Expert: PatG - 5/1/2011

Question
I have been considering getting an alkaline water machine.  I know that the most popular is kangen water.  I was wondering if you could tell me if switching to alkaline water is overall beneficial. Also, is there any difference between kangen and other versions.  I also know that it is possible to get a month free of the water to try, but I dont know how.  Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

Answer
Hello, April,

First of all, water is alkaline if it has minerals. If you are expecting to make water alkaline with a machine, it will be adding these minerals or increasing their prevalence in some other way. In the case of Kangen, it is explained that water is divided into alkaline and acidic water. The acidic water is thrown away (back into the environment, where its acidity could prove to be a problem). The best alkaline water is mineral water which comes from a good spring. There are sites online that tell what the best brands are. But it is natural. And the mineral balance can be quite beneficial.

Kangen products are sold by Enagic, which is a Multi-level Marketing company. I STRONGLY URGE you to have nothing to do with products from MLM companies. They are a real rip-off for someone, if not everyone. The only people who make money in MLM are the people on the top. Most other people don't even make minimum wage. People are subjected to motivational meetings to keep them entrapped in what are basically business cults. In spite of that, most people leave sooner rather than later. As a consumer, your problem will be that the machines are badly overpriced. The money they pay all those wholesalers in the upline from the seller has to come from someplace, and it comes from the customer. In addition, you would be supporting a company that rips off a lot of people, and there may be an ethical question for you. Whatever you do, do not get involved in SELLING anything through MLM, because if you do, you may well lose your shirt, and destroy family ties and friendships, not to mention your health and life, from spending so much time selling, traveling to motivational conferences, or the money spent on motivational materials. While the amount of this that goes on for any given company varies from other companies, they all have to do it. Finally, the products are often of inferior quality (such as too little ingredient in a supplement, or formulas that are not state-of-the-art.) MLM OUGHT to be totally illegal, but they have a lot of money to spend on lobbyists, so these companies are able to influence legislation.

Here is an article about the distinction between Kangen and other water ionizers:

http://www.ionizers.org/kangen.html

I am not saying that other ionizers are comparable. But I think the page has a lot of very good information.

Now about the health benefits. I fail to see that a water ionizer is going to provide more healthful water than you'd get from bottled spring water. Generally speaking, since ionizers use local water supplies, the water is much lower quality to begin with, and it's not clear how good a job these units do getting all the dangerous and toxic things out of the water. Some units are even designed so they do not remove fluoride compounds from the water, because of the false claim that fluoridated water is good for teeth. It is not. The fluoride compounds used are basically pollutants from industrial processes, and the companies that supply it did a huge public relations job and convinced a lot of people that these toxins should be put into municipal water supplies. The result has really been a nightmare for a lot of people, and unfortunately, overdosing above accepted limits is common because fluoridated water is also used to irrigate produce fields, so you get it in your fruits and vegetables as well. Fluoride has been implicated in Alzheimer's disease, and is a result of combining fluoride with aluminum, such as the aluminum from antacid tablets. If you value your health, stay away from artificially fluoridated water. The problem with a unit like Kangen, or any other, is that you have to believe their claims, and we don't know how truthful their claims are.

With spring water, the bottles are a problem. I crush mine and recycle them. I use only the water which is packaged in the clear plastic, because the cloudy plastic leaches harmful material into the water.

The bottom line is that I do not recommend Kangen units for a large number of reasons. I also do not think water ionizers are a better solution anyway. Yes, eventually you'd probably pay more for bottled water, and yes, the bottles are a problem. But there are just too many drawbacks from these units, in my opinion. Take it for what it's worth.

There are other ways to keep your body alkaline, and drinking mineral water isn't really the primary answer. The primary answer is to stay away from sugars and other foods that cause an acid condition in the body. The human body is very complex. You can learn to improve your diet so that you don't have this problem. Many of us are addicted to sugar. In my experience, it takes about two weeks of abstaining from eating foods with sugar and a high glycemic index to get over this addiction. The foods that are a problem are unhealthy for so many other reasons that staying away from them is just a very good idea anyway. Another very good practice is to take supplements that are high in anti-oxidants, or eat foods high in them.

I hope this helps. Feel free to ask any other questions you might have. And you're welcome.