What cannot be boiled. What does repeatedly boiling water do? Is it possible to boil water twice?
For a person whose body consists of 70% liquid, it is vital to drink enough water. It is needed for the normal functioning of all processes in our body. But what kind of water is better to drink? The liquid that flows from the tap in big cities is not suitable for drinking, so many people prefer to boil the water. But is it really that simple? Is it healthy to drink boiled water or is it completely harmful? These questions need to be addressed in more detail.
In physics, boiling refers to the process of transition from a liquid state to a vapor state, accompanied by the appearance of bubbles at a temperature of 100 degrees. Conventionally, the boiling process is divided into the following stages:
- Small single bubbles appear at the bottom of the container, which then rise to the surface of the water and are grouped mainly at the walls of the container.
- A lot of bubbles appear. They provoke cloudiness and then whitening of the liquid. This stage is also known as the “white key”, as the process is similar to the flow of spring water. Tea lovers often remove the kettle from the stove at this stage, without allowing the water to boil.
- Next, intense bubbling occurs, large bubbles burst and strong steam is released. Water splashes from the dishes.
The benefits and harms of boiled water still raise a lot of doubts. Boiling tap water solves the following problems:
- Kills microorganisms;
- Reduces water hardness;
- Reduces chlorine content.
This is the main benefit of boiled water. Hard salts remain as sediment at the bottom of the container, and most of the bacteria die. Boiling is especially important in the hot season, when, despite chlorination, the number of microorganisms in the water increases.
However, boiling does not destroy the hepatitis A virus and botulism bacillus. In addition, if the water sits for a long time, bacteria can enter it again. Therefore, boiled water, the health benefits and harms of which are not so obvious, cannot be stored for several days. Boiling makes water softer. In this case, the concentration of certain salts becomes higher due to the evaporation of the liquid.
Danger and harm of boiled water
However, research shows that boiling does not kill all microbes. So, in order to kill the hepatitis virus, you need to boil water for half an hour. The botulism stick can disappear only after fifteen minutes of boiling, and its spores die in no less than five hours! Of course, no one will boil water that much. Also, the harm of boiled water lies in the fact that it does not destroy active pesticides, nitrates, heavy metals, phenols, and petroleum products. And a number of useful components in water, such as calcium and magnesium salts, settle on the walls of the vessel.
It is also worth considering that boiling, especially long-term boiling, causes a clear decrease in the volume of water. A precipitate appears in the liquid that remains. If you add raw water to the settled water and boil them together, the percentage and concentration of heavy water will increase. And this poses a serious threat to health. Therefore, experts insist that boiled water should never be diluted with unboiled water.
Many people believe that the benefit of boiled water for the body is that it is free of chlorine. But studies have shown that this trace element, when boiled, begins to interact with other compounds, which can cause the formation of dangerous trihalomethanes. Also, heating the water causes oxygen to escape from it.
Answering the question of whether boiled water is useful, many experts believe that it becomes “dead” and therefore cannot bring any value. It does not saturate the body with valuable minerals and the moisture it needs. It is also known that after some time after boiling, water becomes again infected with various microorganisms that may be in the kettle or simply flying in the air. Although, of course, this is quite a long time for us to have time to drink tea. Be that as it may, boiling cannot be considered a 100% way to purify water from everything that may be harmful to our body.
Is there any benefit to boiled water?
When figuring out whether boiled water is good for drinking, it is worth noting that it is softer than tap water. It is believed that drinking water that has been boiled once improves mental and physical activity, removes toxins from the body, and improves blood circulation.
Some traditional healers recommend drinking warm boiled water, especially on an empty stomach. Speaking about the benefits of boiled water in this form, they highlight its ability to improve metabolic processes and accelerate the breakdown of fats. In fact, any clean water has this effect if you heat it up, so the point is not boiling.
Is boiled water beneficial or harmful? This process really makes it better for the body than tap water or well water, which contains a lot of bacteria and aggressive particles. But boiling does not make water such that it is completely healthy and safe. It is recommended to use it only if you have no other way to purify the water. Then it will help reduce the risk of poisoning and other negative consequences. But it is recommended to boil water for at least 8-10 minutes, which our usual electric kettles are not designed for. When drinking boiled water, remember that it is not advisable to store it in the container where it was boiled. It is best to pour it into a glass container. The kettle must be descaled before turning it on.
