Working hard in the kitchen to provide great tasting meals for your family and guests or even going the extra mile to create a mouth-watering dessert is something you pride yourself on. Carefully selecting fresh, quality ingredients and following the recipe to the letter is essential to the cause. But what if one of the primary ingredients wasn’t as prime as you believed, and that one basic ingredient can significantly impact the taste of the food you prepared?
How Does Hard Water Affect Food?
Your home’s water supply has a profound impact on the food you serve. Over 80% of homes, including those with municipal water, in the United States have hard water. The hard water you drinking is filled with excess minerals, such as calcium and magnesium, which inadvertently adds color and flavor to both your water and food, making your cooking and baking efforts more of a challenge.
Cooking & Baking with Hard Water
With that in mind, we at AAA Water Team would like to elaborate briefly on the impact hard water has on your baking and cooking.
Hard Water Effects on Baking. Baking is more than creating sweet temptations; it is an art and those that indulge in baking can transform simple ingredients into something heavenly. If you are struggling to make that cake taste just right, it is probably not you, but the water. For example, the dissolved minerals in the content of hard water can alter the structure of gluten and interfere with crucial ingredients, such as yeast. The hardness level of your water can vary, depending on how hard it is can make dough tough and rubbery. The minerals in hard water make the protein in flour more difficult to absorb water. Additionally, extremely hard water will slow down the fermentation process of yeast, which causes the tightening effect. Another issue is the pH level of water. Hard water typically has a high pH, making it range in the alkaline levels where most experts recommend baking be done slightly more acidic water. pH level just below 7, which makes it more acidic, enhances the yeast’s performance.
Hard Water Effects on Cooking. The texture and appearance of food prepared with the hard water can be impacted by the dissolved minerals as well. Vegetables can potentially become tough or discolored if prepared in boiled or blanched water that is hard. Beans will often require an increased cooking time in hard water and foods like rice tend to be harder when prepared with hard water. Hard water has an increased boiling point of water, which it takes it longer to come to boil. It may not seem like a bug issue, but when you pressed for time, or the kids are pressuring you for an expedited meal, it can make for a stressful situation.
A lot of city water has additives like chlorine, to help make the water supply safer to drink, but that also impacts your cooking. It will dull the appearance of a lot of your foods and impact the flavor. If you already notice a poor taste and a foul odor when you drink the water, you can count on it effecting your food. Dry foods such as noodles, beans, and rice will commonly absorb the flavor.
Whole Home Water Filtration Systems in Golden Gate Estates, Naples, Cape Coral, Fort Myers & Lehigh Acres, Florida
The most optimal solution for your kitchen is a reverse osmosis system installed under your sink. It removes the majority of the impurities in your water, leaving clean, pure, and tasting great and smelling fresh. Coffee and tea drinkers notice a difference instantly and you can count on your food and baking being a lot better. Call AAA Water Team today to discuss a reverse osmosis system installed in your home to not only embrace the benefits of better tasting and smelling food and water, but the other advantages as well. Contact us today!
