Ionised Water / Alkaline Water Nuttiness

Alkaline Ionized water fruitcake nonsense often use pyramid sales or multi-level marketing and fraudulent health claims to dupe the public and vulnerable elderly in society who will pay anything for better health.

Many independent "sales agents" with little knowledge of chemistry try to sell a product, using flimsy sales talk, to make thousands of euros, often from the infirm, elderly and uniformed, using unproven claims.

 

The "sales staff" use cheap plastic boxes, made for a few hundred dollars or less and sold for many thousand euros, offering basic water filtering, suggesting a "magic cure" to cancers and many ailments.

Companies often operate mainly in Japan and Korea, using a network of part time independent sales people to hawk pointless products, but without any legal responsibility for the none directly employed "staff".

 

The invented concept of "ionised water" suggests dangers of mildly low pH as in fresh natural rainwater.  This scam fails in scale control, disinfection, or full impurity removal and offers no real health benefits.

Many "sales agents" are duped by dubious marketing claims and become victims themselves of the pH scam, against widely accepted scientifically understood facts from practically all scientists globally.

 

Fruit loop Ionizer sales nutballs suggest that mild levels of acidity in gentle rainwater could be harmful pushing ideas that higher alkalinity is only safe, even though as babies we are weaned on milk with a 6.5 pH.

If anyone wanted to alkalise water, for any reason, you could use baking soda, - one teaspoon per litre.  Ingestion of acidic foods raise digestive alkalinity, as weak organic acids convert CO2 to form weak bases.

 

For millions of years we ingest food and drink in pH levels of 2 pH to 7 pH, some hucksters sell quack scam junk boxes raising pH to over 8 or 9.  Humans evolved on rainwater and stream water at 5 to 6 pH.

The "ioniser" philosophy is false, as "body pH" is a meaningless idea, body organs use widely differing pH from 1 to 7 pH generally, and our control of excess acidity is simply accomplished by breathing out CO2.

 

Ionised water is falsely claimed to be an anti-oxidant. It is actually an oxidising agent, the opposite to what very acidic fruit juices offer - anti-oxidants !  Either the trend of juicing is wrong or ionising water is ?

Much of the price of ioniser junk boxes are to cover ludicrously complex levels of sales commissions.  There are often several thousand euros going towards paying "large slices of the pie" leaving little value left.

 

Health benefit claims (that water ionisers are approved by any country's ministries of health) are false, the approvals are only for electrical safety to avoid electrocution, not questionable health claims.

Of course it is expected that any ministry of health would heavily frown upon false therapeutic claims made for extortionately priced pseudo-science bunkum, operated by pyramid multi-level sales operations.

 

Common Sense Acid Facts

Our genome and every cell in our bodies have the ubiquitous presence of DNA, deoxyribo nucleic acid in its nucleus.  So we are built on DNA "acid" molecules, and we live on amino acids, folic acid, ascorbic acid..

All plant life, fruit and vegetables we consume are all effectively organic acids.  As babies, our first vital food source is milk.  Supermarket milk or breast milk is naturally, gently "Lactose" acidic with a pH of 6.5.

 

Bottled water for potable use has no pH limitation set by any country in the world, and Perrier listed as 5.46 pH, (Wikipedia).  Acid rain can be measured at 4 pH.  Many fizzy sodas are as low as 2 pH to 2.5 pH.

The levels that pH were legislated for in mains fed potable drinking water over the last century were agreed by virtually all countries of the world based on a "mid level" of 7 pH starting from 5.5 pH to 8.5 pH.

 

Humans are not plumbed with metal pipes, so we can consume lemon juice at 2 pH and fruit juices, wine and fizzy drinks at 3 pH along with popular beverages such as tea and coffee at 5 pH and milk at 6.5 pH.

Human stomachs use a level of 1.5 to 2 pH acidity - a level over 100,000 times more acidic than water of a pH of 7.  Our gastric system ranges from 1 pH to 3.5 pH.  The pH of digested matter is then raised.

 

Do ioniser sales people claim that vitamins are of no use if they are acids ?  Vitamin B5 - Pantothenic acid, Vitamin B9 - Folic acid,  Vitamin C - Ascorbic acid.  Or the important dietary Humic and Fulvic acids ?

