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I came across a "juice shot" / "anti inflammatory drink" recepie the other day which lists the following ingredients :

  • lemon (in slices)
  • ginger (in slices)
  • turmeric (in slices)
  • sugar
  • water

The above ingredients should boil for 45 minutes, and then be ready to drink.

One of the advertised health boosters of this drink is curcumin (from the turmeric). However, does it withstand 45 minutes of boiling, or is the amount of curcumin reduced by the boiling?

rumtscho
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sbrattla
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  • Hello Sbratta, I'm afraid we cannot tell you whether your drink is healthy or not. You will have to trust the recipe authors, or not. "The good stuff" is not definable. – rumtscho Feb 03 '16 at 18:25
  • I'm sure it is healthy, but does different vitamins differ in their tolerance of heat. Is it a valid assumption to say that a boiled lemon or ginger is just as healthy as a raw one? – sbrattla Feb 03 '16 at 18:28
  • That's exactly the kind of question we cannot answer. It is impossible to measure how healthy something is. There is one exception we allow: if you are interested in one exact chemical compound, you can ask if it is reduced by boiling, and the question can be reopened. – rumtscho Feb 03 '16 at 18:31
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    Updated question based on feedback. – sbrattla Feb 03 '16 at 18:44
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    I have added a further update to the question to remove the final reference to health effects - since this now focuses on chemical composition instead, I believe it can be considered on-topic for our site. – logophobe Feb 03 '16 at 18:58
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    OK @sbrattla I reopened it, thank you for editing. Note that we really don't have any health expertise here and don't want to claim we have it - answers will have to concentrate on the actual measurable amount of curcumin, not discuss bioavailability, possible changes during boiling, or the general "healthiness" of drinking it. – rumtscho Feb 03 '16 at 19:15
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    @ElmerCat the question is now about curcumin. If you know that it will be degraded, please write an answer. Comments or answers on the healthiness of the whole thing will be deleted. – rumtscho Feb 03 '16 at 19:16

2 Answers2

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Googling, I found this report, presenting a chemical and technical analysis of curcumin. Skimming through it, it seems that degradation of the substance should not be a problem due to temperature, although the report doesn't say much about it except that it shouldn't be a problem:

Curcumin is stable in dry food. It is relatively stable to heat so it can be used in thermally treated foods.

However, it warns about using it in solutions of a high pH, without stating which of the degradation products may be unfortunate to ingest. Furthermore curcumin is sensitive to light, so if you want as little as possible of it to degrade it is probably a good idea to keep a lid on the pan while you're heating the solution and consume it fairly quickly afterwards:

In native form curcumin is not suitable as a colouring agent in aqueous solutions of pH > 7

The principal colouring components of curcumin are not particularly stable to light, especially in solutions. After the photo-irradiation of compound 1, a cyclisation product was detected, as well as decomposition products, such as vanillic acid, vanillin, and ferulic acid (Sasaki et al, 1998). Commercial formulations of curcumin are available that are designed to minimize the inherent light instability.

With regards to the pH of your solution I don't think that should be a problem, as it is probably fairly acidic from juices of the lemon.

Community
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eirikdaude
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As far as I know, curcumin is stable, and should be able withstand prolonged heating.

rumtscho
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Marc Luxen
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  • Hello Marc, health discussion is off topic here. The exception of the "nutrient-composition" tag requires that neither the answers don't discuss whether it is healthy to eat the nutrient or not. So I had to remove that part and leave the one which is a direct answer. – rumtscho Feb 03 '16 at 20:31