What are Alkaline Water Filters?
Alkaline water filters or as they are also called – Alkaline Ionizers – are home appliances that are intended to raise the pH level of drinking water. Usually used in pitchers, or Alkaline water pitchers, they can also be used in under sink or countertop water filters. In fact, we have just finished a buyers guide dedicated to alkaline water pitchers which you can access here.
Most basically described, Alkaline Ionizers use ion charges to clean drinking water. The Alkaline water filter uses the process of electrolysis to separate the incoming water stream into acidic and alkaline components. The treated water is what is called alkaline water. This is important as drinking acidic water can have a lot of negative effects on our health. The water we drink needs to be both cleansed from any contaminants as well as have an alkaline pH.
Different Types of Alkalizing / Ionizing Devices
There are two different types of alkalizing / ionizing devices which you can use to make your home’s tap water pH perfect for drinking:
- Electric Water Ionizers have a couple of key features that are very useful for any home. First, they filter water continuously. This means that they can give you a non-stop supply of alkaline water with no wait time. Secondly, they also filter fluoride, which is present in most developed countries’ tap water. Fluoride doesn’t just bring an unpleasant odor and taste to our tap water, but it is also acidic, which is why it is filtered through the electric water ionizer.
- Non-electric Alkaline Ionizing water filters use the principle of adding magnesium to the water in the presence of magnetized ceramics to spontaneously ionize the water. Such devices are the various types of pH water pitchers, the Alkaline Ionizer by AOK, and other non-electric Ionizers that you will see on the market. They are cheaper than electric Ionizers and a lot of people prefer them as they perceive them as more “natural”. Additionally, they are also more easily portable than electric ones. (Electric water Ionizers are, of course, also portable, but they are designed mostly to be stationary or placed permanently).
- One drawback, on the other hand, is that they have a bit of wait time. A non-electric alkaline Ionizer needs some down time between every few quarts of filtered water – typically about half an hour. This time is needed for the outer layer of the magnesium time-release balls to soften up. This is known as re-charging.
Both types of alkaline water ionizers can filter contaminants from the water before ionizing it, although this largely depends on the specific model of the alkaline ionizer.
Alkaline Water Ionizers Have Some Drawbacks Too, Of Course:
- They are facing some resistance from certain scientific branches, which claim that the process of electrolysis doesn’t actually have a positive effect on the water and is either redundant, or, in some cases – negative on our health.
- The quality of alkaline water Ionizers is largely dependent on the quality of the individual model and brand, since they all employ different supporting filters and features, and they are all made of different quality components. This is regarded as one of the key reasons why some people are opposed to alkaline water Ionizers.
Alkaline water Ionizers don’t do well with some types of water:
- They don’t do well with excessively hard water (over 200 ppm of hardness or over 12 grains). Hard water is basically water with extra calcium in it. This doesn’t necessarily make your water “bad”, it’s just a bit more specific. Hard water tends to damage water equipment such as water ionizers and water heaters, but washing your hair is much easier with hard water, for example.
- They have problems with sodium in the water, from ion-exchange water softeners.
- They also face difficulties with water that is rich in iron, sulfur, copper and other heavy metals.
What Are The Precise Benefits Of Alkaline Water Ionizers, However?
Now that we’ve covered the specifics and the possible drawbacks of alkaline water Ionizers what are their positives? Why might you need such an appliance in your home?
- PH Balance: The sad truth is that while our bodies need a good pH-balance, our diets are all too often overly acidic. This doesn’t mean that getting our pH balance all the way to the other end of the scale is good – that’d be unhealthy as well. But with such a high acidity in our diets, drinking alkaline water does wonders for providing us with the balance that we need. This is one of the key health benefits of alkaline antioxidant water – the alkaline water pH-balance it helps us achieve. With a good alkaline water appliance you will get the option to choose from many levels of pH water, so you can give your body the right pH levels that it needs. This allows your cells to rid themselves of their acidic waste – and yes, this does include fat as well. Without the use of constant pH-buffers, our cells must store their acidic waste and this is very unhealthy in a lot of ways. For example, to compensate for this, your body will also rob your joints, bones, or muscles to get the pH-buffers it needs. And while this protective mechanism keeps us from dying, it also robs vital minerals from our joints and tissues, etc. This easily leads to the development of diseases such as cancer, osteoporosis, arthritis, and many others that are getting more and more prevalent with each passing year.
- Alkaline Antioxidant Water: Alkaline Ionized water contains a very high level of natural antioxidants and that is another one of the several great advantages of using an alkaline machine. These antioxidants are negatively-charged h2- molecules that have an extra electron to donate to free-radicals within our bodily fluids, blood and cells. Research into molecular hydrogen (i.e. H2- Antioxidants) from recent years is regularly validating that antioxidants are a huge discovery and bring with them a wide range of health benefits. The antioxidants from an Alkaline water Ionizer so potent that they can get into cells and even through the blood-brain barrier. This is theorized as one of the key reasons why people that frequently consume ionized water often experience remissions from cancer and a lot of other health problems.
- More Absorbable Water: Water is wet, this is true, but ionized water is “wetter”! The main antioxidant in ionized water is unique in being both extremely tiny and soluble. These properties are what allows alkaline water to more easily enter through any barrier in our bodies. By drinking ionized alkaline water, we allow our bodies to absorb it better than tap, bottled or any other water. Simply put, what a water ionizer does is that it breaks the water down from larger clusters of water molecules to smaller ones. By doing this, also with the gain of lipid solubility, the smaller clusters are more able to pass through cell membranes and enter the cells.
- Best Water Filtration: Alkaline water filters don’t just fix the pH balance of our tap water, however. They also help us by filtering out the Chlorine, Fluoride, and other toxins present in water. By splitting the water into two streams of alkaline water and acidic water, the more toxic acidic minerals, such as Fluoride and Chlorine, will naturally be diverted to the acidic line. What’s more, water ionizer filters have been known to remove up to 99.99% of fluoride, chloramine, heavy metals, toxins and even pharmaceuticals depending on the specific mode water ionizer you’ve purchased. At the same time they allow the good minerals such as calcium through. As we mentioned, however, it is important to remember that not all water ionizer companies offer the same quality of filtration. It is very important to do a fair bit of research into what the best models and brands of Alkaline water filters are.
- Taste: Fluoride and Chlorine, while helping clean our tap water from a lot of unhealthy contaminants, are not only somewhat unhealthy for our bodies and acidic, but they also tend to give tap water an unpleasant odor and a bad taste. By removing them from your drinking water, the process of ionization inadvertently improves its taste. Alkaline has a far superior taste, compared to the water that comes out of your tap and certainly better than bottled water.
- Healing Qualities: Last but not least, like the water in Lourdes, France, the famous Nordenau, in Germany, Vilcabamba, Equador or other locations famous for their healing-water, the biggest health benefit of alkaline water is its healing qualities. This isn’t because the water itself “heals” you, but simply because alkaline ionized water actually enables and helps the body to heal itself and keep itself healthy and free of any sickness and disease. This is largely thanks to the way alkaline water help us maintain a good pH balance. This is what the body was designed to do, but with the advent of junk food, pesticides and thousands of other mostly acidic modern inventions, our bodies lose their balance and so they lose the ability to heal over time and maintain good health. And ionized water fixes that in a quick, easy and cheap way!
Conclusion
For some, the jury is still out on whether consuming alkaline water is good or bad for you or whether it simply doesn’t have any beneficial effects at all. The choice is up to you but we understand the theory and believe that a little extra alkaline in our lives can’t be a bad thing.
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