Hard water does not just impact your skin and hair but also your cooking. Yes, this is a fact that hard water can impact your cooking and that too negatively.
Cooking is an art in which you need to use the right proportion of ingredients and use the right methods to prepare a delicious and healthy meal. Water plays a major role in cooking any food item. Unfortunately, hard water and its features can ruin your cooking in different ways.
What is Hard Water?
When water passes through the deposits of gypsum, chalk, or limestone, it gets rich in magnesium, calcium, sulfates, and carbonates. This water is known as hard water. Water at different locations can have a different amount of salt and minerals dissolved in the water. Depending upon the number of such minerals, the hardness of the water is determined.
Signs That You Have Hard Water
There can be several signs to check that you have got hard water coming into your house.
- The very first sign is the low pressure of water coming from the taps. This happens as the minerals and salt keep on depositing in the pipeline and the taps’ insides.
- When you use hard water for bathing or washing your hands, you will find a thin white film that deposits when hard water comes in contact with soap.
- Similarly, you will find white marks and spots forming in utensils in which you have kept hard water for a pretty long time.
- When you boil hard water, you will find minerals depositing at the bottom of the utensil in which you have boiled the water.
How Hard Water Affects Baking?
Who does not love cakes and cookies? It fascinates even more when you know the perfect art of baking them. But sometimes, even though you are making use of the right ingredients in the right measurements and are using the right temperature, the results may not be good. One of the major reasons can affect the quality of water you are using in your baking regime.
There are some common reasons, hard water can negatively affect baking.
- The minerals available in the hard water can absorb too much protein in the flour and change the dough’s consistency. This happens because the hard water reacts with the gluten and leads to the tightening of the dough. If you are getting a rubbery consistency of the dough, this can be due to hard water usage in your baking.
- The PH level of hard water is another factor that impacts baking to a great extent. Experts mention that a little of acidic water helps in the yeast’s fermentation better, that is the key ingredient while baking bread. But hard water is alkaline, and this may hamper the fermentation process.
How Hard Water Affects Cooking?
Not just baking, hard water can also negatively impact other cooking processes such as boiling. When you are boiling hard water, you will find mineral deposits at the bottom of the utensil in which you are boiling it. And when you are boiling vegetables in hard water, you can notice that the vegetables’ color has become quite dull. Similarly, rice cooked in hard water is much harder than usual.
Apart from this, even hard water increases the cooking time. When you are cooking vegetables such as beans in hard water, it may take quite a longer time than usual.
Often water supply providers add chlorine to the water to lessen the hardness of the water. But again, chlorine in the water can give you a bleaching flavor and smell in the food.
Solution
After noticing the ill impacts of hard water in cooking, most households try different options to treat the hardness of the water. As mentioned in the above section, chlorine in the water for treating it can also have some other negative impacts. Hence, other options such as the below-mentioned are used in the process of treating hard water.
● RO Water Purifier:
Reverse Osmosis, most commonly known as RO, is one of the most common ways many households are using today to get water with lesser hardness. You can conveniently install a RO water purifier at home. You can avail of water that is free from such salt and minerals.
RO uses force to make the water pass through several semi-permeable membranes to trap the minerals in it so that only the water free from such minerals and salt can pass through the filter tap. There are different purifiers available today, depending upon the number of filters that they have. You can install the right RO water purifier depending upon the level of hardness in your location’s water.
I came across a very useful website while researching for a new RO purifier for my home. If you too are planning to buy one, you may like to check it out – www.bestrowaterpurifier.in
● Hard Water Softeners
RO Water Purifier can be an expensive option. So many people prefer to make use of hard water softeners. These treat the hard water by removing the ions of calcium, magnesium, and other minerals from the water. Hard water softeners can be easily installed in your house’s water tank so that the water flowing through the taps across your house is free from such minerals and salt.
Many people think that hard water does not impact your cooking. But the fact is that the minerals in the hard water can react with the vegetables and other ingredients and can negatively affect the taste and appearance.
Several times, the cooked food is absolutely tasteless, or it may not have the flavor that it should have.
This is all because of the use of hard water in cooking.
Hence, you must get a solution for the hard water being supplied at your home so that you can enjoy delicious and healthy home-cooked food always.
This is a guest post written by Vishwa Deep.
Hard water can harm so much I was little aware of that, but it can affect the baking is really new for me. Thanks for sharing this !!
I remember my sister used to complaint about the Hard Water. I have heard about its effects on digestion and also on hair. But cooking and baking are new to me.
Such an informative post buddy. I will surely check the water we are using honestly not paid any heed to it so far.
Hard water is a major issue while cooking. I learnt this the hard way at my in-laws place. A good RO purifier is the only way to make it good enough to consume.
I had experience bad effect of hard water on skin and hair but I did not know that hard water can affect cooking too. thanks for sharing about the website, will surly check more about it from my side.
We are using RO purifier and hard water softener too but the water quality is so bad that some times these equipments also doesn’t work. But I wasn’t aware about how it effects cooking. This is really scary. Thanks for sharing.
Hard water cause so much harm in cooking and even to the utensils used. We are using RO purifier and must say they reduce the hardness very well and also we need to watch out for our mineral intake of the water.
Yes hard water is ruining our hair and skin too. It’s good we have this water purifier at home so that it reduces the ailments we get due to hard water.
With scarcity of potable water getting a major problem everywhere , people have to resort to ground water which can be hard water. I think water softeners are a good option for large scale and inexpensive use.
thats good tell tale signs of hard water u have mentioned. And I am a glad we have solution at home in form of RO.
These are some strong inputs about hard water and how it hampers cooking. I wasn’t aware of these.
Thanks for sharing this with me as hard water can be harmful for eating and washing . Your post is really informative for all
Very true . The place I am leaving has very hard water and I do use RO water for cooking and drinking .. you have written so well.
Right from corrosion in pipes to upsetting digestive system. Hard water can donit all. The place we live has very bad water, without RO it’s tough to survive.
Wow I didnt know hard water can impact baking and cooking so much. Well we have been using RO for some time now and have taken care of the water quality.
hard water is a pain point for everyone for hair skin and food alike! We use RO water too, it is tough to survive without RO water in Bangalore – water quality in not great BLR.
I was aware that hard water affects cooking a lot but even to baking was new for me. Thanks for this wonderful insight on hard water effects on cooking and how can we get rid of it.
At my place we have always had an issue with hot water. Over time it has definitely affected the quality of my skin and hair and that was all I knew about it. I never knew that it could actually affect cooking as well thank you for sharing this article I definitely will be more mindful today onwards
I think this is one common problem which most people in metro city face every day. We too have been using RO water for cooking and lately, have started looking for an option of water softener too.
My first cousin has lived in Chennai throughout her life and I have actually experienced how the hard water changes the taste and properties of the cooked food. fortunately, now a days, these RO based purifiers make the water a bit drinkable, yet one can fairly distinguish the taste of the food while it is cooked in hard water.