Posted on 03/02/2023 10:33:04 AM PST by ConservativeMind
Iodized salt helps prevent iodine-deficiency disorders, including goiters and certain birth defects. Yet it's unclear how this seasoning interacts with chloramine-treated drinking water if some of the disinfectant is left behind. Now, researchers have demonstrated that cooking pasta in such water with iodized table salt could produce potentially harmful byproducts. But they also report four simple ways that people can reduce or avoid these unwanted compounds.
In most countries, drinking water is treated with chlorine or chloramine. But small amounts of these disinfectants can end up in water used for cooking. Previous experiments showed that when wheat flour was heated in tap water that contained residual chlorine and seasoned with iodized table salt, potentially harmful iodinated disinfection byproducts could form.
The researchers cooked elbow macaroni in tap water, which had been treated with chloramine, and salt. The team measured the amounts of six iodinated trihalomethanes, which are potentially toxic compounds, in the cooked food and pasta water. They detected all of the iodinated trihalomethanes in cooked noodles and pasta water, but the cooking conditions significantly impacted the amounts.
Based on their results, the researchers identified four ways to reduce possible consumption of these substances:
- Pasta should be boiled without a lid.
- The noodles should be strained from the water that they're cooked in.
- Iodized table salt should be added after the pasta is cooked.
- Iodine-free salt options, such as kosher salt and Himalayan salt, should be used if home cooks want to boil pasta in salted water.
As the team explains, boiling pasta without a lid allows vaporized chlorinated and iodinated compounds to escape, and straining noodles removes most of the contaminants. Adding iodized salt after cooking should reduce risk of byproduct formation, but non-iodized salts are recommended if salting the water before boiling.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
It does appear that leaving the lid off allows the byproducts to exit to the air, for better, or worse.
I will use my iodinated salt, but only after things are cooked, or are using filtered water.
The things millennial girls dream up to worry about….
Thanks, good info!
Or you could just stop worrying about every little thing and start living.
Celtic salt works well.
I’m more concerned about the fluoride.
If you live along the coast, as I do, you most likely don’t need iodized salt, since you get it from eating seafood.
Not all salt is iodized, read the labels, you can buy non-iodized salt anywhere..........
Exactly, how about the breakdown of the probability this will ever harm a person.
This is probably less likely to be a hazard than opening up your mailbox.
It's ok to use as a finishing salt (but why bother?).
These rules work for all food preparation, even pasta!
If you need more iodine...
I use iodized (table salt in small quantities) when cooking. For seasoning, I use the Himalayan pink sea salt. Much less salty tasting and the NaCl gives the needed iodine.
Does anyone cook pasta with the lid on? It creates quite a mess if you do it that way in my experience.
I live in Appalachia where there is very little Iodine. BAD...caused mental retardation I understand. I love salt esp Himalayan; take Iodine
Yes, people who do not consume seafood on a regular basis, need iodine......................
Cooking with good old spring water. Makes good liquor too 58 degrees year round.
I use iodized salt for my salt shaker and non-iodized for gargling for a sore throat. For cooking I've used whatever I have out at the time.
You may have to cut it in half.
Wow...”boiling pasta without a lid allows vaporized chlorinated and iodinated compounds to escape”
So not ONLY do we have poisonous fumes from the gas stove causing asthma and who knows what other health problem, but now we have vaporized chlorinated and iodinated compounds in our house air. I think everybody living in a house is going to die.
The feds better get right on banning boiling pasta on your gas stove at home...we need an abundance of caution here.
bump
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