We’ve all heard about alkaline water in some way through the internet or some new age health conscious friends. What many people do after they heard about it though is researching about it online and probably found the benefits being inconclusive. After all, the alkaline water machines in general are quite pricey. Buying a machine that supposedly giving you health benefit that you cannot even detect is not a very smart move. Well, I have done it and my personal experience with using alkaline water can be useful in helping you decide if you need to try it.
What Led Me to Try Alkaline Water
It is difficult to pinpoint when I first encountered the term alkaline water. People in Asian has been talking about eating more alkaline stuff for a long time but their beliefs in the subject is very voodoo. To be honest, I think they took whatever new age bullshit and mixed that up with their superstitious beliefs to produce their version of “alkaline cult”. Being a very scientific person, I cannot accept what they are preaching at all.
The very first time I tried using alkaline water, was like a decade ago. My late girlfriend was very sick in bed from one of her many surgeries. She could not even sit up from the bed by herself as the operation was done in the abdominal area. Two of her friends, a couple, brought her many bottles of water. These are bottles of alkaline water. I was told to let my girlfriend drink only this alkaline water, preferably boiled. And all food that I made for her should be made with this alkaline water. They promised to bring more to keep the regime going for the next two weeks.
Evidence I Saw with My Own Eyes
Since my late girlfriend had regular home visit by nurses and doctors multiple times a week with blood work also done frequently, we found out that she recovered much faster since switching to using alkaline water. Her surgery site healed at doubIe (if not faster) than the normal speed. I have my share of injuries, including life threatening ones, hence I know quite well how normal wounds would heal. Her blood work also showed much improvement in her absorption of nutrients from the food. I was essentially cooking the same thing for her except the alkaline water.
I have no doubt it was the alkaline water than made the difference. Her speedy recovery led us to our journey in trying out alkaline water in many other things since. Over the years we have also bought various alkaline water machines with varying results. Thus, even if you are thinking of using alkaline water regularly, there is also this hurdle of picking the better machines.
Absolute Advantage vs. Marginal Improvement
I believe alkaline water would not benefit majority of people in general. The reason is quite simple. Most people do not eat healthy enough but their healthy digestive system allows them to do so. Normal people can take supplements and other pills to get whatever is missing from their diet. My belief is that the main benefit of alkaline water, which has an uncertain quality of improvement over normal water, can only be an increase by certain percentage in improving our absorption ratio of water and the nutrients carried in our food. It will not be significant enough to show a difference in normal healthy people.
When someone is very sick, old or weak in digestion ability in general, they cannot eat and drink as much. Taking pills is also likely difficult. In their situation, alkaline water allows these people getting a significant boost to health by allowing them to absorb more from the limited amount of food they can eat. Of course, this is my speculation only.
In short, I think alkaline water provides marginal improvement over regular water only. Drinking it regularly, may not provide the absolute advantage like many people suggested. If you are a normal healthy person who already taking good care of yourself, using alkaline water will not make a big difference for you.
When Taste Matters
Coffee tastes better, much better, when brewed with alkaline water. This I know for sure. Food cooked in very mild favours also tastes better when prepared with alkaline water. For food with very strong or intense favours, the difference is not clear between using regular water and alkaline water. I will put it this way – alkaline water helps magnifying the freshness in the food we cooked.
Personally, I did not even remember the difference in taste of the coffee until my recent move. I could not install my alkaline water machine in my new place for several months due to the fact that all the faucets are made in a way not allowing me to hook up my machine. During that time, I was forced to switch back to use regular filtered water. That was the time I realized I was spoiled by my coffee made with alkaline water.
Summary
I prefer using alkaline water but it is not a necessity for me at this time. However, I am sure alkaline water played an important role in keeping my late girlfriend healthy for many years. I would recommend anyone with family members having compromised health conditions to give alkaline water a try.
You do not even need to buy an alkaline water machine to see if it works for you. There are bottled water that are more alkaline than the others, just search online for the brands. You may even ask around to see if any of your friends already have an alkaline water machine so that you can collect like a week long supply to experiment with alkaline water.
