Introduction
While you’ve likely thought of alkaline spring water for hydration purposes (at least, we hope you have), we’re betting you haven’t considered the many uses beyond drinking it.
One unique way to use alkaline spring water is in your kitchen. From washing vegetables to baking, water filtered straight from the earth offers potential advantages in textures, taste, and vibrancy throughout the culinary experience.
Let’s explore how your alkaline spring water can become a part of your cooking and dining experience.
Alkaline Spring Water & Washing Your Produce
Many cooking experiences begin with washing produce such as fruits and vegetables. We wash our produce for a variety of reasons, including wicking away harmful bacteria and pathogens, pesticides and herbicides, and simple dirt. Who knows, you might even wash away some insects.
Washing produce also helps us prevent cross-contamination in the kitchen.
Many of the above cited reasons center around our health. In short, we wash our produce to protect our families and guests from foodborne illnesses and unsanitary debris.
To effectively clean our produce, we should rinse it under cool, running water. Alternatively, soaking the produce in salt water is another method. Depending on the situation, we might only need to rinse, but occasionally, scrubbing or soaking may be necessary.
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However, one crucial aspect of produce washing often overlooked is the quality of the water used for washing.
Imagine that you’ve taken all the precautions to clean your produce, but the water you used might not be as pure as you thought.
Washing produce in tap water may defeat the purpose of your mission if that tap water isn’t pure and clean. This blog isn’t about whether tap water is inherently good or bad; its quality can vary greatly depending on your location and other factors. However, we offer a deeper dive in the ongoing debate between tap water vs. bottled water.
The point we’re making is that using naturally alkaline spring water as your produce wash may offer an increased element of purity and cleanliness.
Many people choose to add salt to their produce-cleaning regimens. Salt water can sometimes help break down and remove some of the pesticide residues that often linger on the surface of fruits and vegetables. This is especially useful for produce that may have been exposed to a large amount of pesticides.
There are numerous YouTube videos demonstrating various methods for washing produce, including using salt, baking soda, vinegar, and other techniques. One popular example is a video by YouTube’s Andrea Jean Cleaning.
While Andrea’s video may not find any bugs seeping from the berries, it still underscores the importance of thoroughly cleaning produce.
Let’s reimagine this process, but only this time, using alkaline spring water with pink Himalayan salt for soaking and cleaning your produce.
The key points to remember are:
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Be mindful of the water you use to clean your produce.
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Using natural spring water such as Eternal Water can provide a purer solution for cleaning produce.
Alkaline Spring Water: Cooking & Dining Experience
From stove to table, let’s explore how naturally alkaline spring water can elevate your meals and add a touch of chic luxury to your dining experience.
Let’s discuss the cooking experience first.
In 2023, a government study found that almost half of the tap water in the United States was contaminated with what’s known as “forever chemicals.”
Of course, our immediate concern revolves around drinking water. And this makes sense given it’s the most prominent way we consumer water.
But what about the cooking experience?
The water we use in cooking also has a direct impact on our health since it ultimately ends up in our digestive system. If we’re mindful of the water we drink, should we not concern ourselves with the water we cook with? Choosing clean, pure water for cooking can contribute to overall well-being and enhance the flavors of our meals.
Many recipes rely on water for boiling, steaming, baking, and as a base for soups and stews. It’s essential in creating textures in doughs and batter and forms the foundation of dishes like broths and stocks. We also use water to blanch vegetables and soak grains and beans.
The point is, there’s a lot of water in our cooking process and often, we don’t consider what type of water we use. We simply turn on the tap without much thought and move through other pertinent recipe steps.
Let’s break down a few ways naturally alkaline spring water can enhance our cooking experience:
Flavor
Tap water facilities commonly use chlorine in their disinfection process. As a result, some people may detect a chemical taste to food cooked with tap water.
Moreover, mineral content, even trace minerals found in spring water, can enrich the flavor profiles of delicate recipes such as poached fish, teas, broths, steamed vegetables, and sauces.
Texture
The water used in bread and pastry doughs can significantly impact their texture and rise. Some believe that the mineral content in spring water can help improve dough elasticity, giving it a lighter and fluffier texture, and ultimately leading to a much better “rise.”
Health
We mentioned chlorine in our taste section. We’d be remiss to not make it the star of our health section.
Chlorine is a powerful disinfectant often used in pools. A 2020 Johns Hopkins study found that tap water treated with chlorine may produce toxic carcinogens in our bodies.
Let’s transition into some fun ways to leverage the purity of alkaline spring water during your culinary experience.
Using Alkaline Spring Water in Everyday Meals
Steaming Vegetables
Steaming vegetables infuses produce with hydration and converts its texture to one of its most preferred edible forms. Steaming your vegetables, such as healthy broccoli, with tap water, could potentially defeat some of the purpose in creating a healthy meal.
Moreover, alkaline spring water may enhance the flavors and improve the nutrient content of the produce during the steaming process.
Making Rice and Pasta
While boiling water certainly helps purify water, it takes at least 15 minutes to boil chlorine from water. And that’s only one chemical of concern. It may make more sense to begin this endeavor with clean, pure water.
Blending Smoothies
For health advocates, the smoothie represents a centerpiece of dietary health ambitions. Using impure water would taint this process in a fairly obvious way.
Brewing Coffee or Espresso
Millions of people brew coffee every morning as a way to begin their day. Wouldn’t it make sense to consider the purity of the water you’re making that coffee with?
Now, let’s focus on the dining experience.
When you go through all the work to cook a nice meal, doesn’t it make sense to embrace the extra details, such as plates, silverware, and water?
Serving nice alkaline spring water alongside your thoughtful meal enhances the ambiance. It adds a flair of chic sophistication. Most importantly, it alleviates concerns associated with tap water. Some of your guests may not drink tap water at all, adding extra reason to offer natural spring water at dinner.
Conclusion
Consider spring water for your entire culinary experience from start to finish.
Its purity starts with clean washing and it enhances flavor in cooking, improves dough texture in baking, and ultimately elevates the overall dining experience.
Locate Eternal Water’s naturally alkaline spring water near you.
