One of the rather old urban legends says that one should not mix boiled water with unboiled water for drinking. Among the beliefs about the consequences of drinking such water there are many options, from poisoning with nausea and vomiting, to a decrease in immunity and the development of a number of diseases with their further transition into the category of chronic. No one can give any objective argumentation why all this should happen and what chemical processes are going on there.
Rumors about the “dead” water and its harm
Among the most frequent justifications for the myth is the fact that after boiling the water becomes “dead”, and its mixing with “live” raw water does not let the body recognize what it is really given. Allegedly in the so-called “dead” water, along with all the microorganisms after boiling all the useful properties and other substances die. It is funny, because the salts, which are the main useful substances dissolved in water, when boiled will not disappear, maybe only their concentration will decrease slightly. It will not lose vitamins, because most likely they simply do not exist. But the stories about the “dead” water are unfounded legends, which cannot be scientifically confirmed.
Rumors about the harmfulness of the water memory
In second place is the theory of the memory of water, according to which the body can only assimilate homogeneous water, and boiled water, mixed with unboiled, remains heterogeneous. There has been talk about water memory for a long time, but more often than not it turns out to be nothing more than a fiction for a successful fraud with the sale of water charged with success, health and treatment of certain diseases. We all remember the tricks of charging water from the TV screen, but the maximum we could get from such water was the placebo effect.
And so all the main arguments of the supporters of the truthfulness of the legend turned out to be unconfirmed from a scientific point of view and unconvincing even from the point of view of simple logic. No confirmation, only beliefs that it is impossible to do so. Now let’s turn to the logical side of the question of whether you can use mixed boiled water with unboiled water.
What happens to raw water when mixed with boiled water?
In fact, mixing boiled water with raw water will simply result in unboiled water again in all of its properties that are important for human consumption. If unboiled water from a particular source may contain bacteria and viruses, they will be transferred to the boiled water when mixed. Yes, their concentration will drop, but even a small amount of unboiled water containing them is enough to ruin a large amount of boiled water. That is, from a microbiological standpoint, you can’t mix raw water with boiled water for the same reason you can’t just drink raw water.
In terms of the composition of impurities in water, during boiling their concentration is reduced. Chlorine escapes with steam when water is heated, various elements are deposited in the form of scale on the heating elements. Therefore, mixing boiled water with unboiled water will simply lead to the fact that the composition of the final mixture will be more similar to the composition of unboiled water, it will again contain elements that could escape completely during temperature treatment. It turns out that in terms of the chemical composition of impurities in water, mixed boiled water and unboiled water will be more similar to unboiled water.
That is, from a scientific point of view, nothing terrible will happen during mixing, just the mixed water will actually be unboiled with all the consequences that follow from this. For some water sources its use in raw form is dangerous, for some it is quite safe, for example, if it is tap water. If you use filtered or bottled water, the more so there won’t be any negative consequences. Less trust unfounded rumors and choose water sources more carefully!