Any thrifty housewife knows that water intended for drinking can be boiled no more than once. However, only specialists in the field of molecular physics and chemistry can explain the physicochemical mechanism of this prohibition. Despite the preservation of the organoleptic characteristics of the liquid during the boiling process, its structure and composition of substances change. Why you can’t boil water twice is a scientific fact confirmed by experiments. This phenomenon is caused by several reasons.
Why can't you boil water many times?
Water is beneficial to humans, because without it, all the cells of the body will die. It is important to consume fluid regularly, at least a liter per day. After drinking even a glass of water, the following happens:
- normalization of body temperature;
- restoration of intestinal functions;
- removal of toxins and waste from the liver and kidneys;
- dissolution of nutrients entering the body with food;
- joint lubrication;
- active metabolic process;
- stimulation of the elimination of pathogenic microorganisms.
When boiling, part of the liquid evaporates, and heavy metal salts settle on the walls of the container. Heating to 100 degrees several times causes light hydrogen to evaporate, while heavy hydrogen remains.
After the first boiling, the water partially turns from living to dead. If you boil it again, the beneficial qualities of such a liquid turn into complete harm. Consuming this type of water over and over again can lead to health problems.
Boiling to purify and soften water
The benefit of boiling is that it destroys dangerous bacteria and makes the water softer. This is the easiest and most affordable way to cleanse at home. If you boil water for 15 minutes along with steam, harmful chemical compounds will go away. But along with these elements, the concentration of calcium and other useful minerals decreases. At the same time, bleach and non-volatile substances remain in the composition. In boiled water they turn into more dangerous carcinogens.
The longer and more you boil water, the more useful substances will be lost, the more useless it will become. In addition, after boiling, salt deposits and stains remain on the walls of the dishes, and scale forms. At the same time, the level of dangerous pollutants in the water is low enough that it will not cause serious harm to health.
If you use an electric kettle, it turns off quickly and the boiling time is short. Therefore, repeated or even repeated boiling will not be harmful. However, many experts still do not recommend repeating this procedure and consider it unnecessary. Let's figure out why you can't boil water twice.
What are the effects of repeated boiling?
The danger for humans is that with repeated boiling three or five times, the amount of liquid volume decreases. But the substances that make up the water remain. Their share is becoming larger. When water that has undergone purification is boiled for a long time, active chlorine remains in the liquid, causing harm to human health.
Scientists note that by boiling water again, you get:
- changes in the composition of the liquid;
- formation of heavy hydrogen, deuterium;
- increase in the mass of nitrates, arsenic, sodium fluoride;
- harmful organic chlorine compounds;
- high concentration of heavy metal salts;
- calcium salts that are dangerous to humans.
Scientific facts indicate that prolonged boiling leads to the fact that the number of chemical reactions of chlorine with mineral salts dissolved in water increases many times over. As a result, carcinogenic substances and dioxins are released into the liquid.
In terms of the degree of harmfulness, repeatedly boiled liquid is compared with distilled liquid. Water that has passed the stage of steam and condensed water changes its properties and is not recommended to drink. Healers use distilled water, but return it to its beneficial qualities through freezing. After melting, the liquid will change its properties, you can drink it and cook food from it.
It is known that boiled water becomes dangerous when heated several times to 100 degrees. It leads to developmental delays in children. The increased content of sodium fluoride in it inhibits the child’s psychomotor skills. And for an adult, frequent use of such liquid for drinking will cause great harm to the body. Poisoning will occur, which will become the basis of many serious diseases, including cancer. Calcium salts will begin to deposit in the kidneys, causing the formation of gallstones.
How to reduce harm and increase benefits?
If you don’t have healthier water at hand, you can resort to simple techniques that minimize the harm of boiling:
Follow the recommended boiling time - no more than 10 minutes, so that all the oxygen does not have time to evaporate.- Boil a small amount of water at a time so that it does not have to be stored and reheated for a long time.
- Pre-settle and/or freeze the water.
In the first case, it is simply poured into a container and left for 10-12 hours, waiting for a grayish-white flaky sediment to form. These are the most harmful compounds. The settled water should be placed in the freezer and wait until it freezes almost completely, only a small “cavity” remains inside. The ice is broken and what remains liquid is drained. - Regularly descale the kettle and wash the container in which boiled water is stored.
- If you plan to pour water into a thermos, do not close it immediately, let it stand for 10-15 minutes.
Repeated boiling is dangerous: myth or truth?
A handful of doctors disagree with the opinion of the main group of scientists. Thus, endocrinologist Mikhail Bogomolov expresses the opinion that the changes that occur in water after repeated boiling should not be considered mortally dangerous.
To get a liter of dead water, says academician I.V. Petryanov-Sokolov, you need more than 2 thousand tons of liquid from the water supply. Water boiled several times causes much less harm to the body than smoking a cigarette or car exhaust fumes.
