What happens if you boil water. Harm and benefits of boiled water. Reboiling water.

People living in cities have long been accustomed to boiling water before drinking it. This action is aimed at eliminating various bacteria and microbes that feel great in a raw liquid, but are destroyed under the influence of high temperatures.

For many, it is customary to boil water once again in order to treat yourself to another portion of such a fragrant drink as tea or coffee. But it doesn't make sense. The fluid has already been decontaminated by the first thermal treatment and will not become clearer with any number of subsequent thermal treatments. From a medical point of view, used water should be replaced with new water. Such measures are required for several reasons.

First of all, repeated boiling of water already prepared for drinking reduces its taste, after which the liquid begins to give off an unpleasant metallic aftertaste.

Even crystal water contains not the most useful impurities - especially if we talk about the chlorinated liquid of cities. The composition of water is designed in such a way that additional exposure to fire will cause only oxygen molecules to evaporate. Thus, the water will “get heavier”, as the amount of liquid contained in it will decrease, while the amount of harmful precipitation will remain unchanged.

It is noteworthy that boil sea ​​water and it’s completely useless - after doing this several times, you will see that the liquid has evaporated, leaving unfit for drinking salt in its place. Salt impurities are also found in fresh water but not in such quantities. When boiled, other harmful substances– carcinogens, the amount of which directly depends on how much and how often the same water is exposed to heat treatment. All these substances do not have an immediate effect on the body, but, accumulating in it for years, gradually destroy it.

How not to break the life-giving power of water

How to protect your health from the negative effects of water? It is necessary to periodically replace it in the kettle - whenever you plan to boil it. You can leave the old liquid, but then you should limit it simple heating without bringing to a boil.

We will have to try to ensure that repeated boiling of water has a bad effect on a person. In order to achieve the settling of harmful precipitation in dangerous doses, one must either boil it countless times, or drink an improperly prepared liquid for a long time. But it is worth approaching this issue consciously, as water will turn into an indispensable friend of your body.

Water is one of the most unique substances in nature. It is necessary for a person every day. An important factor in its use is purity and the absence of harmful impurities. Poor quality water can be extremely dangerous for the body. Therefore, before use, it is usually filtered, frozen or boiled.

What happens to water when it boils?

Each of us boils water. Some use it as a drink, additionally cooling. Most make tea. Very often you can hear that water cannot be boiled twice. There is an opinion that such a liquid becomes dangerous to humans. This is explained by the fact that even with a long first heating, useful microelements disintegrate. In the second boiling, there is allegedly nothing useful left in the water at all.

Boiling is necessary in most cases. IN tap water harmful bacteria can live. They die already after 2-3 minutes of heat treatment. But it is worth noting that some dangerous microorganisms are not afraid of high temperatures. In this case, boiling is powerless to cope with the problem. Also, in this way, salts of heavy metals cannot be removed from the water.

It is believed that water should not be boiled twice due to the fact that it can become "heavy". From a chemistry point of view, this is a myth. Heavy water is almost impossible to create at home. This is a complex process. This result is affected only by long boiling over many years.

In addition, heavy water is not fatal to humans. It is relatively quickly excreted from the body.

The quality of boiled water may depend on the type of kettle. Many people do not boil water twice in plastic electric kettles. They believe that there is a reaction with the plastic. In fact, if the polymer is approved for use as a material in which water is heated, then it is safe.

Highly chlorinated water can be harmful to health. It already reacts with plastic during the first heating. Various hazardous substances begin to be released into the liquid. They can also be preserved by re-boiling. Therefore, the problem is rather not in the secondary boiling, but in the composition of the water. Before heating in an electric kettle made of plastic, it must be defended in a glass container.

The possibility of harm from secondary boiling can also be if the kettle is made of poor quality material to which plasticizers are added. These substances make the plastic less brittle. They begin to stand out during heating. It turns out that we drink water or tea with a dose of plasticizers. Therefore, you should not buy cheap Chinese appliances. Cost is a direct indicator of the quality of plastic. Service life of kettles safe material- 3 years. After that, it is better to replace it with a new one.

