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Recently I gave an answer to the question What can I do with vegetable water?. In that now-deleted answer, I explained about the pros and cons of keeping boiled water. When deleting, one of the moderators stated:

Hello Ronak, I'm afraid that a discussion on the health benefits or drawbacks of food is off topic here. It is up to the OP to decide if he wants to consume this water, and it is not our place to bring in our own health beliefs in this discussion.

I agree with the way moderators are working and this is their job. But my point was that by providing details we will make him aware and will take care of it. And I have not explained only health related points. I have also stated when and why you can use the vegetable water.

So I'm just trying to understand: cooking itself is a science and we all are having food just to keep our health normal, so why can't this be allowed here?

I am just asking for the reason. I don't want to revert the decision made by the moderator.

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    Well, let me disagree with your premise of "we all are having food just to keep our health normal". People eat out of habit (sometimes even bad habit), as social ritual, because they enjoy food (yes, even junk food), and probably a dozen other reasons. And in most of these cases health aspects are secondary at best.
    – Stephie Mod
    Feb 17, 2016 at 21:34
  • @Stephie agree with that. I said it in general. As to get the energy you need food. And food directly or indirectly relates to your health whether in a good way or bad.
    – The Hungry Dictator
    Feb 18, 2016 at 4:56

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I'm afraid the answer is pretty simply that health is off-topic. We've long since decided this, and if we don't want to change it, then not only should we disallow questions about health, we should disallow answers about health. (Your question sort of suggests that you're wanting to change that - "we all are having food just to keep our health normal" and "why can't this be allowed here?" - but I'm assuming you don't actually mean to be asking for health to be on topic.)

Look at it this way: the question you're answering should never be asking about health, because that'd be off topic, so if you say anything about health, it's not related to the question. I guess there might be a couple exceptions - for example, if someone asks "why do people always add X to Y?" and there's no culinary reason and it's entirely because of supposed health benefits, then pointing that out would answer the question. But that's definitely an exception, not the rule.

So in general, really, adding health information is at best a bit of a digression and at worst an invitation for debate. A lot of health things you may be quite confident are true are not actually terribly well-verified scientifically, and since we really, really don't want health debates on the site, we shouldn't invite them by letting people post answers about health. Don't get me wrong, I think we discourage or ban pretty much any off-topic content in answers, but health is especially bad because of that potential for debate.

As for the specific question/answer/decision, I think I'll let rumtscho answer more fully, but for what it's worth, I think the question was a bit iffy, as Stephie pointed out - it's kind of inviting health-ish answers. So I don't blame you for ending up writing about nutrition, but that doesn't mean it was the right thing to do. As far as I can tell, your answer is basically "use it in soups or sauces" and the entire rest of the answer is health claims; that suggestion is fine but the health claims aren't.

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  • I agree that but the guy was asking for the use. one suggested to use it in soup, one suggested to use it in baking bread and one suggested to give it to plants. I have just explained that if you want to use it then it will depend on what kind of vagetables you have boiled. ANd have given idea about it. SO that he will take care of it
    – The Hungry Dictator
    Feb 17, 2016 at 11:34
  • and for the last line i agree with you as well that somehow this question will invite you to write about heath related things.
    – The Hungry Dictator
    Feb 17, 2016 at 11:36
  • @RonakBhatt Yes, he's asking for the use, not for the health benefits. If you'd like to suggest uses, just do that; no need to make claims about the health benefits of using it in those ways.
    – Cascabel Mod
    Feb 17, 2016 at 11:37
  • Fair enough but the if we don't you think that we should make them aware about the way he use it.
    – The Hungry Dictator
    Feb 17, 2016 at 11:39
  • Sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. My best guess is that you're saying that we should make the OP aware of the health/nutrition aspects of the way he is or might be using the vegetable water, and the entire point of my answer is that no, we shouldn't, that's off-topic.
    – Cascabel Mod
    Feb 17, 2016 at 11:42
  • OK i got my answer here.. thank you for that
    – The Hungry Dictator
    Feb 17, 2016 at 11:48
  • "We've long since decided this, and if we don't want to change it" ... who decided it back then, and how many of these that decided it will still care about it staying that way today?
    – rackandboneman
    Sep 21, 2016 at 12:55
  • @rackandboneman As far as I know, pretty much everyone's happy with health being off topic still, especially since Medical Sciences exists now. It was decided by the community, including people who aren't around anymore and people who are, and implicitly affirmed over the years by numerous people happily closing health questions, plus explicitly via some meta questions about details.
    – Cascabel Mod
    Sep 21, 2016 at 14:16

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