What is Alkaline Water?
Alkaline water is water that has a pH level greater than 7.0, making it less acidic than standard tap water. Water is one of the most important resources on the planet. In much of the developed world we are extremely fortunate to have access to clean water, something which is still despairingly unavailable for more than 650 million people across the world. Despite the comparably exceptional standard of drinking water we have in the western world, the water coming through your taps can often have a hardness and slight odour to it. Have you ever had a glass of tap water after drinking bottled or filtered water and realised that tap water has a very distinctive taste?
There can be a number of reasons for that 'tap water' taste, however there are numerous ways of improving the taste of your tap water. Some basic filters can reduce hardness and remove some chlorine from the water supply. Alkaline filters, on the other hand, cultivate a much more detailed filtration process. The Phox alkaline water filter is a carbon filter which includes five stages; absorption and purification, removal of chlorine and heavy metals, ion exchange resin and mineral balls which remove excessive free radicals and complement trace minerals.
What Makes Water Alkaline?
The pH scale ranges from 0 to 14. Liquids between 0-7 are considered acidic and those between 7-14 are considered alkaline.
To provide substantive comparison, wine generally has a very acidic pH level between 2.5-3.5 and beer a little higher at around 4.0-5.0 (Driscoll, 1986). Seawater is around 8.0 and cleaning detergents have extremely high pH levels of 12.0+.
There are a number of contradicting accounts of the health impact of pH levels of drinking water. The World Health Organisation (WHO) states there is 'no health-based guideline value is proposed for pH.' However it is widely considered that the optimum pH level for drinking water is between 7.5 and 9.5.