Boiling water: myths and facts


  1. Some attribute the harm of boiling to the fact that the structure of the liquid is disturbed. In order to deal with this, let us recall such a concept as the memory of water. It means that the liquid remembers the molecular composition of the substance initially dissolved in it. When heated, this memory is allegedly destroyed, and the water becomes dead. Official science does not recognize this fact. The scientific name of dead water is distilled. In fact, it is a liquid devoid of all impurities. It is obtained with the help of a complex technological process. Like heavy water, getting distilled water at home is almost impossible.
  2. Another reason why re-boiling is feared is the loss of oxygen in the liquid during re-heating. It becomes less in the composition of the liquid already during the first heating.
  3. Thus, when boiling, the quality of the water is important. Chlorinated water is dangerous, both at the first and at the second heating. With repeated heat treatment, the liquid does not become stiffer. It's softer than regular tap water.
  4. Boiled water will not cause harm to health under the following conditions:
  5. Settling or filtering the liquid. Chlorine evaporates from the water and when heated, the formation of carcinogens will not occur
  6. Proper utensils for boiling. Do not choose kettles made of cheap plastic. When water is heated in it, a plasticizer is released
  7. Cleaning the kettle. This allows you to rid the water of impurities that accumulate on the walls of the dishes.

Currently, boiled water is used almost everywhere. This article explains why re-boiling water is bad. Here comes the mass useful tips and recommendations.

As you know, the human body consists of 55-85 percent water, depending on age and body weight. During the day, part of the water leaves our body naturally, and, naturally, a person is forced to make up for its deficiency.

This is done simply - a person drinks water. And a significant proportion of it is boiled water. Few people think about what effect boiled water has on our body - does it benefit, harm or does it matter whether you drink it raw or boiled?


Boiling water has been known to mankind since, perhaps, as a person mastered the fire. Boiled water, in one form or another, accompanies a person all his life - in the form of tea and coffee, soups and sauces. Many people prefer boiled water to raw water, trying to get rid of possible pathogens or the smell of chlorine. An electric kettle is now an integral part of the kitchen interior.

But let's try to figure out what actually happens when water is boiled and understand - is it harmful to boil water or is it necessary?


As you know, most of the microorganisms, including pathogens, cannot withstand high temperatures and die when boiled. Hence the benefit of boiling, as the simplest and most affordable way disinfect water, especially in field conditions when water has to be taken from natural sources springs, lakes or rivers. But is it really necessary to boil water taken from the tap?

First, as a result of recent studies, it turned out that not all microorganisms are killed by boiling. Spores of fungi, some spore-bearing bacilli, and spores of the causative agent of botulism tolerate boiling perfectly. In order to kill the causative agent of viral hepatitis or "mad cow disease", water must be boiled for at least 10 minutes. In addition, all mechanical contaminants, as well as oils, petroleum products, pesticides, herbicides and other pollutants, not only are not removed from the water during boiling, but can also react with each other when the temperature rises, forming dangerous compounds.


But even suppose that the water taken for boiling has been carefully filtered and does not contain impurities. What will happen to it when it boils?

As you know, when bringing water to a temperature of 100 degrees, water changes its state of aggregation - it passes from liquid state into gaseous. But is this only happening in a boiling kettle?


Probably everyone has heard the expression from Russian fairy tales - “dead water” and “ living water". So, the existence of "dead water" is not a myth at all. It's about about heavy water.

Heavy water does not look different from ordinary water. The difference lies in her chemical structure- hydrogen atoms in it are replaced by atoms of its heavy isotope - deuterium, therefore its formula is written not as H2O, but as D2O or as 2H2O. The destructive effect of heavy water has been proven by many laboratory experiments. The consequences of its use are varied - from sterility, often irreversible, to the death of the body.

It would seem, what does boiling have to do with heavy water? The most direct! The thing is that when water is boiled, a small amount of heavy water is formed - because of its greater specific gravity, it "settles" near the bottom of the kettle. But after all, many people, without using all the water from the kettle, add raw water to it and boil it again! As a result, the content of heavy water gradually increases with each boiling. The effect of such water on the body has already been said above.

