Alkaline water. Do you drink?

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Maybe you never experience indigestion or worse. I am feeling alot better from the things I can make for pennies. That is far better than taking Tums with corn starch, talc, mineral oil. Wonder what effect talc can have on the body? I remember when chiropractors were considered quacks.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: bunnspecial
Originally Posted By: Bandito440

Fun fact: the active ingredient in Tums is calcium carbonate (CaCO3). That very same chemical is added to alkaline beverages to give them the alkalinity.
And it's also what causes the fairly high pH I reported earlier of my tap water.
Actually, the "electrolytically" alkalised water they do some stranger stuff to than just add salts.

A semi-permiable membrane, with a voltage applied across it to break the water and salts up...

http://en.natura-zdrowie.pl/ph-of-health/ionised-alkaline-water/

You're right. I should have been more specific. CaCO3 is added to some drinks for that effect. The accurately-described Crazy Water that's mentioned earlier in this thread is one of them.

The alkalyzer nonsense is even more bizarre. One contraption, called the Kagen, is sold as a pyramid scheme. I saw someone setting up a presentation for one of these a few years back and asked some questions. They had some impressive word salad that didn't mean anything. He wanted several thousand dollars for one of the machines. I was blown away that anyone would fork over that kind of money to a guy pitching magical water machines in a hotel conference room.
 
Originally Posted By: Toaster_Jer
Maybe you never experience indigestion or worse. I am feeling alot better from the things I can make for pennies. That is far better than taking Tums with corn starch, talc, mineral oil. Wonder what effect talc can have on the body? I remember when chiropractors were considered quacks.


I am no stranger to indigestion.

What I do know is that calcium carbonate tablets does a lot more to neutralize stomach acid than does drinking high pH water. Any liquid that would be likely to have a measurable effect on decreasing stomach acid amounts would likely be at a minimum unpalatable and most likely would be dangerous.

Corn starch, talc, and mineral oil are all generally regarded as safe.

"Alkaline water" most likely won't hurt you, but its benefits are questionable at best.

Yes, I do very well remember when chiropractors were considered quacks, but I'll leave things there...
 
Originally Posted By: Toaster_Jer
Maybe you never experience indigestion or worse. I am feeling alot better from the things I can make for pennies. That is far better than taking Tums with corn starch, talc, mineral oil. Wonder what effect talc can have on the body? I remember when chiropractors were considered quacks.

They still are by the skeptical community. Some chiropractors practice what amounts to physical therapy. That's not too bad. The idea of spinal misalignment being the cause of unrelated problems is more pseudoscience. Neck cracking is dangerous, and the worst of them push unproven treatments and perform "adjustments" on infants and children.

If you're suffering from chronic indigestion that's helped by a weak acid solution, you should speak to a gastroenterologist. It might be something easily treatable that won't require you to suffer anymore.
 
BTW, in case anyone is interested, here's good old Louisville tap water.

I tend to trust my measurement here a bit more than I trust someone dripping an indicator into a test tube and shaking it with their finger, but that's just me.

 
Originally Posted By: Toaster_Jer
Wonder what effect talc can have on the body?

I realized that this one went unanswered. We don't have to "wonder" or "feel" about the effects of this, or any substance on the body. We have data.

Talc MSDS

You could also look up each compound in lemon juice, vinegar, or kombucha if you wanted.
 
Slightly alkaline water is typical in many municipalities to prevent corrosion of pipes - especially in old cities like Milwaukee and Chicago that have lead laterals to homes. They want the carbonate passivation layer in the pipes to remain intact. This was one of the main problems in Flint, they did not control the pH properly.

Originally Posted By: bunnspecial
BTW, in case anyone is interested, here's good old Louisville tap water.

I tend to trust my measurement here a bit more than I trust someone dripping an indicator into a test tube and shaking it with their finger, but that's just me.
 
Originally Posted By: Bandito440
Joseph, you're living out of a backpack in a homeless shelter. You're 34 years old and own nothing. Stop spending your money on junk and save it for a place to live.


Guess you were right. Man I missed the warning signs on that one.

By the campy names of some of the "Newest Members" though I bet he's back.
 
How about the extreme opposite,distilled water. Does distilled water have all of the necessary natural minerals removed?
 
Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
How about the extreme opposite,distilled water. Does distilled water have all of the necessary natural minerals removed?

