Cooking with tap water and salt? Your food could be toxic

Cooking with chloraminated tap water and iodised table salt could put potentially harmful toxins in your food, suggests a new study.

Here is one study that would force you to tweak your cooking routine in the kitchen. According to researchers from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Nanjing University in China, cooking with chloraminated tap water and iodised table salt could put potentially harmful toxins in your food. The team found several molecules that are almost completely new to scientists created by cooking with chloraminated tap water and iodised table salt. They said that limiting cooking time and temperature, and cooking with table salt fortified with iodate instead of iodide, could be safest.

Our tap water is disinfected before we drink it or use it in cooking. This is done in several ways, including by adding chlorine or molecules called chloramines that are made using ammonia. These two processes -- chlorination and chloramination -- have an effect on the chemical make-up of the water. According to the researchers, chlorine or chloramines in tap water can react with the iodised table salt added to food, creating a kind of acid called hypoiodous acid.

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According to scientists, chlorine or chloramines in tap water can react with the iodised table salt added to food, creating an acid that can then react with food and other organic matter in the water.

“I-DBPs formed during cooking with chloraminated or chlorinated tap water are something new to environmental chemists, toxicologists and engineers,” said Xiangru Zhang, corresponding author of the paper and Associate Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. “They are relevant not only to drinking water researchers and practitioners but also to the public,” he added.

The researchers analysed the I-DBPs formed during cooking with chlorinated and chloraminated tap water. They simulated cooking with different types of tap water at varying temperatures and time, and added wheat flour and iodised salt to see what I-DBPs would be formed.

Using cutting-edge chemistry techniques, they identified 14 completely new molecules and determined the structure of nine molecules. They then carried out tests to see how toxic nine of the molecules are and found that some of the molecules are 50-200 times more toxic than others. The study was published in the journal Water Research.