For many, especially those living in big cities, boiling is a way to rid the water of bad smell chlorine. It is believed that chlorine vapor evaporates from water when heated and boiled water does not contain it. However, this is not the case at all. Chlorine - chemically enough active substance, and an increase in temperature is known to speed up many chemical reactions.

As a result, along with fragrant tea or coffee, a person receives a whole "cocktail" of chloride chemical compounds, many of which are not excreted from the body and accumulate for years, poisoning a person and disrupting his metabolism. Such, for example, are trihalomethanes - and they are much more dangerous to human health than chlorine, which was originally contained in raw water.

What is the way out? Very simple. The chlorine contained in tap water is quite volatile. It is enough to leave the water in an open container for a day and the chlorine will "erode" itself, after which the water can be boiled fearlessly. Just do not forget that when water is settled, chlorine salts and other impurities settle at the bottom of the container in which the water was settled. Therefore, it is better to use only two-thirds of the volume of water, and drain the lower third and rinse the container thoroughly.

Another aspect that speaks against boiling water is that when boiling, the volume of water decreases, and consequently, the concentration of salts in it increases. Excess salt leads to a whole bunch of diseases - a heart attack, kidney stones, atherosclerosis, joint diseases.

Scale on the walls of the kettle is also a consequence of the increased salt content in tap water. When the boiling point is reached, they precipitate, eventually forming a dense layer on the walls of the kettle. And the opinion that this makes the water cleaner is very wrong! In fact, by pouring water from a kettle into a cup (especially if there is a lot of scale in the kettle), a tea drinker provides himself with a “supplement” in the form of the same scale, which later settles in the kidneys and can cause urolithiasis. Also, iron salts, cadmium, mercury, nitrates are not removed by boiling.

Another one interesting feature boiled water, for which it can rightly be called "dead", this is the fact that boiling destroys the internal structure of water. The fact is that raw water consists of fragments of a structure resembling a crystalline one. Such water can subsequently be relatively easily incorporated into cells. human body, because, as it turned out, as a result of numerous studies, the water in the cell is stored precisely in crystalline form- we can say that the cell "freezes" the water.

When a person consumes boiled water, in which all intermolecular bonds are destroyed, the cell needs enormous efforts to streamline the structure of water - after all, only after that it can use it. It is not for nothing that our grandmothers rubbed their faces with ice cubes, thus slowing down the aging process and accelerating cell regeneration. To verify the validity of this theory, it is enough to try to water 3 identical plants for a month. various types water: boiled, ordinary raw and melted water obtained from melting ice or snow.

The results will speak for themselves - a plant watered with melt water will develop much more actively than a plant watered plain water, and the plant receiving boiled water will be oppressed.

And, finally, when boiling, especially when repeatedly boiled, water loses almost all the oxygen contained in it in dissolved form, which adversely affects both the taste of drinks and dishes, and the metabolism in the human body.

For those who use sorption carbon filters, you should be especially careful: if you do not replace the filter cartridge in time, the carbon dust from the filter may enter the kettle, and when boiled, it forms poisonous dioxide. In general, such a filter is not the most the best choice, because if you do not use it for some time, active reproduction of microorganisms begins in its filler, feeding on organic matter that has settled in the filter cassette.

So, what to do so that boiled water, if not beneficial, then at least not harmful?

Always empty the kettle of unused water and rinse thoroughly. Each time, pour fresh, settled or filtered water into the kettle.

Make sure that no scale builds up in the kettle. If necessary, clean it with special tools.

Use a combined sorption-ion-exchange water filter, be sure to change the filter cassettes on time (it must be remembered that many brands of household filters real term cassette service life is significantly less than stated).

When pouring boiling water or tea into a thermos, do not immediately close the thermos, but let the water "breathe" for about five minutes, this will preserve the taste of the drink and allow the water to at least partially replenish the oxygen lost during boiling.


