Why are “health” sites so full of shit? It’s getting to be the case that when I see “health” (or worse, “wellness”) in the title of an article, I have the same aversive reaction I get when I see the word “family”. It’s a good word that has been hijacked by loons.
The latest mania in the “health” community is the danger of reboiling water. I read this and was appalled at the basic misunderstandings in it.
You know how you see the steam coming off of the water when you boil it? Well, that steam is made up of volatile compounds, and they burn out of the water, turn into gasses and leave the water as steam. When your boiled water cools down, those dissolved volatile gasses, as well as minerals, settle back into it. When you re-boil the water, the chemical compounds are changed again; however, the way they are changed is actually harmful.
When water is re-boiled, dangerous components will collect in the water instead of escaping from it. What type of harmful substances? Usually re-boiled water contains:
Arsenic
Nitrates
FluorideYou probably wouldn’t buy a bottle of water that said it contained arsenic, would you? Of course not! So, why would you re-boil water if there is a chance that it could contain arsenic?
Healthy minerals are retained in boiled water, but even they can become dangerous when they become amassed in re-boiled water. For example, calcium salts can collect in the water, and they can cause gallstones and kidney stones if enough is consumed.
First, what steam is made of is primarily water. Volatile compounds will only be there in trace amounts, and they’d be there whether you boiled the water or not, and boiling will actually get rid of them. Try the experiment: add a little alcohol to the water. Boil it. Let it cool. The alcohol boils off first and is lost to the atmosphere. It doesn’t transmute into toxic chemicals and precipitate back. Minerals don’t boil out of the water.
The only way arsenic or nitrates or fluoride will get into your reboiled water is if they were already there in the first place. There is no magic change in “compounds”.
The one concern is very different: when you boil water, the volatile stuff (almost entirely just plain water) in the kettle escapes into the air, while the non-volatile stuff remains behind. That means that when you boil water, the minerals and salts in it become gradually more concentrated. We have very hard water where I live, and if I boil down a pot of water, I can see a rather nasty residue accumulate. It doesn’t taste good either.
But it’s there even if I don’t boil the water. It’s just more dilute.
This stuff isn’t that hard to understand. If you don’t understand it, you shouldn’t be writing health advice.
I saw this just this week from one of our lab techs – she thought it was BS but wasn’t that sure why.
When you boil our hard water here, calcium carbonate precipitates and lowers the amount of calcium you would ingest from any particular teakettle full. It also crusts your water heater innards, but I really don’t think it crusts your kidneys much.
The linked article is no longer there; down the memory hole no doubt.
I checked out some of the other articles on that site. It should win a prize for highest concentration of BS on the Internet. One writer claimed that Coke is more acidic than battery acid because it has a pH of 2.5 compared to 1 for the acid. Higher number means more acid, right?
In fairness, as PZ points out, boiling water concentrates the minerals, so the anti-reboiling folks are partially right, but for the wrong reasons.
Even worse is the South Korean myth that running a fan in an enclosed room will cause asphyxiation.
https://www.google.com/#q=korea+fans+closed+room
Whats worse is that any change of phase will change your water and the more phase changes the more your water changes. I hate to even think what would happen if your water went from vapor to liquid more than once. Won’t someone think of the children?
Looks like they took it down. But this appears to be the same “article.” http://www.whydontyoutrythis.com/2015/06/warning-why-you-should-never-reboil-water-again.html
@tomcoward:
Bwuh?
Yeah, I quit chem after high school, but I still remember 7 is neutral, farther from 7 on the low end and you’re more and more acidic, farther from 7 on the high end and you’re more and more basic (with min = 1; max = 14). This is a level of wrong I rarely observe in its natural habitat.
I just looked up the min & max, because I wasn’t quite sure of that. Good call: I had it wrong. There is no hard lower or upper bound, according to wikipedia.
re @2:
pH is measure of acidity: so pure water with pH of 7.0 is more acidic than sulfuric acid. DiHydrogen Monoxide is death. /snark
re OP:
not quite so triggered by use of “health”. I agree it is abused by quacks. The use of Fluoride as a toxin triggered my ~skepticism~. Fluoride can be toxic, if taken in massive quantities. The amount in a gallon of fluoridated water is so miniscule as to not even approach toxicity.
