Water is used in homes every day – more often and in more ways than you may imagine. Whether filling the kettle for tea or boiling pasta, most of us don’t think twice about using tap water.
Water utility companies treat tap water to acceptable levels. However, by the time it reaches your home, it may get contaminated with harmful contaminants and may also contain chemicals that are not good for your health.
And let’s face it, tap water has a distinct taste to it which many people find funny. And you may not realize this, but tap water can also impact your cooking. If unfiltered water is used for cooking, the contaminants affect the taste of the foods we consume.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the top benefits that come with using filtered water for cooking.
Improved Taste
Tap water reaching your home is loaded with chlorine which is added as part of the disinfection process. However, it imparts an unpleasant taste to it.
The flavours in the water you cook with often carry over into the final dishes you create. Though the changes may be subtle depending on the dish, they can be quite noticeable. Water with high levels of chemicals impacts food that use large quantities of water for cooking – pasta, rice, and even vegetables.
Filtered water is free from chlorine & other chemicals that cause a bad taste. As a result, meals cooked with filtered water have delicious & consistent flavours. Filtered water also enhances the taste & smell of tea and coffee, for that perfect brew.
Brighter Colours
Not only does filtered water improves the flavour of the meals, but it also enhances its appearance. Food cooked with water containing chlorine often appears to be dull due to the bleaching action of chlorine. Like bleach, chlorine strips colour from everything it comes in contact with.
On the flipside, filtering your water before use solves this problem. By removing chlorine & other chemicals from water, your vegetables & meals will look the way they are supposed to. The food will look more appetizing and your family will enjoy its vibrant look and taste.
Better Baking
Baking is both art & science. Achieving great baking results requires high-quality ingredients and precise measurements. Water is necessary for gluten to form, for dispersing salt, sugar, and yeast throughout your dough, for yeast fermentation and the consistency of your dough.
Chlorine & water hardness are some of the contaminants that could hinder the baking process. Water high in minerals such as calcium and magnesium is called hard water. While some amount of hard minerals in water is fine for baking bread, excessively hard water will reduce the rate of fermentation and tighten the gluten in your dough, altering the texture. Additionally, the presence of chlorine will reduce fermentation rates and alter the taste of your final product.
That is why many restaurants & bakeries have started paying attention to the quality of water they use in the baking process.
Cleaner Produce
Fruits, vegetables and other fresh produce must be thoroughly washed before use. Fresh produce can become contaminated in many ways.
During the growing phase, produce may be contaminated by animals, harmful substances in the soil or water, and poor hygiene among workers. After produce is harvested, it passes through many hands, increasing the contamination risk. Contamination can even occur after the produce has been purchased, during food preparation, or through inadequate storage.
However, if you are washing your produce in contaminated tap water, you are washing them at all.
Healthy Cooking
Consuming chemicals and contaminants in tap water could lead to severe health problems.
Ingesting chlorine with your tap water can have several adverse health effects. Some of these effects occur because chlorine tends to form trihalomethanes (THMs). Fluoride in water has been linked to fluorosis and cancer.
With a water filter, you’ll remove these contaminants which otherwise would have entered your body. By filtering your water, you are choosing better water for your family.
However, some water filters such as RO systems can even remove the healthy minerals present in water. The good news is that there are now improved systems available in the market, that allow you to retain those healthy minerals and only eliminate the contaminants. This can prove beneficial to growing children who need minerals such as calcium and magnesium for healthy growth.
Filtering water is not difficult and families can not only improve their health but also save a lot of money spent on bottled water every year. Investing in a water filtration system saves the hassle of carrying large water bottles around and offers a convenient way of high-quality drinking water straight from the kitchen tap.