It has had everything removed from it, or rather it was removed from everything else. Drinking distilled water probably doesn't do any harm as long as you're getting necessary minerals elsewhere. It's also unnecessary.
 
Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
How about the extreme opposite,distilled water. Does distilled water have all of the necessary natural minerals removed?


Distilled/deionized water can actually be dangerous to drink for that very reason, although it would probably take a lot to make a real difference.

BTW, the deionized water that comes out of our house system at work comes out slightly acid-in the 5.6 range. This is due to dissolved CO2.

At the end of the day, any sanitary water with a reasonable mineral content and not too much "bad stuff" is perfectly fine for you to drink. I'd guess I down a gallon or better a day of plain city tap water(not counting what I drink in coffee and tea). If you prefer bottled water, by all means drink it(I do sometimes for convenience), but be skeptical of any health claims from it.
 
Originally Posted By: bunnspecial
Distilled/deionized water can actually be dangerous to drink for that very reason, although it would probably take a lot to make a real difference.

BTW, the deionized water that comes out of our house system at work comes out slightly acid-in the 5.6 range. This is due to dissolved CO2.


It is not dangerous to drink in any way. Virtually no drinking water is completely saturated with minerals to begin with, so it is perfectly capable of absorbing more of any mineral regardless of whether there is any in there to start with or not. The City of Milwaukee water is extremely soft and virtually devoid of any dissolved minerals and people here aren't dropping over dead in the streets because it's so dangerous.

Besides, people who have hard water and use a softener have removed all the hard water minerals and replaced them with sodium ions. It also removes the iron as long as there isn't too much. So there's none of those minerals, will that water be dangerous to me and all my neighbors with softeners?

You drink demineralized water? What's the mineral content of your water?
 
Originally Posted By: kschachn
Originally Posted By: bunnspecial
Distilled/deionized water can actually be dangerous to drink for that very reason, although it would probably take a lot to make a real difference.

BTW, the deionized water that comes out of our house system at work comes out slightly acid-in the 5.6 range. This is due to dissolved CO2.


It is not dangerous to drink in any way. Virtually no drinking water is completely saturated with minerals to begin with, so it is perfectly capable of absorbing more of any mineral regardless of whether there is any in there to start with or not. The City of Milwaukee water is extremely soft and virtually devoid of any dissolved minerals and people here aren't dropping over dead in the streets because it's so dangerous.

Besides, people who have hard water and use a softener have removed all the hard water minerals and replaced them with sodium ions. It also removes the iron as long as there isn't too much. So there's none of those minerals, will that water be dangerous to me and all my neighbors with softeners?

You drink demineralized water? What's the mineral content of your water?


There's a difference between softened water and water with no mineral content at all.

In any case, no I don't drink demineralized water. The "house" system I referred to is the system in my building at work(chemistry department) that plumbs deionized water to every lab. We generate the water in-house by passing tap water through ion exchange resins that replace cations with H+ and anions with OH-(making H20). The water is constantly recirculated through the system, and in doing so passes through a carbon filter to remove dissolved organics and through a UV lamp to kill bacteria. A back of the envelope calculation tells me that we have about 3/4 mile of 1" ID hose running through the building.

This water has a resistivity of 1MΩ/cm. Actually, I should say that we have a "go/no go" light on the system that goes out when it goes below 1MΩ/cm. Some labs have nanopure/ultrapure systems that give 18MΩ/cm water and usually also contain a very fine(2 micron or so) filter to get rid of bacteria and other particulates. I graduated from an electrochemistry and nanostructure research group, and this was the only type of water we used. I also recently installed one(rescued from surplus) in a teaching lab both for some of the higher level classes as well as to save me making a trip up to higher floors when I need water for the HPLC. Needless to say, this water is much more pure than anything you can buy. In fact, its solvating ability is such that generating it as-needed is the only practical way to use it-it does not store well.
 
I apologize, I meant deionized water, not demineralized water. Tell me, how is the water that has run through your ion exchange resin different than distilled water in terms of minerals?

And yes, softened water has some minerals in it but it is mostly sodium. Most any calcium or magnesium ions are gone, as well as the iron. It doesn't matter though as it's not the total mineral load. As long as the water is undersaturated in some mineral it is capable of dissolving more. What specific minerals are lacking in distilled water that make it dangerous to the human body? And of those that you may mention, are you otherwise drinking water that is saturated in them? Are you saying that distilled water is dangerous because you obtain no minerals from it or because it somehow "strips" minerals from your body? That is the usual criticism of distilled water.