A person whose body consists of 70% liquid, it is vital to drink enough water. It is necessary for the normal course of all processes in our body. But what is the best water to drink? The liquid that flows from the tap in large cities is not suitable for drinking, so many people prefer to boil water. But is everything so simple? Is it good to drink boiled water or is it a complete harm? These questions need to be dealt with in more detail.

In physics, boiling is understood as 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 vessel.
  • There are a lot of bubbles. They provoke turbidity, and then whitening of the liquid. This stage is also known as the "white key" because the process is similar to the running of spring water. Tea lovers often remove the kettle from the stove at this stage, preventing the water from boiling.
  • Then there is intense seething, bursting of large bubbles and a strong release of steam. Water splashes out of dishes.

The benefits and harms of boiled water still raise a lot of doubts. Boiling tap water solves the following tasks:

  • Kills microorganisms;
  • Reduces water hardness;
  • Reduces chlorine content.

This is the main benefit of boiled water. Hard salts remain in the form of sediment at the bottom of the container, most of the bacteria die. In particular, boiling is relevant in the hot season, when, despite chlorination, the number of microorganisms in the water becomes larger.

However, boiling does not destroy the hepatitis A virus, the botulism bacillus. In addition, if the water is standing for a long time, bacteria can get into it again. Therefore, boiled water, the benefits and harms of which are not so obvious, cannot be stored for several days. Boiling makes water softer. At the same time, the concentration of certain salts becomes higher due to the evaporation of the liquid.

Danger and harm of boiled water


However, studies show that boiling does not cope with all microbes. So, in order to kill the hepatitis virus, you need to boil water for half an hour. A 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 active pesticides, nitrates, heavy metals, phenols, oil products are not destroyed in it. 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 for a long time, causes a clear decrease in the volume of water. A precipitate forms 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 it is by no means possible to dilute boiled water with unboiled water.

Many believe that the benefits of boiled water for the body is that it is purified from chlorine. But studies have shown that this microelement, 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 healthy, many experts believe that it becomes “dead”, therefore it cannot bring any value. It does not saturate the body with valuable minerals and the moisture that it needs. It is also known that after some time after boiling, the water is again infected with various microorganisms, which can be in the kettle or simply fly in the air. Although, of course, this is quite a significant 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 can be harmful to our body.

Is there any benefit in boiled water?

Understanding 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 folk 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 pure water, if you warm it up, because the point is not in boiling.

Is boiled water good or bad? This process really makes it better for the body than tap or well water, which contains a lot of bacteria and aggressive particles. But boiling does not make the water in the form in which 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. When using boiled water, remember that it is undesirable to store it in a 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 it is harmful to boil water a second time. Here 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 the 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 the negative impact will be present.
  • We usually boil chlorinated water. Chlorine, as we have said, when heated, reacts with organic matter and forms dangerous toxins. The more 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 can be positive.

Thus, water boiled several times retains very little of the benefit 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 yourself to a single boil.

So what is the best water to drink?

If you want to drink water with health benefits, then it is best to use not boiled, but specially purified water. For this, 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 jug-shaped filters, as well as filters that are installed directly on the water pipe, and already purified water flows from the tap. Also a good option- Drinking bottled water. It is guaranteed to be cleaned and does not cause any harm to the body.

If the water that you have access to now does not inspire confidence, it is better to boil it and protect yourself from poisoning and other unpleasant consequences. Indeed, in which water is more useful: boiled or raw, the choice is definitely on the boiled side (of course, if the raw water has not been purified). Therefore, it is strongly not recommended to use 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.

NOTE

Mom, why are you boiling water?
- To kill microbes.
- Do you want me to drink tea with dead microbes?)))

Let's say right away that repeated boiling of water in itself does not bring much harm, but there will be no benefit either.
So why not boil water again or add raw boiled water and boil together? Consider the main opinions.

