Author Topic: Alkaline Water  (Read 2647 times)

onecoolcat

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Alkaline Water
« on: September 04, 2016, 11:43:58 AM »
Is alkaline water really better for you?  I thought water was water but just watched a video on youtube that makes me wonder if I should check my tap water. 

swick

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Re: Alkaline Water
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2016, 01:29:43 PM »
That is a loaded question with many rabbit holes.

First off, I would get a copy of your city water report and see what they are treating it with, what the chemical make up is and if they are fluoridating (which some people will tell you is awesome, some people will tell you is deadly, another rabbit hole)

I personally think fluoridation isn't great and that is a good place to start if you want to start drinking the best water possible.

pk_aeryn

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Re: Alkaline Water
« Reply #2 on: September 04, 2016, 06:11:17 PM »
Alkaline diets are just silly.

For example, they recommend drinking lemon water. Lemons are highly acidic, yet they claim they still "alkalize" you through some magic process after you drink it, but that somehow doesn't apply to regular water or any other acidic foods.

Syonyk

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Re: Alkaline Water
« Reply #3 on: September 04, 2016, 09:37:06 PM »
Well. A YouTube video certainly is the height of research and truth in our modern world!

(Almost certainly pseudoscientific bunk)

kite

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Re: Alkaline Water
« Reply #4 on: September 04, 2016, 09:41:17 PM »
Whenever you have a scientific question and don't know if you can trust what you've read or heard on the interwebs or at cocktail parties, it helps to have a guy to go to.  Joe Schwarcz is that guy.
And he's answered this Alkaline question.

http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/2013/04/19/alkaline-food-bunk/


gldms

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Re: Alkaline Water
« Reply #5 on: September 05, 2016, 01:52:00 AM »
The whole alkaline food/water thing is complete bullshit.   Look, the pH of your stomach is naturally about 1.5-3.0.  Remember that pH is a logarithmic scale.  So, the acidity of your stomach (say, pH 2) is naturally about 10,000 times higher than your "acidic" (pH 6, let's say) tap water. If you drank 10 litres of "alkaline water" (say, pH 8) in one quick sitting, you would only raise your stomach pH by 1.0 unit.  You would die from drinking so much water at once, however.  What about acidic tap water? Let's assume your tapwater is at pH 6  (BTW,  pure rain water from an unpolluted atmosphere is even more acidic with a pH of 5.6).  If you drank 10 litres of that you'd still increase your stomach pH 1.0 unit (OK, 0.9999 units).  The acidity of your tap water (even the most acidic) is nothing compared to the acidity of your stomach.

There are many scams about water treatment and filtration that take advantage of the scientific ignorance that most people have. Magnetic treatments of water hardness is a fun example.  Sometimes things get criminal: plumbers are selling household filters to remove lead from tapwater in Flint MI  (you can't filter out dissolved lead...). 

ShoulderThingThatGoesUp

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Re: Alkaline Water
« Reply #6 on: September 05, 2016, 04:29:40 AM »
No. Tap water is fine.

(Even what they were putting into the pipes in Flint was fine to drink-but they should have adjusted things so it didn't leach lead out of the pipes, making it dangerous by the time it got to the tap.)

 

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