Another important question is whether boiling water a second time is harmful. It is worth considering the following points:
- Boiling takes away the taste of water. Water that you boil several times will not taste good at all. It may have an unpleasant metallic taste.
- Boiling does not kill impurities and salts. The more often water is boiled, the more oxygen evaporates from it, and the higher the concentration of these salts becomes. The drink becomes toxic and, although this toxicity is small, it tends to accumulate, so a negative effect will be present.
- We usually boil chlorinated water. Chlorine, as we have already said, when heated, reacts with organic substances and forms dangerous toxins. The more often the water is boiled, the higher their concentration. Based on this, the answer to the question of whether repeated boiling of water is harmful or not may be positive.
Thus, water boiled several times retains very little of the benefits that our body needs from drinking water. And the more you boil it, the more “dead” it becomes. Having found out whether it is harmful to boil water several times, we can conclude that it is better to limit ourselves to boiling once.
So what kind of water is best to drink?
If you want to drink water for health benefits, then it is best to drink specially purified water, not boiled water. For this purpose, special filters can be used, which are not a problem to buy today. They help purify water from heavy metals, chlorine, bacteria and other harmful components. There are filters in the form of jugs, as well as filters that are installed directly on the water pipe, and already purified water flows from the tap. Drinking bottled water is also a good option. It is guaranteed to be cleansed and does not cause any harm to the body.
If the water you have access to now does not inspire confidence in you, it is better to boil it and protect yourself from poisoning and other unpleasant consequences. After all, as to which water is healthier: boiled or raw, the choice is definitely on the side of boiled water (of course, if the raw water has not been purified). Therefore, it is strongly not recommended to drink tap water, but you can resort to boiling - sometimes it makes life much easier and protects us. Monitor the quality of the water you drink.
Doctors advise using only water that has been boiled once for making tea and coffee. That is, each time the kettle must be completely renewed, pouring out the remaining old liquid before adding new one.
What is the reason for the prejudice against reboiling? Why can't you boil water twice? We will have to touch upon not only the physical, but also the chemical properties of precious moisture.
What happens to the water during heating?
Without water, the human body cannot exist. Eighty percent of our body consists of liquid. Fresh water is necessary for normal metabolism and removal of waste and toxins from the body.
But there are certain problems with water in the modern world. Not every resident of a metropolis can get the required amount of liquid from a well or from a natural source. In addition, we must not forget about the natural pollution of the modern world. Life-giving moisture enters our homes through kilometers of pipes. Naturally, disinfectants are added to it. For example, bleach. If we talk about cleaning systems, their quality leaves much to be desired. In some cities they have not changed for decades.
To use this water for cooking and drinking, people invented boiling. There is only one reason - to destroy, if possible, all bacteria and microbes that are in raw water. There is a joke on this topic:
The girl asks her mother:
Why are you boiling water?
So that all microbes die.
Am I going to drink tea with corpses of microbes?
Indeed, most bacteria and microbes die when exposed to high temperatures. But what else happens to the composition of H2O when the temperature reaches 100 degrees Celsius?
1) When boiling, oxygen and water molecules evaporate.
2) Any water contains certain impurities. At high temperatures they do not disappear. Is it possible to drink sea water if it is boiled? At 100°C, oxygen and water atoms will be removed, but all salts will remain. But the most interesting thing is that their concentration will increase, since there is less water itself. Therefore, sea water after boiling is not suitable for drinking.
3) Water molecules contain isotopes of hydrogen. These are heavy chemical elements that are resistant to temperatures up to 100°C. They settle to the bottom, “heaviening” the liquid.
Is re-boiling dangerous?
Why do this? The bacteria died during the first boiling. There is no need for repeated heat treatment. Too lazy to change the contents of the kettle? Well, let's figure out whether it is possible to boil again?