To extrapolate from the blockquote, it would appear that distilled water is not actually water, but liquified toxins that had been released from the water as steam, to be liquified into a fluid of toxins.
I’ve heard elsewhere that it is a bad idea to drink distilled water instead of filtered water, but had no idea distilled-water was poisons. *smirk*
WHAT?
There are not many times that chemists will be universally stimulated to violent outrage, but this is one of them.
I have to lie down in a dark room now, with a cold cloth on my forehead.
tomcoward,
To be fair I don’t think they are actually claiming that. From the article on Coke:
The author is comparing Coke, battery acid and water, but not actually saying that Coke is more acidic than battery acid. Probably just trying to get across that its pH is closer to battery acid than to water.
Sorry, you are right, tomcoward! Never mind. I skipped this sentence on first read:
*headdesk*
I guess I really didn’t want to believe anyone could be this wrong. But of course they can.
Crip Dyke
I recently had to explain the pH scale to Husband. His mother was a chemistry teacher. I mean, people forget these things and then it’s easy to dupe them about it.
+++
I’ve seen the Coke argument in slightly different form, where Coke is simply used to do various kinds of cleaning, leaving one with the impression that it is as corrosive as industrial-scale cleaning solutions. WOULD YOU REALLY WANT THAT IN YOUR STOMACH? (Actually, I’ll have a nice cool glass right now, thanks.)
As for the water, well, someone come measure the toxins in me, because our tea-kettle has water in it that has been re-boiled countless times – there’s always a wee bit left down at the bottom when I fill it up again.
The only time it is fully emptied is roundabout christmas time, when it is used to heat up mulled wine (don’t worry, we keep a close eye to make sure none of the volatiles actually boil off). Incidentally, this heating-of-mulled-wine works wonders to remove all the accumulated calcium salts on the inside of the tea-kettle. Which must mean something, if we’re talking acids and cleaning solutions and pH here… WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE MULLED WINE DRINKERS?
So what happens if we boil and then reboil Coke?
Al Dente
My guess is, you get a sparkly clean tea-kettle.
(Except for that sticky layer of burned sugars, of course.)
Who knew what that steam was getting up to?
That’s some seriously crazy shit. Whoever wrote that nonsense knew nothing about chemistry. I’d be glad to drink a cup or two of tea in front of them that was made from 6x boiled water, just to show how one does death defying feats.
Pure sulphuric acid (not in combination with water) is not dissociated, so it doesn’t have, strictly speaking, a Ph. But it gets a Ph as soon as it touches your skin, or anything else with a shred of moisture in it.
You shouldn’t drink distilled water. When you urinate and sweat you remove soluble minerals, many of which are in your drinking water. You can deplete some of the electrolytes in your body to an unhealthy level if you drink a lot of distilled water.
@10 Nightjar
Probably just trying to get across that its pH is closer to battery acid than to water.
And the author (totally unsurprisingly, given the brainlessness of the rest of the screed) doesn’t even try to mention that pH is a logarithmic scale, and that the difference between pH 1 and 2 is ten times bigger than between pH 2 and 3.
@11 Nightjar
Crikey!
Neither should plants. I almost killed a cactus giving it DI water. Regular tap water, and it thrives.
Terrorists and arms manufacturers take note. Simply boil a suitable quantity of water under reflux for a week or two and you will end up with the deadliest poison known to humanity. If you’re really devious you’ll put it into the enemy’s water supply. They’ll never see it coming for the substance is nigh-undetectable in water.
komarov
That sounds a lot like a homeopathic death.
OK I’m sorry but I’m an expert on this. I boil and reboil heavy water (D2O) all the time (actually doing it right now!!!) – to distill it from dissolved compounds and attempt to lose some of the regular water that gets into it from the atmosphere.
Dissolved gases and volatile compounds will boil off early on in the process (ammonia for example – the first few milliliters reek of ammonia and is discarded) then the regular D2O comes over very clean while all the non-volatile compounds stay in the unboiled pot. Cooled and collected distilled (boiled) heavy water does not spontaneously have new compounds dissolve into it because it cooled. We verify this because its part of our quality control (in case something goes wrong). I’m yet to see the appearance of magic arsenic in our water or anything else. OK this is heavy water, not H2O but I doubt there is something magic about H2O and not D2O that makes reboiling it so dangerous.
