Can We Use RO Water for Cooking? Find Out Here!
Written by: Alexandra Uta // Last Updated: Jul 3, 2023
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If you have an RO system, then it’s usually because you are concerned about what you might be ingesting.
Now, ingestion not only comes from drinking the water at your home but also from eating food cooked with that water.
Good news: Cooking with RO water can prevent unpleasant tastes and odors from finding their way into your food and beverages and can also have some benefits when it comes to other food aesthetics.
But aside from that, should we really use RO water for cooking?
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Key Takeaways
- The problem with using RO water for cooking is that it is low in minerals, and reduced levels of calcium, magnesium, etc. may also occur in your food. Essentially, the vegetables etc. lose their minerals which go into the water during cooking.
- Still, in many cases, RO water is preferred for cooking as it provides a neutral flavor base free of color, odd tastes, and odor.
- For cooking, we recommend using reverse osmosis water that has been remineralized.
Can We Use RO Water for Cooking?
So, can we use RO water for cooking? Yes, you can use RO water for cooking especially if your feed water (tap or well) is particularly high in contaminants.
Reverse osmosis water no longer contains contaminants that could cause health problems or change the flavor and texture of your food. Reverse osmosis purification removes more contaminants from water than almost any other kind of treatment method. Also, it softens water, which can have a positive effect on food items such as baked goods.
When water is used in commercial kitchens, it is preferred that it is free from undesirable color, odor, and taste, as it may result in a low-quality product. Reverse osmosis in kitchens is also used to prevent equipment damage from hard water.
On the other hand, the components of water can also improve the flavor and textures of certain foods. In New York, they attribute their excellent bagels and pizza crust to the New York tap water. So it may be just a case of deciding what is best for your taste preference.
RO Water Is Safe
RO water is safer than most other kinds of water in the sense that it’s almost pure H2O. Still, there is some concern that the removal of minerals from the water may have negative health consequences.
And it’s true: Consuming low-mineral water exclusively can potentially lead to some issues, such as certain minerals being eliminated faster from your body. This includes sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, and magnesium. It’s therefore a good idea to mix things up every now and then to ensure your body’s mineral balance stays in check.
For those who are concerned about ingesting water without beneficial minerals, some RO filtration systems come with remineralization filters to counter this.
Further Reading:
RO Water Does Not Affect the Taste of Your Food
RO water will not affect the taste of your food, but tap water or raw well water might.
The taste that water has is usually due to whatever is dissolved in it. Pure RO water has no flavor or odor, so it allows the ingredients in your food to shine without being affected by dissolved salts, chlorine, and other particles.
In countries where it is recommended not to drink tap water, cafes and restaurants will often have their coffee machine hooked up to a reverse osmosis system to improve the taste of the coffee.
Washing Vegetables and Fruits
Fruits and vegetables often come with a coating of dirt, pesticides, fungicides, and microorganisms. This is why it is important to thoroughly wash your produce before using it.
Washing it in contaminated water may simply add more contaminants to the produce. As reverse osmosis removes chemicals, salts, heavy metals, microorganisms, particulate, and more, it adds no additional contaminants to your fruit and vegetables.
Baking
A considerable amount of water in the USA is hard water, which is high in calcium and magnesium. If you are baking, these minerals in your dough prevent water from absorbing properly into the flour and can reduce the effectiveness of the fermentation process, which slows down the time the bread takes to rise.
As RO removes calcium and magnesium, the water becomes soft, which is ideal for baking.
Boiling & Blanching
Blanching vegetables involves boiling them and then submerging them in ice. It helps to keep vegetables from going soggy, helps remove some of the ‘raw’ flavors from the vegetable, and helps to retain their color and flavor.
Water quality can also affect the color of your vegetables, and using reverse osmosis water to boil and blanch vegetables may help to prevent them from losing their vibrancy.
However, RO water which is soft water can have an unexpected effect on the cooking process. Many vegetables and other food products naturally contain various minerals. When cooking with soft water, some percentage of those minerals will get extracted from the food and will end up in the water. This will result in an overall lower mineral concentration in your cooked food.
RO Water Boils Faster
RO water is soft water, which comes to a boil faster than hard water. This is because it contains no dissolved solids, which can bring up the boiling point of water by a degree or two and increase the time it takes to boil. Handy when you’re desperate for a cup of coffee!
RO Water for Juices, Coffee, Tea & Other Beverages
When you drink a beverage made with a high percentage of water, the quality of the water will affect how that beverage tastes. While all palates are different, I’ve not met anyone who likes the taste of chlorine in their breakfast smoothie.
Depending on the contaminant level of the feed water, the flavor could be affected, and hence the taste of the beverage would be too—dirty, metallic, or even rotten eggs.
Just keep in mind the same points that we brought up about drinking reverse osmosis water above. Specifically, drinking beverages made with reverse osmosis water will result in drinks that are lower in mineral content.
Cons of Using RO Water for Cooking
Low Mineral Content
As mentioned before, reverse osmosis water usually lacks minerals. As such, using it for cooking may leach minerals out of your food. Said minerals end up in the cooking water which you’re probably not going to use.
The easiest solution to that problem is remineralizing your RO water before use.
Expensive
RO water produces wastewater, so it can add quite a bit to your water bill if you use it for purposes other than drinking, such as cooking.
If you have any thoughts about the question, can we use RO water for cooking, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below!
About the Author Alexandra Uta
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