Or essential amino acids - isoleucine, methionine, histidine, phenylalanine, lysine, leucine, tryptophan, threonine, arginine and valine ?  Or bodily acids like Lactic acid, Hydrochloric acid, RNA, DNA, Fatty acids ?

 

Most people prefer chilled water with a sharper, fresher taste than bland, tasteless or lukewarm, sometimes carbonated with CO2, reducing effective pH to between 3 pH to 4 pH, for an even sharper, sour taste.

Carbonated drink manufacturers research taste, and add phosphoric or citric acid to bring effective pH down to 2 pH to 3 pH for an even sourer, sharper, fresher taste away from the bland neutral taste of 7 pH.

 

What the ioniser / alkaliser bamboozlers are simply trying to do is take a word and make it look bad (like acid), then apply as many bad connotations.  For eg. the word "chemical' could be looked at as "toxic".

Our bodies are made of chemical elements or chemicals.  Every baby is made from 100% chemicals, we are all "chemical factories".  A sales scammer would suggest all chemicals are toxic, unnatural or poison.

 

The exercise of baffling people with dubious technical terminology was well demonstrated by a student in the 1990's who wrote about a cautionary chemical titled DiHydrogen Monoxide, and then polled people.

He referred to the chemical as DHMO and listed all the bad things it was linked to, such as scolding burns as a gas, tissue damage in its cold state, as a fluid in nuclear power stations and used by terrorists.

 

It was all a simple hoax. He made H2O or water sound "chemical", of course water will burn as steam, chill fingers as cold ice, is a coolant in power stations and it is used as a thirst quencher for all terrorists.

"If you tell a big lie, and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed !"  The hoax website DHMO is still fooling all who enter ... dhmo.org

 

Common Sense Water Facts

Pure water is free of ions, just pure H2O or as close to it.  By adding impurities or ions to water, it becomes impure by definition.  Water filtration is the opposite, a more beneficial process than ionising water.

 

The Environmental Protection Agencies in all countries in Europe also the US EPA, and the W.H.O. (World Health Org.) regard pH of water as having "no health significance" as always stated in all EPA publications.

https://www.epa.ie/pubs/advice/water/quality/Water_Quality.pdf  see page 83 and 84 for pH

 

Artificially adulterated water over 9.5 pH will fail normal tap water regulations set internationally. Water taken from water ionising or alkalising devices can also be tested for bacteria / chemicals for their "purity".

 

If the ioniser sales agents still seem convincing, use the duck question scenario, ... if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and sounds like a duck then it probably is a duck.

If you have paid several thousand euros for a box of pseudo-nonsense junk and feel cheated, call Joe Duffy - 01 208 3263, or report hucksters to the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland - ASAI - 01 613 7040.

 

Google the term "water whoppers" or search in connection with wonky water, bogus baloney, aqua scam, pseudo-science, goofey nonsense, snake oil, wackadoo, shenanigans, piffle, flimflam, flapdoodle, hoodwink, bamboozle, quack, quackery, crank, crook, fraudster, huckster, hustler, scammer, swindler, con man, con artist, confidence trickster, cheat, liar, deceiver, racketeer, overcharger, extortionist, usurer, extortion, rip-off.

 

See Quackwatch.com and Chem1.com and Skeptoid.com and Insufferableintolerance.com 

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/01/27/cancer-quack-robert-o-young-is-arrested-and-arraigned-but-will-he-be-convicted/

http://www.alkalinewaterionizers.org/water-ionizer-comparisons-chart/

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1252227

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O6GhVCvVgE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhFDx5k1DLc

 

 

Finally be careful ...

Prospective agents looking to sell products can be fooled by manufacturer representatives and importers of ionisers, luring them into pyramid sales meetings and taking thousands of euros off these agents.

Each agent may have paid a king's ransom for essentially a cheap plastic box and will try to stretch the b'jaysus out of any tall tale to sell the units off, at double or treble the money they got fleeced for.

When agents make a handsome killing from some poor unfortunate souls and have got thousands or more by promising miracle cures and all heavenly tales of wonder and good living, there very few refunds !

