Very useful in keeping the body healthily alkalized is half to one teaspoon a day of baking soda in water .
Don't take it with or within an hour of meals, though, as the stomach needs to retain its acidity in order to perform its digestive functions effectively. A great deal of tap water (or even store-bought spring water) is surprisingly acidic; filtration will remove toxins but will not affect the pH balance of the water. (Baking soda can be used to reduce the corrosion of acidic drinking water in municipal water supplies, therefore reducing the toxicity of the lead and copper, which are dissolved from the pipes.) You can purchase a pH testing kit for home use very cheaply, and if the water you usually drink is acidic (i.e. with a pH of less than 7.0) you could remedy this cheaply and easily by adding a pinch of baking soda to all the water you consume.
For general purposes of alkalinizing the body, quarter to half a teaspoon twice a day in water is usually enough.
If it were not for the presence of sodium – which makes the tissue in the stomach highly alkaline – the lining would be destroyed by the hydrochloric acid in the stomach. The stomach, intestines, joints and ligaments are in constant need of natural food-source sodium. Naturally occurring sodium is not to be confused with the sodium from common commercial table salt , which is processed with extreme heat using many chemical and bleaching agents.
Potassium neutralizes acid wastes, and in combination with sodium, maintains a healthy acid/alkaline balance. Potassium and sodium are nearly always found together in the body and perform many of the same functions. Second only to breathing and maintaining a heartbeat the most important metabolic function our body performs is to maintain a balanced pH. Baking soda, in small amounts, performs this function.
http://www.naturalnews.com/021618.html
I have been extremely acidic. Been testing my saliva and urine. Since moving to Columbus Ohio from Sandusky, I have had tooth decay and my joints have become tender. Why?
I havent been able to get my body to become more alkaline. Do I really have to eat an almost totally alkaline food diet?
I finally tested the city water. YIKES!!! pH tested 5.0 - ACID!!! Could this be right? When I lived in Sandusky the last time I had tested the water the city still added chlorine to the water and it always tested fine for a swimming pool - alkaline.
We had a jug of distilled water that had been left open to the air. I tested it with a pH strip. 4.8!!! ACID!!!
I have been using an Alkaline booster in my water. I took a cup of city water and added the two drops. Tested it. 6.0!!! Still acidic! I took 1/4 cup of water and added the 2 drops of booster... got up to 8 drops before the water tested at 7.0.
I searched the Internet and came across this video which I found really interesting.
http://www.healthtruthrevealed.com/full-page.php?id=20584223408&&page=article
Watch This Revealing Video comparing 10 different Waters
You'll Be Surprised At The Results!
pure water should have pH=7
however some other things are always dissolved in water
first of all CO2 for air which you will have even in distilled water.
Dissolved carbon dioxide reacts with water to give carbonic acid CO2 + H2O =
H2CO3
it dissociates H2CO3 = H+ + HCO3-
so pH of distilled water should be 5.5!
there are also salts dissolved in tap water
they also contribute to pH change and so you have 6.9
click for source
Pure distilled water would have tested neutral, but pure distilled water is not easily obtained because carbon dioxide in the air around us mixes, or dissolves, in the water, making it somewhat acidic. The pH of distilled water is between 5.6 and 7. To neutralize distilled water, add about 1/8 teaspoon baking soda, or a drop of ammonia, stir well, and check the pH of the water with a pH indicator. If the water is still acidic, repeat the process until pH 7 is reached. If you accidentally add too much baking soda or ammonia, either start over or add a drop or two of vinegar, stir, and recheck the pH. - NOT FOR INTERNAL DRINKING THIS IS FOR USING FOR SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS...
http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/education/experiment1.html
Pure water has a pH value of 7.0 making it neutral. ...most drinking water is not pure and therefore does not have a neutral pH....Even though the pH of drinking water is usually not neutral, water is not a significant factor in terms of encouraging metabolic acidosis. This is true because the total concentration of acids in tap water is very small. The fact is that even though a small amount of acid placed in water can lower the water's pH reading a great deal, the overall metabolic impact of that small amount of acid is not consequential. There are, however, factors other than the pH reading of water that are important in terms of the water's impact on acid-alkaline balance. Chief among these are the following:
The concentration of minerals - ...dissolved solids include alkalizing minerals such as calcium and magnesium as well as alkalizing bicarbonates... Alkalizing minerals and bicarbonate in water can have a significant impact on acid-base balance, as they are readily taken up into the body. As obtained from mineral water, bicarbonate and alkalizing forms of calcium and magnesium have been shown to reduce both urinary calcium loss and bone breakdown.
Chloride content - ...The healthiest types of water have the lowest levels of chloride.
Bicarbonate content...
from The Acid Alkaline Food Guide by Dr. Susan E. Brown and Larry Trivieri, Jr.
Published Saturday, March 15, 2008
As gardeners, we worry about the pH of our soil. We never think about the pH of our water. We think of rainwater as "pure" water, naturally neutral. Not so. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere lowers the pH of rainwater to about 5.6, nearly as acid as vinegar . So what about city water? If you get your water from a city system, it will be alkaline. It has to be or it would eat up the older, lead water pipes that deliver water to many of our houses.
To find out what the pH of your city water is, call your local water department. In St. Paul, water is 8.2.
To make it fit for watering houseplants, St. Paul gardeners need to add 1 teaspoons of vinegar to 5 gallons of water to bring the pH to 5.6.
Take a look at your houseplants. We used to think it was the chlorine in city water that gave our plants brown leaf tips and prevented them from doing well. Maybe not.
Well water might not be all that great either. It can have significant amounts of calcium and magnesium in it. This will take even more vinegar to lower the pH.
One way to know if you have these salts in your water is to look at your flower pots. Do they have white crud around the top of the pot? You won't see that sort of stuff in your flower garden.
So what do you do? There is a pH monitor called Sunleaves that hydroponic growers use. It costs about $10. It changes color to tell you how acid or alkaline your water is.
An easy way to lower the pH of your water is to use vinegar. It's cheap, safe and easy to get. If you have trouble growing house plants, maybe all you need is a pH meter and jug of vinegar. House plants are a must in most homes. Not only are they decorative, they also clean up the air in our closed up, winter homes.
Call your water department, get a jug of vinegar and in a few months, you may need a machete to get to your bedroom.
Bev Johnson is a master gardener for West Otter Tail County.
http://www.fergusfallsjournal.com/news/2008/mar/15/ph-balance-water-important-healthy-plants/
"Acid rain" is is a popular term referring to the deposition of wet (rain, snow, sleet, fog and cloudwater, dew) and dry (acidifying particles and gases) acidic components. A more accurate term is “acid deposition”. Distilled water, which contains no carbon dioxide, has a neutral pH of 7. Liquids with a pH less than 7 are acidic, and those with a pH greater than 7 are basic. “Clean” or unpolluted rain has a slightly acidic pH of about 5.2, because carbon dioxide and water in the air react together to form carbonic acid, a weak acid (pH 5.6 in distilled water), but unpolluted rain also contains other chemicals. [1]
Carbonic acid then can ionize in water forming low concentrations of hydronium ions:
The extra acidity in rain comes from the reaction of primary air pollutants, primarily sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides, with water in the air to form strong acids (like sulfuric and nitric acid). The main sources of these pollutants are industrial power-generating plants and vehicles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rain