I dunno how people get away with this nonsense. It should be illegal to make such patently false claims, even in your silly blog.
otranreg, @17 and @18,
I know, right? The layers of wrong… they are endless.
Have any of you considered that the writer’s teapot might be a miniature fusion reactor that produces arsenic from the fusion of lighter elements?
Actually that seems to be a completely different article. In comparison to the deleted article yours seems almost sane. Yours argues the problem is dilution and concentration, which is true, but the dangers of which are extremely exagerated. PZ’s article makes ignorant statements that boiled-off particles return to the water and are alchemically modified to toxins. I think they heard the idea of concentration and completely and totally misunderstood it it. Much as the Food Babe misunderstood the levels of nitrogen on airplanes and warned it could be as high as 50%. Or that a higher pH level means acidity. *sigh*
What else is on this site? … Oh this is cute. How to Know if An Egg is Healthy and Organic:
And that’s it. That’s the entire article. If a yolk is dark it’s organic and had a good diet, if not not. No explanation why or what’s healthy or unhealthy about it.
(I’m actually a bit sentimental about eggs and the color of egg yolks. My grandmother had chickens that lay eggs with the most beautiful and dark orange yolks that had the most robust and delicious flavor. Why? Because they ate leftover dinner scraps with lots of broccoli which contains beta-carotine. I always thought this made a better looking and tasting egg but it has nothing to do with healthy or organicousitiness. You can force feed a caged chicken brocolli pills and inject their yolks with dye if you wanted to. *sheesh*.)
Does that big cloud overhead comprise a cubic mile of arsenic & fluorine about to fall on me? HELP!!!1!
Water woo is the most basic woo.
Ok, can someone explain “Death by Chocolate” to me now?
Its in this thing too
Re #16: I love the taste of distilled water. I also think it’s best for making tea since there are no minerals to flavor, flocculate, or darken the tea. It’s misguided to worry about DW missing minerals. You get enough of everything you need in a decent diet, minerals included. If you have to get your MDR of Ca and Mg via water, your diet needs adjusting, or perhaps you should take a mineral supplement if your doctor advises it. Of course if you drink too much water (distilled or tap) you’ll kill yourself from kidney failure, but that would take gallons per day for days.
But back to PZ’s post. Some of these so-called health sites really do have some unhealthy advice. The internet has inspired a lot of people to post nonsense pulled straight from their posteriors in the hope of turning clicks into cash. Health is a favorite area to exploit because everyone cares about it.
Back in the mid 70’s, my GF’s mother had breast cancer. She refused real medical treatment (because she could not stand the idea of losing a breast) and instead went to a Laetrile clinic in Tijuana. She had all these “health” mags in the house, and I remember scanning one (called “Let’s Live!” IIRC) and realizing it was filled with utter nonsense. She was in full denial of the prognosis if she didn’t get real treatment, but thanks to those “health” mags she achieved and maintained epistemic closure. She died after over a year of agony, with the family that much poorer from Laetrile clinic expenses, which, of course, no insurance company would pay for. It was an Incredibly sad and unnecessary death, since she had caught it in time (via self-exam – probably the only good advice those mags gave) to save herself, if only she had agreed to a mastectomy.
It used to take some startup capital to publish quack medical advice. Now anyone with an internet connection can. The internet makes me wonder if the old pro free speech nostrum – that anyone should be allowed to say anything and let the free marketplace of ideas reject the bad – isn’t in need of some modification when it comes to health. There is just so much damage from unregulated quack advice.
Is it me or does this nonsense seem to be inspired by a flawed and very superficial “understanding” of the Miller and Urey experiment?
I don’t recall hearing the coke/battery acidity comparison before, but it was common folk wisdom among auto mechanics (my dad) that pouring coke on your battery posts would cut the corrosion and perhaps slow down the build up. I’ve never tried it.
The pH scale is logarithmic.
Fools all!!! So called “steam” is the angry spirit of water that emerges when you attack it with fire. This spirit may be tamed and made to do your bidding if you’re a clever and powerful enough wizard. I’m not one to brag but I have been able to utilize this process to power an engine. The manipulation of water spirits is a sound principle. Now, I must return to my steampunk laboratory to further my research!
@ 25 woozy.
All I could think of reading that was THIS
See also here.
