It's not just Pollies who fiddle Wikipedia

I was alerted yesterday that Wikipedia had some not-s0-nice things to say about alkaline water. On checking it, it was glaringly obvious that my old competitor must be having a bad month again with time to waste. He had cut and pasted great chunks of info straight off his website, ragging alkaline ionized water. We have come to expect this sort of thing over the last seven years. We've even been 'dobbed in' to the Gaming Commission for not taking out a raffle licence! Sad.

However the data he put up bears comment. He is saying that although alkaline ionized water has some antioxidant effect, it isn't really alkaline. Over the years he's tried on many claims including 'it's too alkaline', it isn't really alkaline', 'alkaline isn't natural' and 'natural alkalinity is better'.

However, back to the item.

Few people have had the opportunity to delve into what pH is all about. The common concept of acid and alkalinity is of a liquid with either lots of acid or lots of alkaline minerals in it. This is not what pH is all about. pH is about what it says it is about; 'pH - per hydrogene, the French term for the amount of hydrogen ions (positive or negative) in a liquid.

It follows that if a liquid has more negative hydrogen ions in it than positive, it will be seen as alkaline, and vice versa. The minerals that give it those hydrogen ions are irrelevant; it is the hydrogen ions that matter, and this is reflected in the reading you'll get from litmus paper or a pH Meter. Your meter isn't saying it has 'x' amount of calcium or magnesium or sulphur. It's saying you have a liquid with a number of hydrogen ions that reflect the clour or reading it is giving you. Do you see what I'm saying? Forget the chemicals. Think Hydrogen.

So saying that something isn't really alkaline because it doesn't have lots of alkaline minerals in it is to miss the point. The real power and benefit of pH is the ability to deliver loads of the right sort of hydrogen ions (atoms) to you.

The difference in effect of a positively charged hydrogen ion and a negatively charged one are huge; a positive hydrogen ion, such as you get with our acid water, has the ability to oxidize, or break down things it comes into contact with. That's why we use acid water for killing bacteria, for cleaning, and for skin and hair support. That's why the huge and famous Tokyo Fish Market uses acid water to clean up after every days' trading; it's a wonderful way of cleaning up all the fish goo without chemicals.

Negatively charged hydrogen, on the other hand, is 'reducing', meaning it donates its energy to anything it comes into contact with. If it, for instance, comes into contact with a positively charged oxygen ion (also known as a free radical) it (and one more) donates itself and unites with the oxygen ion to re-create ordinary water. (H2O)
That's how an antioxidant works!

Can you see why it isn't how much chemical in a liquid that's important in assessing its pH?

Can you see how exquisite a method this is; to create a powerful alkaline oxygen laden antioxidant out of ordinary water?

Finally, this theory is easily measurable with a $200 ORP (oxidation/Reduction Potential) meter, because the electrical potential of a liquid is affected by the amount of hydrogen ions it has. Tap water is about +150mv, meaning it robs us of net energy.

Our Wiki competitor's water filter reduces it a bit, but we've never been able to get their water filter lower than +50mv, meaning that although it is better, it just means it oxidizes less than tap water.

We've seen our ionizers give -800mv readings, meaning almost ten times better antioxidant ability in every glass. We don't always get it because it depends on the water source, but generally you'll get a reading of -300+, making it around six times more effective than our angry friend.

I guess that's the reason he had to alter WikiPedia. If your story doesn't fit science, call in the spin doctors!