Is It Safe To Cook With Sulfur Water?

I often get calls from people that have recently moved into a new house, asking me about the rotten egg smell in their water and is it safe to use it for cooking and drinking. I tell them that it is more than likely just sulfur in the water and not to worry. But here’s a little better explanation of why sulfur water is normally perfectly fine to cook with.

Is it safe to cook with sulfur water? The smell of rotten eggs coming from water is usually just a sulfur compound gas called hydrogen sulfide (H2S), which is not considered to be harmful to your health. Hydrogen sulfide levels as little as .2 parts per million can cause a harmless rotten egg smell in the water.

There are actually some people that prefer to bath in sulfur water as they believe it to be healthy for the skin and hair. I have no proof of this, but it certainly should not cause any harm.

Hydrogen sulfide gas at very high levels may cause an odor that will make you think twice about using it for cooking, and it could even make your eyes water.

But even at these high levels, when it is used to cook with, it should diminish when heated and not ruin your food.

If you are worried that the sulfur odor will affect the outcome of your food, you may want to put it through a carbon water filter pitcher like this one that I found on Amazon.

Don’t let the unpleasant smell of sulfur water discourage you from using it for normal, everyday activities.

The odor that is commonly associated with sulfur being in the water is more an inconvenience and annoyance, rather than something to be avoided.

Not all water that contains sulfur smells like rotten eggs.

Many people with well water have a slight odor coming from their water and don’t even know that it is sulfur. When water only contains very small levels of sulfur, it doesn’t smell like rotten eggs at all.

Water that contains just a trace of sulfur often has a musty kind of smell. Not quite like a swamp but more like a standing water pond.

This odor is usually very faint and most people simply get used to it, rather than going through the expense of getting a water treatment system to remove the smell.

Only when levels of sulfur reach the .2 parts per million level does it begin to smell like rotten eggs. Some people are not bothered by the smell, but many people now use a carbon-based sulfur removal system to leave the water odor-free.

Some people may have much higher levels of sulfur in their water supply and in some cases, the level can be so high that the odor is simply not tolerable and needs to be treated.

Although I don’t believe sulfur to be harmful even at these very high levels, it can still be strong enough to cause irritation when inhaled.

Will sulfur affect the taste of my food?

Bringing sulfur water to a boil will generally boil off the rotten egg smell from water and foods cooked in sulfur water should not have any change in flavor or texture due to the sulfur in the water.

Even making pasta or boiling potatoes or other foods that absorb water when cooked should not take on any strange tastes or odors from sulfur water. Coffee, tea or other beverages may retain some of the sulfur smell, but this is usually very faint and only noticeable when you first smell them.

Sulfur bacteria which is often the cause of the hydrogen sulfide gas that causes the rotten egg smell is a harmless bacteria when ingested and should not inhibit other beneficial bacterias in the body.

Also when used for baking or marinating, sulfur bacteria should have no effect on the yeast that makes your bread rise or the marinade that helps tenderize the meat that you cook.

One downside that you may find with water that contains sulfur is that when chilled or frozen, it tends to hold on to the hydrogen sulfide gas and then release it as the water thaws.

In short, drinks made with sulfur water ice cubes may contain the rotten egg smell as the ice cubes in it melt away.

So I recommend that you use bottled water for your ice cubes unless you don’t mind a whiff of rotten eggs with your beverage.

Why does my water only smell like rotten eggs some of the time?

If you experience this rotten egg smell in the shower and only sometimes from your kitchen sink or other sinks. It may be coming from your hot water heater tank and not from your water supply at all.

In your hot water heater tank, there is something called an anode rod that corrodes away so that the rest of the tank does not.

When this anode rod decays, it becomes an ideal breeding ground for sulfur bacteria which will cause your hot water to smell like rotten eggs but not your cold water.

If you find this to be the case, you should contact your local plumber and have the anode rod replaced or completely removed if the hot water heater tank is rather old anyway.

Then be sure that your plumber sanitizes the tank and the hot water pipes going into the home. This should eliminate the sulfur smell from the hot water.

Related Questions:

How to get the sulfur smell out of clothes? The first thing that we want to do is separate clothes by color and fabric type, then you should soak the clothes for twenty to thirty minutes. Then wash the clothes in the hottest water that the manufacturer allows using one cup of washing soda and a half of a cup of Borax.

After washing, do not dry the clothes, re-wash the clothes in hot water with your regular detergent and then air dry. Once the clothes are dry check for odor and repeat if necessary.

Is sulfur water hard or soft? Water that contains sulfur does not mean that it is hard or soft, but some bacterias can react with minerals that make water hard and create sulfates in the water that can cause odor.