I had lunch yesterday at a local Vegan restaurant called Cafe Gratitude. I happened to be there while an “Alkaline Water” distributor discussed the benefits of “Alkaline Water” and therefore his product.
Being a Registered Nurse and having worked in hospitals for over a decade, I have the opportunity to actually SEE the pH of the blood and urine of many people close up and personal.
So, I already had a lot of questions with the inconsistencies of the argument- and the sales pitch at the cafe brought even more to mind when a serendipitous event occurred.
I came home immediately after the water talk to find This Article about Alkalinizing in my inbox and it inspired me to share my experiences that echo those of Dr. Ben Kim.
Inconsistency #1: You can alkalinize your body through eating
The body maintains a VERY tight pH range of the blood between 7.35-7.45 and it STAYS in that range. Anyone who is even REMOTELY out of that very tight range is SICK!!
I’m talking in the ICU kind of sick. These people are often on IV medications to keep their blood pressure from being too low, they have an overwhelming infection, or they are on (or close to) having to be on life support… I’m talking SICK! When patients are on life support and their blood is acidic at all- under 7.35- then the remedy for that is to turn the breathing rate up- voila! An easy fix for acidic blood. So, if breathing faster can make you more alkaline in a matter of seconds or minutes- why the obsession with the foods that you eat. This health trick is very well known in Eastern Traditions, although it is not well known in the West.
If you REALLY want to be alkaline, then EXERCISE-go for a run, Learn QiGong , or even just sit and breathe fast!!!
Inconsistency #2: Lemon Juice vs Coca Cola …
The alkaline water presentation starts out with showing you the pH of a bunch of drinks- tap water, tea, soda and of course- their water. They go on to show how ‘bad’ sodas are because they are so acidic. But what they DON’T put on display is lemon juice. Lemon Juice and Sodas both have a pH of about 3- that’s VERY acidic. Yet EVERY resource on alkalinizing your body states that lemon juice, while acidic- somehow alkalinizes your body!
Now, I don’t know about you, but this sounds like nonsense to me.
Acid is acid.
Lemon juice doesn’t have any magical properties where ITS acid is different than OTHER acids.
Inconsistency #3: Alkaline water is good- antacids are bad…
Most folks who are educated about natural medicine will tell you that antacids are bad for you. The stomach is SUPPOSED to be a highly acidic environment. Manipulating that environment with antacids can cause all sorts of problems- from not killing the pathogens in your food to not absorbing calcium and Vitamin B-12. Another interesting problem in the alkaline water argument is that most alternative practitioners will actually recommend Hydrochloric Acid tablets to people who have heartburn or who have trouble digesting food! So, if the remedy for poor digestion is actually MORE acid- also the reason why it’s good to drink dilute lemon juice or apple cider vinegar- then why in the heck would you drink alkaline water at the same time!?
So while the acid/alkaline balance argument is full of holes…. HOWEVER, the METHODS that they use to support the argument, except for drinking alkaline water or taking baking soda, are completely valid. Let me explain… Eating the right foods- fruits, vegetables, whole grains etc makes a HUGE difference in your health. And Food-Based Healing to Reverse Disease, as is the basis of the alkalinity argument, SHOULD be the PRIMARY method of healing in our culture.
But sadly, we still rely on harmful pharmaceutical drugs to “manage” illness, when they don’t actually get to the ROOT of the problem.
Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune System Queen
Functional Medicine Practitioner
Immune System
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Tags: alkaline water, alkalinize, food for healing, get exercise
I liked what you posted. I've actually heard a lot about alkaline water recently and hadn't done any research to see what I really thought… you bring up good points! Good read!
"Yet EVERY resource on alkalinizing your body states that lemon juice, while acidic- somehow alkalinizes your body!"
I like your article and agree that proper foods and exercise seems to always be the trick. But from what I read it is not lemon juice but to put a real lemon squeezed into luke warm water. It apparently raises the alkalinization of the water and has several positives besides;
Lemons are antiseptic
Lemon water has excellent digestive properties and can ease heartburn, bloating and other digestion problems
Lemon water cleanses and stimulates the liver and kidneys
Lemon juice contains calcium, magnesium and potassium
Lemon juice has been known to relieve asthma
Lemon water (hot) offers relief from cold and flu symptoms while providing some much needed Vitamin C
Lemon juice is a great skin cleanser
From personal experience I have seen a difference in my health, for better, when I include a little lemon squeezed into my water. Maybe that should be a regular part of the balanced diet. I do agree that Coke is not good from the scientific point and from personal experience as well, especially as I get older.
Thanks for bringing the subject to my attention.
John
While I agree with you about the benefits of lemon juice, I challenge you to do that experiment. Put acid lemon into water and see if it turns alkaline…. not possible!!
The benefits of lemon juice have to come from something OTHER than the alkalinity…
Just because something is good for you doesn't mean that it has to be because it alkalinizes the body…. it can provide certain vitamins, minerals, trace elements, etc….
Anyone, anyone….why is lemon juice good for the body?
You are right, it is not possible at that point just to put it in water. It is once it is consumed that it changes its properties to Alkaline. This is the formula that has been noted in research;
Na2CO3 + H2O —> 2NaHCO3
HCO3- + H2O —> H2CO3 + OH-
2(Na+)2O22- + 2H2O —> 4Na+OH-+O2
The benefits of Lemon I already pointed out. However, this does not mean that Alkalinity is a part of that benefit. I think that they have not yet discovered all the benefits and are exploring them…. just as they had the egg & coffee. All I know personally, since I am not a scientist, is that I feel better with a little lemon in the water. It will be interesting to see what science comes up with in the future as far as results on this subject.
