pHwatr: The easy way to alkaline water

The acidity of your body matters. Too much acid can lead to a host of ailments and symptoms that only start with your stomach. An alkaline diet is often promoted as a way to lower the body’s acidity and improve health. Acidity is a measure of the concentration of hydrogen on a scale of 1-14. Under 7 is considered bad (too acidic), and 7 is considered neutral. We take a lot of things into our body that are highly acidic. Those of us who are coffee drinkers (me) enjoy something pretty high on the acid scale. This is probably why coffee and orange juice are two items doctors typically tell us to cut out when we are having trouble with too much stomach acid.

Cutting out highly acidic foods and drinks is just one way to adjust the body’s pH level. Another way is to take in more alkaline foods and beverages… thus, the entrance of alkaline water.

Did you know that  pH stands for potential hydrogen? yeah, me either.

I’ll be honest I’ve heard a lot about alkaline water over the last few years. My local natural grocer sells alkaline water but I had a really hard time paying $5 for a gallon of water. One of my good Fibro Friends swears by it though, so I did once buy a gallon. I’m such a creature of habit and convenience however that I’m not sure I ever actually drank it all. I’m used to filling my water bottle up with filtered water from the spigot on the fridge. It seemed like that gallon just sat in our fridge taking up space for too long.

Then I came upon pHwatr. I think I stumbled across them on Twitter and the idea of being able to put a stick in my water bottle to raise the alkaline level sounded perfect for me. I contacted them and they offered to send out a stick and a pitcher.

The stick is a magnesium stick. This is the same thing they use in most of the alkaline/ hydrogen water studies. And, there have been a ton of those studies. These studies show that alkaline water is amazingly beneficial for our bodies, helping reduce fatigue, increase hydration and improve the symptoms of many illnesses. There are studies that show that drinking alkaline water can decrease acid reflux (something I can attest to). Other studies indicate that alkaline water can be helpful for those with high blood pressure, diabetes, and other common health complaints. Honestly, if you read enough studies it seems like alkaline water might be the miracle that we’ve been looking for.

If you’ve ever been to an area that has magnesium springs (like Manitou Springs, CO which is known for it’s many natural springs) you’ve had naturally alkaline water. These springs have been touted as healing waters for as long as history exists. So, why wouldn’t adding magnesium to water accomplish much the same goals? The only downside is that adding magnesium to our tap water you have no idea what’s already in the water.

I’m one of those people who always has a water bottle. I rarely go anywhere without it. So, the stick seemed perfect. The pitcher has a filter (it’s the same size/shape as a Brita pitcher but instead of just filtering the water it also increases the alkaline level), so I can fill it out of my sink and keep it in the refrigerator then I use that to fill my water bottle. I keep the stick in the bottle so if I have to fill it up somewhere other than home I still know that it’s going to have a high alkaline level.

Of course, once I received my pHwatr pitcher I did what anyone would do. I tested my water. The kit pitcher came with a small bottle of pH test reagent to allow you to see how alkaline or acidic your water is. You can see the comparison in the images to the left. The top image is the water straight out of my refrigerator. It’s not terrible, it’s neutral as tap water typically is. The second image shows the water after simply using the magnesium stick in my water bottle (stick in bottle, add water, shake to make sure that all the water comes into contact with the stick). You can see that just the magnesium stick raised the pH to the highest level. I also tested water that went through the pitcher and got the same results.

I’ve been using my pHwatr pitcher and stick for about a month now and I’m really happy with it. I drink a ton of water already but I feel like I’m not feeling as much of a constant need for water as I did previously.

There have been a few studies that suggest that alkaline water helps the body heal faster, and also helps cancer patients fight cancer. My mom was diagnosed with cancer a couple of months ago and I’ll do anything to see her heal, so after a few weeks with my pHwatr pitcher I ordered one for her. (She’s also started juicing again). She just had surgery a couple of weeks ago (May 18) and they were able to remove all the cancer. She’ll start chemo later this summer and we are really hoping that all of the things she is doing (including drinking alkaline water) will lead to an easier and faster recovery.

If all the added benefits aren’t enough, my picky husband tried water from our pHwatr pitcher when I first bought it, knowing nothing other than that I’d evidently finally bought a filter pitcher for home (he has a Brita for work – we don’t want to know what’s in the water found on the military base where he works). He immediately commented about how good the water tasted. We basically double filter our water now. It either runs through the filter installed on the fridge or through the Brita faucet attachment into the pitcher then through the filter in the pitcher where it’s further filtered and also ionized.