Never Reboil Water

[lessisbest]

I read an interesting article about when you boil water in your electric or stove-top kettle to be sure to start with fresh water each time. Boiling water that has already been boiled changes in composition and can change for the worse. The compounds amass "increasing the risk of consumption of certain chemicals."

These are some of the chemical compounds that can increase when you reboil water:

1. Arsenic
2. Nitrates
3. Fluoride

You can avoid this problem by using pure distilled deionized water. Just one more benefit from distilling our drinking water since 1986.

[rosarugosa]

Thanks for the info; I hadn't heard this before and I frequently reboil water in the stove top kettle.

[catherine]

Yes, I was aware of this--not so much the health impact, but it definitely changes the taste--That's why you never pour previously boiled water into a coffee maker for instance.

I always empty the tea kettle and refill it when making tea.

[SteveinMN]

Without a link to the article in question, I have to question the article. Without doubt, boiling water releases some of the air/oxygen trapped in the water, so boiled water has less oxygen in it (though still enough "O" to be H2O). This can increase the relative proportions of minerals and contaminants in the boiled water. But it would be a very rare case (if not impossible) for water to generate more arsenic than it may have had coming out of the tap. And I have a hard time believing that, in household quantities, reboiling water will ever increase the amounts of most contaminants to a dangerous level. Affect taste? Yes. Affect health? Frankly, I'd be more worried about mold/mildew growth in the water as it sits in the pot/kettle for days on end. And I'm not terribly worried about that.

I boil fresh water each time because I depend on the consistency of the behavior. We also use filtered water for cooking most of the time. But even from straight out of the tap for most water systems (maybe not wells, but those should be checked), I think this is a minor issue.

[kib]

Anything in the water originally will concentrate as you boil off water molecules. Also, if anything is leaching out of your pot, it will accumulate in greater quantity over time. So it really comes down to three things: how pure is your original water, what sort of cooking/storage utensil are you using, and how much of the original water is boiled/evaporated off before you actually consume it. Barring emergency situations, I'd use the extra hot water to wash my dishes rather than save it.

[lessisbest]

Anything in the water originally will concentrate as you boil off water molecules. Also, if anything is leaching out of your pot, it will accumulate in greater quantity over time. So it really comes down to three things: how pure is your original water, what sort of cooking/storage utensil are you using, and how much of the original water is boiled/evaporated off before you actually consume it. Barring emergency situations, I'd use the extra hot water to wash my dishes rather than save it.

kib-

You've added even more good information for thought. I happen to use a glass electric kettle for heating my water for my hot beverages. Since I use distilled water, no mineral buildup in the bottom. But where I live, if you use an aluminum kettle on the stove-top and never clean the mineral buildup out of if from our extremely hard water, I can see where that would add to the general problem, whether you used fresh water each time or not. I would also think if you use an aluminum kettle, if you were to allow it to over-heat or go dry (or nearly go dry), you could also leech aluminum into the water. Allowing the kettle to boil for a prolonged period of time before using it would also allow time for dangerous compounds to accumulate in the pot AND the water.

I'm also pretty frugal (understatement of the year ). I try to heat the exact amount of water needed for the "job", but this particular glass kettle has a 16-oz. minimum amount you can heat in it, and any extra hot water goes into my hand-dandy Stanley Thermos to be used for another cup of tea later, or a cooking-related use, rather than be reboiled.

As an aside.... We always heat our dishwater with an electric kettle because we use saved water (water that usually goes down the drain while waiting for it to get hot for a shower, etc.) for after meal clean-up and doing dishes that don't go into the dishwasher. (We only run the dishwasher once a week.)

We use about 1-gallon of water to do dishes. We heat approximately 5-cups of saved water in an electric kettle, add it and approximately 5 cups of room temperature water to a small plastic tub for washing dishes in. The remainder of the gallon is used for rinsing. As long as the water used for washing the dishes is hot, you can safely use room temperature water to rinse them.

Another use for that extra hot water.... Take it outside and pour it on a weed. Safer for the environment than chemical week killers, and quite effective.