I'm just sitting here at Whole Foods drinking a Ginger Kombucha and thinking of this conversation. Kombucha tea, and pretty much most things that are cultured or fermented are quite acidic- yet considered very good for you!
I keep being temped to get some pH strips and check all of these things out and report back on my little experiments.
We'd be all the smarter for your kind work.
So this alkaline myth was debunked already by a dentist named Weston Price in the 1920's. He traveled around the world studying groups of people who had no contact with outside food.
He even took samples of their foods and determined the alkaline and acid content of the foods.
Most of these people had not ONLY perfect health, but no cavities and – interestingly- perfectly STRAIGHT teeth with NO IMPACTED WISDOM TEETH.
He determined that many of these peoples had EXTREMELY acidic diets and yet did not get so much as a cold. A wonderful example were the Masai in Africa who eat virtually nothing but beef, cow's milk and cow's blood- EXTRAORDINARILY acidic.
Yet the Masai were huge warriors with impressive physiques and most were close to 7 foot tall and were in perfect health.
So, don't believe acid vs alkaline. It makes no sense. What health has to do with it pure healthy, nutritious, fresh, local, unprocessed food.
That will make you healthy, not 'acid or alkaline' anything.
Kerri Knox, RN
Functional Medicine Practitioner
actually i learned that it is not the acidic or alkaline value of the food but the acidic or alkaline residue left in the digestive tract, which goes into your blood stream, after you body has had its way with foods. in an interesting twist, many acidic foods leave alkaline residue in the digestive tract, like lemons.
and in fact the ph range of the foods humans can safely consume is only about a half point or so either way from neutral – look up food safety. the actual point is that the way we are designed to eat is not the way modern man eats – and the burden of processed foods screws up our alkaline-acid balace. as far as being ICU sick goes, i do not believe you. this is why:
i just bought a roll of ph urine test paper. my 11 year old tried it first thing in the AM yesterday and the paper was blue – alkaline. i tried it first thing this AM and the same paper off the same roll was yellow – acidic. i am currently in cancer treatment for the second time, after a 3 yr remission, have had only 2 treatments. and i am no where near sick enough to be in an ICU, nor will i be. yet this paper shows my AM urine as 5.0-ish and my 11 yr old as 7.0-ish. so what you are talking about is actually outside the range of 'too acidic for the human body's good health' that anyone can be walking around with.
and as far as cancer and alkalinity go, it has indeed been demonstrated over and over again that a too acidic body – that is too far from the alkaline range that blood is – provides a lovely environment for cancers. and by the way, while i need to clarify this, it is my understanding that it is not necessarily the blood in your body that you are trying to alkalinize again, but the digestive tract, which runs from mouth to butt, and affects the health of every organ system. yeasts do not thrive in alkaline environments, but they do infect organ systems, so i think you are confusing your science. just sayin.
So, you are saying that you can alkalinize the digestive tract without alkalinizing the body? And you are saying that the 'residue' in the digestive tract is alkaline or acid? And THAT has something to do with health? HOGWASH!!! Please read the works of Weston A. Price. This alkaline/acid bunk was being thrown around during his time too and the PERFECTLY HEALTHY native cultures that he studied ate MASSIVELY 'acid forming' foods like butter, eggs, meat, etc.- sometimes to the exclusion of everything else and sometimes saw ZERO vegetables for much of their lives. But as long as they didn't eat PROCESSED FOODS they remained healthy. It's SUGAR that caused your cancer, as many studies have shown, NOT 'acid forming foods', whatever that means. So, sorry but YOU are confusing your science. Stop eating sugar and processed foods and cancer rates will go down dramatically. Dr. Price thoroughly debunked this. As far as you 'not believing me' about people with BLOOD ph's just SLIGHTLY outside the range of 7.35-7.45 being VERY sick, that's your problem. Ask ANY respiratory threapist, ICU or ER doctor or ICU nurse and they will tell you the exact same thing. If your BLOOD ph range is even SLIGHTLY outside the norm, there is something VERY wrong and you will be very sick. I WORKED with Arterial Blood Gas measurements for OVER A DECADE- so I have some authority on this, and it's why I began questioning this 'alkaline/acid' thing to begin with. As I get more and more experience working with actual people, the more I disbelieve the theory. It doesn't work in real life, people who eat 'acid forming' foods but not processed foods can be ENTIRELY healthy and have ZERO cancer rates, no heart disease, no diabetes and little degenerative disease in general. Sorry, go back to the drawing board. It's PROCESSED food that is the problem, and that has ZERO to do with 'alkaline/acid' balance. So, please show me your independant peer reviewed studies that show that "it has indeed been demonstrated over and over again that a too acidic body provides a lovely environment for cancers". You HAVE no peer reviewed studies on this, just a bunch of people who 'believe' it. It's a belief and not science. Good luck.
Oh, and by the way. Another reason that I determined that this was complete hogwash was because, being an ER nurse, I was in the unique position of being able to test dozens of urine samples every day. And the results of testing the urine of the sickest people and the healthiest people that came into the ER door was that it was COMPLETELY RANDOM what the pH was. I might have a kid with a cut finger and a lady on a ventilator with the same urine pH. Then one kid who fell off a skateboard might have a pH of 5 or 6 while the next kid the same age who fell off his skateboard had a pH of 8. There was simply ZERO correlation between the pH of 'healthy' people and EXTREMELY sick people. Sorry, but I'll take my sampling of hundreds of healthy and sick people versus your sample of TWO anyday….