This woo fails on so many levels. Let’s say there’s X grams of non-volatile stuff dissolved in Y kilos of water, and ignore saturation. Try the following experiment:
1. Fill your favorite kettle with water, and check the water level.
2. Set it to boil.
3. Once done, come back and look at the water level.
The ratio of the water level before it was boiled to the level after determines how much the concentration has risen. So if half of the water is gone after boiling, you’ve doubled the concentration of non-volatiles. You might get that scenario with a stove kettle you’ve forgotten about; if you then top it back up with regular water and pay more attention, the concentration is now 50% higher than normal (that’s 0.5 * 2 + 0.5 * 1).
But I can’t see any drop in water level after my electric kettle automatically shuts off. The increased concentration is negligible, while at the same time I’ve boiled off the volatiles and killed off almost all the organisms that’d make me sick. This is a net win, and several more rounds of boiling via my electric kettle will only improve the situation.
This story is trivially refuted by information you already have on hand.
Coca-cola is not as acidic as stomach acid. But then it doesn’t taste as good as Stella Artois, so maybe you shouldn’t drink it for that reason.
Not at the price my homeopath charges!
Stella Artois has a taste?
Or, you know, if you’re under 21. (Although, I keep hearing people talk about “the future.” Does a world full of people who prefer regular Coke to Vanilla Coke have a future?)
Looks like the stupid has boiled away, leaving behind a 404
We could always drink this black, organic, non-gmo, BPA-free, “scientifically created” blk. water.
Link goes to Walmart because the company’s website is 404-ing.
Eh? *perks up*
Oh. Fulvic Trace.
Never mind. >.>
@7 Crip Dyke
Correct; natural pH levels can hit zero or lower in fumarolic hot springs at certain volcanoes (ones receiving lots of sulphur dioxide gas). And pH levels of -2 or lower have been measured in acid mine drainage sites, in which naturally occurring bacteria oxidise sulphide minerals, producing sulphuric acid (eventually…plus there are chemical reactions that don’t require bacteria that can do the same thing, just in longer time spans). I’m not as familiar with the extreme alkaline end of the scale, but it is as you say, there are no hard limits to pH (although I am unaware of any acidic solution, naturally-occurring or in a lab, hitting -4). Plus, other ions affect pH; to get a true representation of acidity one needs to measure the activity of the hydrogen ion, a much more complicated task.
Apparently mine tailings have been observed down to a pH of -3.6, which implies a stronger solution should be producible in the lab under more thoroughly controlled conditions. Measuring them is apparently problematic, though.
Re #24, AlexanderZ:
A kind of Tepid Fusion Reactor? Interesting notion. Minor hiccup, though. Isn’t arsenic formed in novas? If I recall my ancient classes correctly, the heaviest element formed by, hm, every-day fusion is iron and anything beyond that requires the gentle persuasion of an exploding star to form.
Which would mean that the Tepid Fusion Reactor aka household kettle is capable of unleashing the power of a supernova!
…
Terrorists and arms manufacturers take note. …
—
Re 31, Dreaming of an Atheistic Newtopia:
Doubtful in my opinion. I don’t think the experiment is that well known outside scientific circles so it would be difficult to get people to make that connection in order to convince them of this particular brand of woo.
Tell people some rubbish about vibrations and energy or “quantum” and they’ll accept it because it’s a woo hallmark. (Susceptibles will be eager to embrace it) Likewise people know all sorts of minerals and other things are dissolved in their drinking water and have seen the resulting residues. And Evil Chemicals Are Everywhere, of course, so it’s not that much of a leap that they’re in your kettle, too. Plotting, scheming, preparing to kill you. Well, maybe woo isn’t that dramatic, but the groundwork for the scam has already been laid by millions of “health” columns, “science” reporters and the quacks themselves.
I’m a big fan of the word ‘family’ when it’s followed by ‘size’… and then ‘potato chips’.
@39 azkyroth
Vanilla coke?! The vile taste might somehow cause less ingestion of sugary death water i guess.
PZ said
Wikipedia says
I recall reading elsewhere that a mixture of ethanol and water that has boiled will always retain some ethanol because of the physical properties of the mixture. Perhaps it is those van der waals forces.
Nope, I can, in the lab, remove detectable traces of ethanol by co-distillation (repeated additions and evaporation) with water. At lower concentrations of ethanol it becomes a mass-transport issue; enough water with effectively remove the ethanol.
