A week before Chinese New Year of 2007, my relative, my father’s brother to be exact, who stays way over in Ijok (somewhere in Kuala Selangor, for those who are geographically challenged), expressed their intention to come over to my place. Their over-eagerness seems very suspicious to me. My baby girl was already 6 months old at that time, and they have never come over to look at her before, so why now?
It was when my mum told me that they are selling a sort of water alkaline machine that confirmed my suspicion. Their machine costs up to RM3400, while I saw a decent Panasonic water alkalizer machine for only RM2200! What a rip-off!!
As with all the other direct-selling tactics, they made themselves comfortable around us. They joked with us, asked us how we have been, and they being our close relative, we easily fell into their comfort zone. Then I went to the kitchen to prepare some more water for them (to drink, no more). When I came back to them, I was surprised at what they have already arranged on the table! Bottles of clear water, labeled with mineral water, energy water, RO water and their alkaline water. Stacks of brochures were also presented neatly, as if I was suddenly standing on a Citibank credit card booth in Tesco! Only this time there was no pretty girl giving me the brochures!
They started doing all sorts of experiments on the water. The standard stuffs, pH test, neutrality test, mixing water with oil test. Those tests will surely generate a lot of ohhhs and ahhhhhs from those aunties, but come on! You can do much better than that!
It took me a while to nail it into their thick skull that I will never purchase their machine. They had all sorts of dirty tactics. They claimed that Panasonic’s version uses aluminum plates, not platinum, and rants about platinum being so strong, it is used in space shuttles (to that I say “Bullshit!”) and stuffs like that. They even quickly offered to “put the machine there and you don’t need to pay us money [yet]”. To that I slowly explained to them, I do not want them to come back here all the way from Ijok to dismantle the machine again. Nice try Uncle, but you’re getting on my nerves. After much haggling, pushing and shoving (my uncle actually went outside to light up his cigarettes a few times!) they finally gave in, and went back with their machine, like a droopy-eared puppy.
Not satisfied with my own arguments, and to give them a benefits of doubt, I went online again, searching for the alkaline water. And the truth hit me right between the eyes.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ALKALINE WATER!!!!
Alkaline water takes advantage of people like us who learn about pH, alkali and acidity and how to neutrality works back in school. But look further and you actually find more erroneous claims. Such as the acidity of water itself. Pure H2O cannot be split into H+ and OH− components just like that and expect them to keep their liquid state. If they do, that is electrolysis. In order for them to keep an acid or alkaline state, some sort of ions must be present. Where does this ions come from? From dissolved matters in the water, like calcium chloride. The alkaline water that the machine produce, is actually no other than calcium hydroxide. The acidic water, get this, is a dilute solution of hypochlorous acid, HOCl. This acid is a powerful oxidizing agent and disinfectant. In the presence of sodium ions, the resulting solution is known as sodium hypochlorite. This is the main ingredient of ordinary household bleaches such as Chlorox. Their user manual recommends using this acid water to wash toilets, your food and even your face. Of course it cleans well, you are using BLEACH to clean your face!!
Another simple argument. What is the alkaline level of their water? About pH 10. Do you know the acid level of our stomach’s gastric juice? pH 2!!! By the time that water arrives at the stomach, all of it would have been neutralized!! In fact too much of alkaline level in our digestive system will only disrupt the normal amino acid and other enzyme activity too. Of course my uncle argues that since this water molecule is small, it gets absorbed so fast, 50% of it never reaches the stomach! What an absurd claim!
Which brings me to another one of their silly myth. That their water molecule is very small, they form covalent bonds with 6 in a group, forming what looks like water crystals. Err….. if my form 5 teacher teaches me correctly, and I’m sure she does, water only forms crystal when they are in solid form, e.g. ice or snow. Well to be fair, they do form covalent bonds in groups of 6, but only for like pico-seconds. Duhhh!!!
(http://www.chem1.com/CQ/ionbunk.html)
(http://www.wellness.com.au/Home/Comparisons/AlkalineIonisers/tabid/37/De…)
To sum it up, alkaline water is nothing but a deliberate marketing ploy, concocted by some wacko “health experts” who just wants to cash in on the fad. Yes, it is true that the technology came from Japan , technology that has long since been abandoned by their government 10 years ago and banned as misleading the consumer. Bear in mind that not all things Japanese are high-tech. They are also the same people who still believes that your personality and destiny are determined by your blood type!
There are rebuttals on those who are staunch supporters of ionized water. I never bother to read them though.
So there, read the articles, read your chemistry and measure your own wallet. As for me, I am settling for the RM300 carbon based filter anytime. I have been drinking that water for the pass 20 years, and so far there are no side effects. I am most likely to die from some freak airplane accident than from sickness of consuming too much non-alkalized water anyway. So why bother?
Quack science or miracle elixir? You decide.
Edit 26 Feb 2009: To be fair, I read the rebuttal claim above, and believe me, try as I might to read it with an open mind, I still do not find any solid convincing proof to say that alkaline water (if it exists at all) is beneficial to a human’s health. All the cells in my body that has ever attended the previous 20 years of chemistry lesson of my life could not come to agree with the existence of this water. If you understand ionization, it’s a highly unstable process of stripping an atom of its electron. Ionization happens easier in gaseous state than it does in liquid state, due to the simple fact of distance between each molecule. Once a molecule or atom becomes ionized, it quickly re-attaches itself to an oppositely charged molecule to attain electrical equilibrium. The fact that the distance between water molecule is so close to one another greatly reduce the chance of these H+ and OH− ions separating from one another. That is another reason why I think an air-ionizer might be better for us than does a water ionizer. Hmmmm …..
Edit 17 March 2009 : More comments are coming in to defend the credibility of this miracle water. And I shot them all down like moths flying near a candle. Why are all these people so concerned about this alkaline water? One reason I can think of is that they are the losers who bought this crap home and they are now in their post-purchase withdrawal symptom. You can find them in consumer behavious that says that they need assurance that what they bought (perceived performance) is what they had intended to receive (consumer’s expectation). So they come browsing the internet and saw my website denouncing the existance of such product and became furious! Can’t blame them.
I relate this alkaline water thing to the hydrogen fuel thing for cars. A lot has been researched and developed on this technology. This technology works, but not in the way that you think that it works. Contrary to popular belief, hydrogen DOES NOT power your internal combustion engine (unlike the BMW Hydrogen 7, which by the way, is real and cost over USD$118,000!). All it does is to make your existing hydro-carbon combustion more complete, and thus, you get a more powerful and fuel efficient engine. However due to some over-enthusiastic people who hopes to make a quick buck out of this hype, souped up all sorts of false information to convince unsuspecting consumers. The problem with these (the alkaline water thingy and this hydrogen as fuel thingy) are that they are sprinkled with a few simple scientific facts that sounded intelligent and makes a lot of sense to the simple minded consumers. They are simply not aware that the actual thing making them work are not what it seems (more complete burning of their fuel, or in the case of the alkaline water, simple filtering of impurities and germs), or just plain simple placebo effect. Believe it or not? Measure your own wallet and your need, and make a wise decision from there.