The argument that it is dangerous falls apart when millions of people are drinking water here in Milwaukee that is nearly devoid of any mineral content whatsoever. Are you saying that water somehow magically will not dissolve any more of the necessary minerals? Unless your only source of trace minerals is your water then why is it not dangerous as well?

I have a minor in chemistry so I know that's only enough to be dangerous. But I do know that many people who have surface water as their drinking water are ingesting water with very low mineral content. As far as I know they aren't dying from it.

Originally Posted By: bunnspecial
There's a difference between softened water and water with no mineral content at all.

In any case, no I don't drink demineralized water. The "house" system I referred to is the system in my building at work(chemistry department) that plumbs deionized water to every lab. We generate the water in-house by passing tap water through ion exchange resins that replace cations with H+ and anions with OH-(making H20). The water is constantly recirculated through the system, and in doing so passes through a carbon filter to remove dissolved organics and through a UV lamp to kill bacteria. A back of the envelope calculation tells me that we have about 3/4 mile of 1" ID hose running through the building.

This water has a resistivity of 1MΩ/cm. Actually, I should say that we have a "go/no go" light on the system that goes out when it goes below 1MΩ/cm. Some labs have nanopure/ultrapure systems that give 18MΩ/cm water and usually also contain a very fine(2 micron or so) filter to get rid of bacteria and other particulates. I graduated from an electrochemistry and nanostructure research group, and this was the only type of water we used. I also recently installed one(rescued from surplus) in a teaching lab both for some of the higher level classes as well as to save me making a trip up to higher floors when I need water for the HPLC. Needless to say, this water is much more pure than anything you can buy. In fact, its solvating ability is such that generating it as-needed is the only practical way to use it-it does not store well.
 
Originally Posted By: kschachn
And yes, softened water has some minerals in it but it is mostly sodium. Most any calcium or magnesium ions are gone, as well as the iron. It doesn't matter though as it's not the total mineral load. As long as the water is undersaturated in some mineral it is capable of dissolving more. What specific minerals are lacking in distilled water that make it dangerous to the human body? And of those that you may mention, are you otherwise drinking water that is saturated in them? Are you saying that distilled water is dangerous because you obtain no minerals from it or because it somehow "strips" minerals from your body? That is the usual criticism of distilled water.

The argument that it is dangerous falls apart when millions of people are drinking water here in Milwaukee that is nearly devoid of any mineral content whatsoever. Are you saying that water somehow magically will not dissolve any more of the necessary minerals? Unless your only source of trace minerals is your water then why is it not dangerous as well?

I have a minor in chemistry so I know that's only enough to be dangerous. But I do know that many people who have surface water as their drinking water are ingesting water with very low mineral content. As far as I know they aren't dying from it.


Couple points, if you remember the solubility laws, sodium doesn't make an insoluble salt, so softeners replace scaling salts with Sodium...no scale, still salts.

At the power stations, we have lots and lots of water, some deionised (anion, cation, and mixed bed ion exchange resing), and while circulating through the system, the condesnate is "polished" by again being passed through ion exchange resins...it's really really pure. The Cooling water is river water cycled uo some number of times in the cooling towers.

There are leaks...

If the heavily salt laden water drips on concrete, it runs off.

If the ultra pure water drips on concrete, it eats out the cement, leaving the sand and aggregate.

(Should mention that I have also experienced some HIGHLY saline ash dam water that runs with a quite low pH, and it sort of reacts and leaves a crust).

The ultra pure water and concrete example while dramatic to see industrially doesn't (IMO) apply to the myth of destroyig your teeth and bones...it's "hungry" for ions, for sure, but your "ash" ingestion per day is massive in comparison to your water consumption.

A few hundred thousand submariners set a good test case also, I believe.
 
A number of years ago, a small town here was seriously looking at making RO water at their plant (which was in a desperate need for massive upgrading, hence the discussions) and distributing that through household mains. I gather they saw the folly in their ways, and the plant still hasn't been updated and has been a minor news item on occasion. Or, they tried it and now everything's gone south and they're back at square one.
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Producing municipal water using RO is quite costly. The process can be used to turn seawater into drinking water, but you don't see it being done in too many places due to the cost. Using RO has been discussed in California due to the drought, but aside from the costs they are also concerned about the environmental impact of dumping the rejected water, or "concentrate" back into the environment because it would be a lot more saline than the incoming seawater.
 
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