1. Heavy water.
In the process of prolonged boiling, large masses of water evaporate from the water and in this way the proportion of "heavy" water D2O increases. Heavy water settles at the bottom of the kettle. Therefore, if you do not pour out the remains of boiled water, but add fresh water to it, then when boiling again, the percentage of heavy water in this vessel will increase even more. With repeated additions of new amounts of fresh water to the remains of old boiled water, a rather large concentration of heavy water can be obtained. And this is dangerous for human health. If you boil the same water for a long time, then it becomes "heavy" - like treated water from nuclear reactors.

Heavy water is water with deuterium (deuterium oxide). Deuterium- heavy hydrogen, denoted by the symbols D and 2H. Deuterium is found in small doses in ordinary water (1:5500). The increase in the concentration of heavy water, even with prolonged boiling, is so negligible that it lies beyond the sensitivity of the organism and can only be detected by precise equipment. An increase in concentration does not mean an increase in the amount of heavy water itself.

Heavy water(also deuterium oxide) - this term is usually used to refer to heavy hydrogen water. Heavy hydrogen water has the same chemical formula, as ordinary water, but instead of atoms of the usual light hydrogen isotope (protium) it contains two atoms of the heavy hydrogen isotope - deuterium. The formula for heavy hydrogen water is usually written as or 2H2O. Outwardly, heavy water looks like ordinary water - a colorless liquid without taste and smell.
However, heavy water is not as poisonous as many think. A person can drink a glass of pure 100% heavy water without any visible harm to health, all deuterium will be removed from the body in a few days.

Experiments on mammals have shown that tangible consequences for the body occur at very high concentrations of deuterium in tissues (25%-50%). A person weighing 70 kg should drink 3 liters of 100% heavy water daily for a week so that its concentration in tissues is 25%.

The final answer will be given to us by the school problem book in chemistry for the 11th grade. In one of the tasks, a quote is given from Pokhlebkin's book "Tea", where the author writes about "heavy water", the inadmissibility of making tea from it and the need to pour it into the kettle every time new water. Further, the authors of the problem book ask: how many times do you need to add water and boil it in a 1.5-liter kettle so that the concentration of heavy water increases 10 times? There are all sorts of moths, shares, X's and, finally, the answer. "In order to increase the content of heavy water by 10 times, it is necessary to evaporate half of the water 157 times in a row, that is, to reduce its initial amount by some unimaginable number with powers of times, which seems meaningless." So drink calmly tea from boiled water several times!

2. Decrease in oxygen in water.

The statement that it is impossible to boil water twice, because it “becomes less oxygen” is not true. There is as little oxygen in freshly boiled water as in twice boiled water - and several times less than in water, say, 90 degrees A supersaturated solution of oxygen in water does not exist under normal conditions, therefore neither the number of boilings nor the rate of heating of water are important.

3. Increase in salt concentration.

It is believed that repeated boiling in water increases the concentration of either just salts, or heavy metal salts, and all this is very harmful, of course. With each boiling, the water evaporates and the concentration of dissolved salts in the residue increases. At the same time, everything depends on the purity of the source water, if the water is clean, you boil it for as long as you like, nothing will happen.
This is wrong. All salts of reversible hardness decompose during the first boiling. When water is heated, a rapid decomposition of hardness salts occurs with the release of carbon dioxide - this explains the "whitening" of water and the release of a large number small bubbles before boiling. Accordingly, boiled water, as a rule (with the initial presence of significant reversible hardness, is softer than unboiled water, but it does not matter how many times the water was boiled.

3. Water becomes "dead".

Filtered water is "alive", i.e. saves because "information structure" of flowing water. Boiled, respectively, is inanimate. (Not to be confused with "dead" acidic and "live" alkaline water after hydrolysis!) This is well felt by animals that are more willing to drink running water from a tap (even with chlorine!) or a filter (as well as from puddles and open water), rather than boiled from a kettle. This is not officially recognized by science. So to believe or not to believe is your choice.

* * *
So, of course, water can be boiled repeatedly, but from the point of view of benefits, it is most useful to drink filtered water, but not boiled. For tea and coffee, it is enough to heat the water to 80 degrees. And if you boil water, then not immediately from the tap! The water must settle so that the chlorine evaporates, as already mentioned here