1. Boiled water is completely devoid of taste. If you boil it several times, it becomes very, very tasteless. Some might argue that raw water also has no taste. Not at all. Do a little experiment.
At regular intervals, drink tap water, filtered water, boiled once and boiled many times. All of these liquids will taste DIFFERENT. When you drink the latter version (boiled many times), you will even have an unpleasant aftertaste in your mouth, some kind of metallic taste.
2. Boiling “kills” water. The more often the heat treatment occurs, the more useless the liquid is in the long run. Oxygen evaporates, and the usual H2O formula from a chemical point of view is actually violated. For this reason, the name of this drink arose - “dead water”.
3. As mentioned above, after boiling all impurities and salts remain. What happens every time you reheat? Oxygen leaves, and so does water. Consequently, the salt concentration increases. Of course, the body does not immediately feel this.
The toxicity of such a drink is negligible. But in “heavy” water all reactions occur more slowly. Deuterium (a substance that is released from hydrogen during boiling) tends to accumulate. And this is already harmful.
4. We usually boil chlorinated water. When heated to 100 °C, chlorine reacts with organic substances. As a result, carcinogens are formed. Frequent boiling increases their concentration. And these substances are extremely undesirable for humans, as they provoke cancer.
Boiled water is no longer useful. Repeated processing makes it harmful. Therefore, follow these simple rules:
- For boiling, pour fresh water each time;
- do not boil the liquid again and do not add fresh liquid to its remains;
- Before boiling the water, let it stand for several hours;
- Having poured boiling water into a thermos (for preparing a medicinal mixture, for example), close it with a stopper after a few minutes, not immediately.
Drink for your health!
It can be tap water, spring water, bottled, structured, live, dead, dirty, etc. Most of all, we would like to drink clean water, which is beneficial to humans. Boiling is rightly considered one of the ways to neutralize water from various kinds of dangers. But increasingly, even authoritative people say that you can boil water only once. Why can't you boil water twice? The question is actually not an idle one. Firstly, this concerns our health. Secondly, it is not so easy to change habits in an age of crazy speed.
Various “experts,” when answering the question of why you can’t boil water twice, cite a seemingly irrefutable algorithm of judgments:
Tap water contains varying amounts of chemicals dissolved in it at the purification stage, and on the way from the reservoir to the kettle, colonies of bacteria “registered” in the pipes join this cocktail;
To get rid of uninvited guests, the liquid must be brought to 100 o Celsius: this is useful;
If the procedure is repeated, then beneficial oxygen and hydrogen evaporate from the water along with harmful chlorine compounds and equally harmful bacteria;
The less oxygen, the more the taste of water is distorted;
Without hydrogen, there is nothing to neutralize heavy substances;
The more often and longer water is boiled, the harder and heavier it becomes, which is why you cannot boil water twice.
In various sources, such pseudo-scientific arguments about the dangers of repeated boiling are supplemented by such facts as an increase in the amount of organochlorine compounds, dioxins and carcinogens that cause cancer and peeling of heels. Cautious young mothers who are already babies are afraid to bathe them in boiled water.
But even a school graduate can easily refute the terrible arguments when he solves a chemistry problem that asks how many times should water be added to a 1.5-liter kettle in order for the concentration of the notorious heavy water to increase 10 times? Answer: you need to evaporate half of the water poured into the kettle 157 times without interruption!
Please note that in order for the water in the kettle to become completely heavy, continuous boiling is necessary for several decades! By the way, such water is a valuable industrial product, 1 kg of which costs from $200 to $250. If you have free time, you can earn extra money.
In addition, if you are “lucky” to drink a whole mug, there will be no harm from it. Within a few days, all contents unnecessary for the body will be eliminated in the most natural way.
Drink boiled water, and don’t worry about why you can’t boil water twice, there are more important things to do.
There is another new, very attractive teaching - about structured water. The beautiful clusters that form the molecules of such water are also useful for the human body. It is believed that boiling has a destructive effect on structures. But this is during the heating process. And if you express your gratitude to the water you are about to drink or simply think about something good, the magically beautiful structures will again gather into a unique pattern.