Change your WATER; Change your LIFE!
By Dr Les Sandles
We can, and indeed should, all get very excited about the benefits of an alkaline lifestyle, but the single biggest challenge comes when we start incorporating the discipline to only eat alkalizing foods into our busy lives. And, it is very quickly apparent that a truly alkaline lifestyle is basically not much of a life at all….
…UNLESS…you take the powerful step of only drinking ALKALINE WATER
Modern technology, developed in Russia then mastered by the Japanese, ionized alkaline water has proven itself to be an invaluable aid in the pursuit of long term health and vitality, and anti-aging. In fact, alkaline, ionised water is now considered an integral part of health management in Japan.
In our modern world, consuming alkaline water has to be front and centre in developing an enjoyable, socially manageable, healthy alkaline lifestyle. Quite simply, swapping to alkaline water underpins your healthy lifestyle while preserving those elements of your life that make it fun.
In fact, the simple act of switching from tap and/or bottled water to alkaline water is a gift to your body in itself - by neutralising a huge quantity of metabolic acids, alkaline water relieves your body of inflammation which, in turn, enhances immmune competence, releases energy and improves health and vitality. It achieves this because of the QUANTITY of water consumed each day compared to any other dietary component.
Let’s look at it this way…
If I eat a 100g apple, 85% of what I eat is water, and only the remaining 15% - the solids - will impact my acid-alkaline balance. The sugars will ensure that apple will create a slightly negative influence on the acid-alkaline balance of the body.
If I eat a 100g of beef, I am eating about twice the "food" since meat contains about 30% solids and 70% water. Quantitatively then, the minimum acidogenic affect (acidifying influence) of my steak has to be at least twice that of the apple. Meat is also much richer in minerals than the apple and the sulphur content ensures its acidogenic affect is many-fold greater than the apple.
Then I tackle desert! Let's say I have four 25 g chocolate biscuits (I can never eat only 1) to make up my 100g comparison. At barely any water (4%), my Tim Tams will have about 4X the acidifying affect as my 100g steak simply because I have had 4X the solids. However, while I'm luxuriating in the taste, I'm destroying my body's acid-alkaline balance. You see, the biscuits are mostly sugar and starch (flour), and these being highly processed ingredients stripped of minerals metabolise to pure acid, and not requiring any real chewing (which stimulates gastric acid production) fail to generate any tempering alkalising influence. Delicious, but nasty!
Changes to the acid-alkaline balance is determined by the net affect of the various metabolic and physiological impacts of the food we consume - the amount of food, the ingredients, their mineral content, the amount of organic acids produced upon digestion of that food, the amount of chewing required to get it down, and the shift in the body's fluid balance. The metabolic impact of food is entirely related to the solid components of the food. The water, regardless of the food containing it, plays no role in the acid-alkaline chemistry of your body.
On the other hand, water from whatever source external to food – tap, bottle, filter, soft drinks, tea, coffee, or any other beverage – will have an impact directly related to both the level of consumption and the stuff in the liquid. The impact of 100 ml (which is close enough to 100g) of any beverage will be in proportion to its organic (sugars, artificial sweeteners) and inorganic (minerals, gasas, food acids, buffers, etc) contents, and so because we consume a huge amount of beverage each day compared to our dry food intake (often 2-3 litres or more compared to only about 1/2-2/3kg dry food) the liquid part of our diet has the ability to determine our health – or lack of it.
Tap and bottled water usually run at pH 7 (neutral) or thereabouts, but the minerals contained within give this water a slight to significant acidogenic affect on our body. Some mineral waters are slightly alkaline with either a neutral or slightly alkalizing affect on our body. Only ALKALINE water has significantly positive affect on our health because of its strong alkalizing affect.
Please take a few minutes to check this short demo out. It may change your life!
Just before I leave this article, let me clear up one more thing in respect of how much water we should drink. The fact is, there is no "prescription", nor is there any scientific support anywhere for the old "eight 8 oz glasses" per day. The amount required depends on so, so many things, but a good minimum is 30ml/kg weight each day (and as my 11 year old put it the other day, about 100ml/year of age for kids) - more when its hot or your sweating!
Dr Les Sandles. ( with permission of Dr Sandles )
For more great information go to this web site, and get your free Alkaline Book.
