while, or approaches boiling temp, you're good
Even killing all pathogens does not reduce all toxins already present in contaminated liquids. If you or others you know ever had (air) “traveller diarrhea”, you can try avoiding liquids in planes and see how it goes. The n95 masking and avoidance of drinks and food during flights opened the eyes of a lot of friends to this change. None of these pathogens in water are very serious strains to the body, whereas covid or flu are, so not as big a deal as avoiding yet another nasty airborne disease, but it all helps in small ways.
> Even killing all pathogens does not reduce all toxins already present in contaminated liquids.
There are two things to be mindful of: Food Poisoning and Food Intoxication.
Poisoning occurs from microbes (e.g. salmonella). Most are killed instantly at ~165F/74F, or at lower temperatures if those temperatures are kept for some period of time (140F/60C@12min; 150F/65C@72sec):
However, microbes are living things, and when they metabolize food they create waste. That waste can also be harmful to humans as well, but the waste is not dealt with high temperatures. So even if you kill the microbes at high temperatures to prevent poisoning, if there's enough waste around and you ingest it you may get food intoxication.
Apparently foodbourne intoxication is a food thing, not a water [tank] thing [1]. It seems heat-stable toxins are very rare in drinking water, as it isn't nutrient-rich enough to create enough toxins to affect you. Even biofilms don't really generate much toxins, they just leech off the microbes which cause issues.
Another example of this would be old rooftop water tanks in places like NYC. It's a giant tank which never gets cleaned, and often has all kinds of gross things in it, but (usually) no food for germs to munch on.
Ever since COVID, I've been hyper aware of anywhere I'm being confined with people, breathing their air, touching things they were touching, sitting where they were and so on. I feel like I'm hallucinating and can visualize the human germs and filth in the liquids, in the air, everywhere. Airlines are of course the worst, but I'll still bring a mask to any indoor space like a small bar or restaurant, avoid touching anything, avoid touching my own face/eyes. Super attuned to hygiene. Every enclosed space outside of my own home/car feels disgusting and urgent to avoid.
IANAD, but that sounds like clinical mysophobia (germaphobia).
No judgement — I’m sure COVID has done this to many people. But if it’s causing you anxiety or other stress, it may be worth considering talking to someone.
I think, generally, the real risks are overblown. E.g. many people can be anxious about the bacteria on our phones. And they do contain a lot, but most of them are harmless.
As long as you wash your hands when you get home from being in public, and don’t touch your face while in public, and clean your phone if you’ve been in a high risk public area, you’re likely knocking out most real risks.
Again, I’m not an expert. But I’ve done some digging on it, and this is my take, FWIW.
If the airline really doesn't care about the quality of water, then there might be other things in the water beside bacteria. Boiling will not remove chemical contaminants.
I don’t think approaching boiling temps is quite enough unless it’s kept there for a long time (see pasteurisation times at various temps). I would agree with the author that if the contamination levels are high I wouldn’t risk it.
boiling is more than enough to kill bacteria in general (Ex: if one had the ability to bring chicken instantly up to a temperature of 160F or so, it be considered perfectly safe. In the sous vide world one might only want to bring it up to 140-150F to not overcook it, and therefore would hold it at that lower temperature for some longer time).
With that said, this is only for bacteria. Bacteria also can produce spores (Ex: the botulism toxin produced by a bacteria, which is produced in an anaerobic environment, and exactly why sous vide cooking at low temperatures can be dangerous, as the anaerobic environment that it can thrive in and if kept at temperaturese in the danger zone where it can thrive can result in the production of botulism that won't be later killed/destroyed by higher temps that kill its producing bacteria)
It's a mere anecdote and YMMV but I've had the onboard coffee and tea with a variety of airlines many times over the years and to memory it's never given me trouble.
This varies significantly from person to person, yeah.
I was fine for years until I wasn’t - now I basically restrict myself bottled water and wine, which come from outside the plane. Many airlines flown in the past year around the world too.
Another problem with that is we don't know what made us sick. And if we think airplane coffee is fine but didn't like lunch at the diner, we tend to assume it's the latter.
