Is it best to drink cold boiled water? 2 habits of boiling water harm the body, Vietnamese people often get it

When talking about healthy living habits, Vietnamese people often have a saying: “Eat cooked, drink boiled”, which means that food must be cooked, and drinking water must be boiled. However, over the past time, there has been a lot of information that drinking cooled boiled water can be harmful to health, even cause cancer if left for more than 3 days. This causes many people to be confused and worried when the family drinks boiled and cooled water regularly.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Duy Thinh, former lecturer of the Institute of Food and Biotechnology (Hanoi University of Science and Technology), affirmed that there is no story that drinking cooled boiled water causes cancer, this may be a “fire” technique. “blind” causes panic among people to achieve certain personal goals.

Assoc. Prof Thinh affirmed that drinking cooled boiled water is good for the body. The essence of boiling water is to use heat to destroy microorganisms and parasites (if any) in the water. Boiling water does not cause substances harmful to the body, nor does it produce carcinogens.

Experts confirm that cooled boiled water does not cause cancer, but still have to be careful about how to store it. Illustration.

Doctor Do Thi Ngoc Diep (Director of the Nutrition Center of Ho Chi Minh City) said that currently, there have not been any scientific publications or prestigious scientific conferences regarding the issue of cooled boiled water containing harmful substances. cancer.

However, this doctor also recommends that people do not store boiled water to cool for too long, because it can be invaded by bacteria and harmful to the body. In addition, boiled water left to cool for a long time produces a quantity of nitrate salts – substances that damage many cells in the body. Specifically, each liter of water can produce 0.004mg of nitrate salt, after 3 days – this amount of salt is about 0.011mg and after 20 days up to 0.73mg.

With the same opinion, Associate Professor Nguyen Duy Thinh said that people need to immediately give up the habit of letting water boil for too long, because the longer the water is left on, the dirtier it becomes. “A lot of families now have the habit of boiling water, then letting it cool and then storing it for a few days or a week. There are even cases where the water in the bottle has not been exhausted, but then pours new boiled water into it… This is the most common mistake, people need to change this habit,” warned Associate Professor Thinh.

Do not drink boiled water left to cool for too long, do not pour new water while the bottle has old water. Illustration.

According to Thinh, the boiling process will destroy microorganisms and parasites and decompose them into organic matter in the water, which is the food source for microorganisms outside to enter.

Therefore, the risk of re-infection with microorganisms is very large, causing the water to go stale and the number of microorganisms to multiply, even this type of water is more harmful to health than when it is not boiled.

From the above analysis, Associate Professor Nguyen Duy Thinh recommends that people only use boiled water to cool during the day, not overnight. In case it may be too busy, it is not advisable to boil water once for 3 days or a whole week.

In addition, absolutely avoid pouring new water into the bottle when there is still old water, because this action will inadvertently multiply the number of bacteria in the water to increase rapidly, causing harm to the human body.

The container for cooled boiled water should be a glass jar with a tight lid. During use, it is necessary to clean the water tank regularly to avoid the penetration of bacteria, contaminating the water source, and causing a health hazard. .