Cooking pasta is one of the easiest things you can prepare in your kitchen.
Adding salt is supposed to enhance the flavour of the final dish - but according to the latest study adding it at the wrong time can be harmful to your health.
Most people drop salt into water before it boils, but this may wake up some unwanted toxins.
Scientists from the University of South Carolina, Columbia analysed the chemical compounds in tap water and found small amounts of disinfects that, when combined with salt, may create dangerous toxins, known as iodinated disinfection byproducts (DBPs) which can lead to cancer, liver damage and nervous system issues.
The team of scientists experimented with cooking pasta in different ways, each time measuring the amounts of six iodinated trihalomethanes.
They prepared a list of recommended steps to eliminating contamination in your pasta:
1. Boil the water without a lid. This way, the disinfectants aren not trapped and will be cooked out o the water.
2. Strain all of the water from the pasta.
3. Iodised table salt should be added after the pasta is cooked.
4. Iodine-free salt options should only be used if pasta is boiled in salted water.
The researchers team said: "Boiling pasta without a lid allows vaporised chlorinated and iodinated compounds to escape, and straining noodles removes most of the contaminants.
"Adding iodised salt after cooking should reduce risk of byproduct formation, but non-iodised salts are recommended if salting the water before boiling."
