WB
true "distilled" water is not good for you.
Sunday, July 12, 2020, 19:28

but I'd figure it's fine in a pinch for short term. Couple of points about water treatment for survival. Filtration is good and physically can remove small cysts (microorganism eggs) down to about 1-3 microns. There are 1000 microns to a nanometer, typical virus is 50-100 nanometers in size. You ain't straining that out!

Your idea of heat is wonderful and will both kill virus and "cook" the microorganism in the shell. It's OK to eat bugs if they are dead. The health dept. suggests a rolling boil for 3 minutes minimum. Then again there is chemical poisoning. You can filter and boil anti-freeze and it would still kill you if you drank it. A combination of filtration and heat is as good as you can get. Anything with charcoal is good but is quickly depleted if the water is very dirty at all. UV light is tricky as you have to get exposure time and penetration of the light and any particles will shade that. UV does not "kill" anything but scrambles it's DNA so it cannot reproduce and "hatch" in your intestines. Many incubation periods for microorganisms run from 3-14 days. Water can taste so good today and kill you in a couple weeks from dysentery. Those little tiny red nematodes (present in about all soil) are fine, extra protein. But they can eat amoeba and carry parasites in their teeny gut that can cause harm. Cook them first!