 

If you get approached by an ioniser hustler and want to at least listen to their sales patter, ask these questions ...

 

1)  Have you got any 3rd level qualifications in chemistry, biology, physiology or nutrition, are you qualified to talk on these matters or have any pure rock solid evidence of all verbally suggested health claims ?

2)  Mention the EPA and EU and WHO and US EPA all agree there is no health significance of the pH of water as long as it passes all safe water tests.  The idea of high pH water is for fools and clueless rogues.

3)  Water at 6.5 pH is within the current World Health Organisation advisory level, and is 10 times less acidic than rainwater and yet humans have evolved over millions of years drinking perfectly safe rainwater.

4)  Humans have been drinking rainwater and stream water at 5.5 pH - an eternity before boxes of quack junk offering alkaline water ever existed.  How come humans evolved okay without alkaline water ?

5)  Ask why so many ethical websites with chemistry professors and doctors look at the ioniser scam and destroy any argument of ionised or alkaline water making any sense, instead exposing it as nonsense ?

6)  Ask to see a plastic box they are hawking, is it €3,000 to €6000 for what looks like $100 of junk ?  Large products made by household brand names, ie. AGA stoves or 65" 4K LED TV's, hardly cost €6,000 ?

7)  Ask why bottled waters can have pH values from 3 pH or 4 pH even the most famous luxury brand Perrier is under 5.5 pH.  No popular branded bottled water in supermarkets ever goes to 8 pH or 9 pH. Why ?

 

Finally think about what pH is.  It is not a chemical or substance.  It is a non linear scale of measurment.  Even at the further end of the scale down at around 2 pH you can safely drink beverages at this level.

Lets look at lemon juice at 2.2 pH.  Lemon juice is 95% water and 5% citric acid.  So at a highly diluted level with 20 parts water to 1 part citric acid at around 2 pH, lemon has a much diluted and watery pH level.

It is only industrial strength acids like sulphuric acid or nitric acid stronger than citric acid and at 10 times less water ratio, well below 1 pH, that can be dangerously acidic, obviously at levels not to be consumed.

Our stomachs work best at 1 - 2pH to kill foreign bacteria and digest food to give us energy, so ingesting highly alkaline water or foods alien to our stomach's proper pH level is stupid. Like feeding carrots to tigers.

Orange juice at 3 pH is a walk in the park for us.  Tomatoe juice at 4 pH is smooth and insignificant.  Rainwater at 5.5 pH is mild and delicious.  Babies milk at 6.5 pH is what the human race was brought up on.

 

What would life be like if all foods and drink below 7 pH vanished from apples to zucchini ?  It would be a barren planet with possibly only tofu left to eat.  And just some purple ripe olives, but not the green ones !

http://foodsafety.wisc.edu/business_food/files/approximate_ph.pdf 

 

One substance that we need to evacuate from our bodies is human faeces at a pH of up to 8 or 9.  It is our body's most noxious and foul smelling waste product and the only stuff that can reach such an alkaline pH.

This is the level of poop friendly pH that ioniser salesmen expect people to drink instead of the normal and natural levels of water, generally 2 or 3 points lower down, or 3 or 4 points down for many bottled waters.

 

The best level of quality water filtration on the planet exists at the hyperfiltration level of 1 to 5 Angstroms at the size of small molecules such as H2O, - the process known to work at this level is "reverse osmosis".

Water Ionisers on the other hand operate at the other (poor quality) end of the filtration spectrum at between 5 micron - 50 micron nearly visible to the naked eye - close to the quality of cheap €10 water jug filters.

 

 

 

If highly dubious companies hawking ionisers ridicule science and fantasize that chloride / chlorine ions twice the size of water and larger molecules such as herbicides and pesticides are claimed to be smaller than water molecules, then clearly a simple check of the periodic table used by junior high school students, easily found on Google will give the relative atomic masses and molecular sizes of common elements.

It is not hard nowadays with quick access to the internet to spot tragic liars and fools making up magic nonsense in an effort to clear out your life savings to flog cheap boxes of worthless junk. Obviously the companies behind these claims if they truely stand by worthless claims have no real or respectable scientists that know chemistry or the water engineering sciences at the most basic and fundamental levels.