But it is still advised to boil once rather than repeatedly. After the first boiling, all pathogenic microorganisms die. Tea is brewed with boiling water.
Do not dilute a hot drink with cold tap water, as this will lead to intestinal problems. When boiling, it is not recommended to dilute cold water in a kettle with hot water.
How to purify tap water
To get high-quality, healthy and tasty water, it is enough to settle the contents before use. Half an hour is enough for the harmful chlorine to disappear. Before boiling, it is better to stand for several hours so that harmful gases and compounds evaporate. If you pour the contents into a thermos, leave it open for a few minutes and only then close the lid.
For each boil, it is healthier and safer to use new, fresh water. Do not boil the liquid again and do not add fresh water to the water that remains after the previous boiling. To make tea or coffee, boiled water can be slightly heated without bringing the liquid to a boil again. Do not do this in the microwave as it kills all the beneficial elements.
To purify the water as much as possible, use special filters or products. For more information on how and how to purify tap water for drinking, see the link.
Is distilled water good or bad?
Many "experts" in the field of water purification often advise using distilled liquid. It seems that its beneficial qualities do not disappear even after several boilings. But is it?
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Distilled water, having gone through the stages of evaporation, cooling and condensation, receives simultaneous saturation with oxygen and carbon dioxide (as well as a number of other substances). As the level of carbon dioxide in a liquid increases, the aquatic environment becomes slightly acidic. If distillation is carried out several times, the water will become completely neutral (this is used for technical purposes, for example, for refilling batteries).
Reasons why you should not drink distilled water:
- Its pH is several units lower, which negatively affects metabolism.
- It does not dissolve the minerals that are needed for normal nerve conduction, to renew body tissues and maintain hormonal levels.
Is distilled water harmful or beneficial? It is definitely harmful, because if a person often drinks distilled water, he does not receive minerals in the required quantities, so he first develops kidney disease, and subsequently other pathologies.
What happens during boiling
The boiling process involves bringing a liquid to a temperature of one hundred degrees Celsius, at which the evaporation process starts and the composition undergoes changes.
Initially, it is worth saying that boiling is a process in which the present pathogenic microorganisms and bacteria die, if they are present.
But against the background of the detrimental effect on the pathogens of the disease, other processes also occur that are difficult to classify as positive for humans:
- When boiling, water evaporates, which is reflected in the concentration of impurities and metal salts in the resulting liquid towards an increase.
- Chlorine under the influence of high temperatures enters into chemical reactions, which results in the appearance of dioxins, as well as carcinogens that can affect the cells of the human body, with the risk of developing diseases of complex etiology.
- Potassium and magnesium precipitate under the influence of temperatures, become insoluble, and are not absorbed by the human body.
- Sodium fluoride, which is part of the component composition of tap water, takes on a form that is dangerous to humans after boiling.
Naturally, all these negative characteristics, with proper boiling, single and short, cannot become critical for a person, since “undesirable” components accumulate in the body slowly. According to scientists, a visible negative “effect” from drinking such a liquid is possible only if you drink only boiled water every day for several decades in a row.
So what's wrong with re-boiled water then? Is it harmful or not to consume water that has been boiled again?
From a scientific point of view
Chemistry will help us understand this issue. Water is not simply a combination of two hydrogen atoms through one oxygen atom. It is also an environment where many beneficial and harmful microorganisms live. Unfortunately, even liquid purification at a high technological level does not guarantee the complete absence of microflora at the outlet.
What happens to running water if you boil it a second time:
- If the first time you boil a liquid, the number of harmful microorganisms in it rapidly decreases, but when you boil it again, the organic component decomposes, which can have a detrimental effect on human health.
- Scientific fact: hydrogen atoms partially split and, when they come into contact with other harmful elements, settle to the bottom of the container or dish, thus gradually increasing the density of the liquid.
- If you boil water more than once, the beneficial substances contained in it disintegrate. In return, harmful compounds such as fluorine and arsenic are formed (in small quantities). Or, for example, nitrates, which under the influence of high temperatures cease to be safe additives and turn into harmful nitrosamines.
As can be seen from the above arguments, if you boil water twice, this will only worsen its harmfulness. Even a high degree of purification at the station cannot guarantee complete safety of the aquatic environment.
Don't boil - freeze
If you use boiling as a cleaning method, it is better to pay attention to a more effective method. The Internet is filled with articles that advise cleaning liquids by freezing them. And this option is suitable, even if you take chlorinated tap water. The most interesting thing is that this is not a myth; freezing really allows you to get rid of harmful impurities.
After the water turns to ice, there will be a small amount of liquid left at the bottom of the container that needs to be drained. As experts say, this is light water that is poorly absorbed by the body. Defrost the ice and drink cool water with pleasure. An excellent option for storing bottled liquids.
In conclusion, let us remind you: many diseases begin due to a lack of fluid in the body or its low quality. Remember that clean water without impurities is the basis for a person’s long life and good health.