Reminds me of the Food Babe when she was repeating that idiocy about Hitler and Satan crystals in microwaved water. Food Babe is always good for that particular mixture of amusement and despair at the credulity of humankind.
I’m concerned that no one has seen how this applies to chemtrails. The conspiracy is much worse than it seemed.
@49 Thanks.
@ 51 Indeed, the conspiracy that nobody knows about is the worst.
It’s the other way around.
I think the element of truth, obscured by the woo, bad science and poor writing is that if your tap water contains (as does ours) traces of heavy minerals like arsenic and radium; and, if you never empty your kettle and refill it before making tea but instead always top it up… Then, over a period of time you’ll concentrate the nasty minerals.
The amount of water lost to your kettle as mineral-free steam is miniscule compared to that lost being poured into your teapot (carrying minerals with it); consequently it’s going to take a very, very long time to concentrate the nasties to the point of being hazardous. However, it can happen.
@kc9oq # 54
Can I apply for a grant to make tea with my kettle every day for 10 years (without ever completely emptying it), and then test the levels of arsenic, etc. in the resulting solution? Even if it just pays slightly more than the costs of the water, power, and tea it would be worth it, I think.
In response to the discussion on Coke being toxic because of the high acidity, I looked up the pH value of lemon juice – the noted woo superfood – and was unsurprised to see that it’s about 2, and therefore significantly more acidic than Coke just as I understood it to be. In doing so, I found this lovely article taking on the idea that lemon juice is alkaline, and then for some reason went and read some of the comments. You’re welcome. If anyone needs me, I will be curled up in a dark corner trying to blot out the world.
Is this like Homeopathy’s distant cousin?
LightningRose @3:
Uh-oh. I have two fans running in my room at all times, and usually the door is closed.
Hmph. Maybe I’m a zombie.
****
rq @12:
And then there’s those that such information stuck in their heads for like, 5 seconds (clunky sentence bc I wanted alliteration).
Why no, I’m not talking about me…
gog@27
Back to chemistry class for you! Lye woo is much more basic.
I wonder…..if you ran a coal-fired fan in a closed room…
Gee, I thought Coke was healthy for you because phosphoric acid has phosphorous–a key ingredient in healthy bones! /snark
I always empty my kettle before I make tea, and my husband doesn’t. He thinks I’m crazy, but I can tell the difference between tea I make with “leftover” water and tea I make with fresh tap water, or filtered water. I can tell when he’s used morning water for the first time without letting the faucet run for a minute. I can tell when he hasn’t rinsed the cup (what is it with British people and their not rinsing soapy dishes arrrgh). I have tested this to make sure I’m just picky, not deluded. I know many websites claim the difference is negligible, but the tea with contaminants from the reboiling, the pipe, the soap, or whatever is really perceptibly darker and more “sour” tasting.
Well, you’re no crazier than I am, speedwell … for whatever that’s worth. Um..
I let the water run as well before actually drinking it (I use it to rinse my glass three times, just like I was taught in chemistry class long ago) and any soap is of course to be rinsed off thoroughly. I also cringe when I see people use huge amounts of washing up liquid in an equally huge sink. All you need is you largest pot with a few drops of soap and a relatively little water. Such a waste. But I digress.
I don’t think the reboiling is much of an issue no matter what you do. But the water that has been sitting in the pipes over night does taste noticeably different (to me at least). There is, after all, a fair amount of piping on the way to the tea kettle, filled with what is essentially stagnant water. Likewise the leftover water in the kettle probably gets ‘stagnant’ in the same way with deposits in the kettle dissolving just a bit and affecting the taste.
If you want to up the paranoia – though you might be ahead of me – you might want to avoid hot water to fill the kettle. Minerals and other contaminants from the pipes and boiler are more soluble in it, after all. You’re welcome.
Oooh, homeol–better keep that shit away from the frat boys.
Komarov: Terrorists and arms manufacturers take note. Simply boil a suitable quantity of water under reflux for a week or two and you will end up with the deadliest poison known to humanity. If you’re really devious you’ll put it into the enemy’s water supply. They’ll never see it coming for the substance is nigh-undetectable in water.
I heard about a case like that. The terrorists put 100 kg of pure dihydrogen monoxide into the reservoir. Those fiends!