I think it was Angela Collier that did a pretty basic test with a common store bought alkaline water, a lemon and some test strips. The water doesn’t start very alkaline at all.
Comment on It's OK to just like lemon water.
Feyd@programming.dev 2 days ago
Not defending pseudoscientific health regimens, but the acid in “a spritz of lemon” doesn’t neutralize an arbitrary amount of alkalinity
Carrolade@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Ephera@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
She did the math (with some assumptions), but basically 0.25 mL of lemon juice will turn 500 mL of alkaline water into neutral water:
Image This is in the video at 13:16.
The reason is that pH is a logarithmic scale. Alkaline water has a pH of about 8, whereas lemon acid is at 2. That means lemon acid has 1,000,000 times more hydrogen atoms.
Lemon juice isn’t pure lemon acid, so that’s why you do still need 0.25 mL (rather than just a millionth of 500 mL).lvxferre@mander.xyz 2 days ago
0.25 mL of lemon juice is probably too much already.
She’s doing the maths for the concentration of citric acid in lemon juice through the formula C(acid) = 10^(-pH). That works fine for a strong acid, because you can be pretty sure all that acid in the solution is dissociated, and thus lowering its pH… but citric acid is weak - and weak acids don’t dissociate properly in already acidic conditions.
This means there’s probably way more acid in that solution than the pH makes you believe, but that acid will react once you raise the pH, by mixing the lemon juice into the water.
(I don’t blame her for using the strong acid maths. It’s already enough to convey her point, plus the maths for weak acids is a bloody pain.)
Nanook@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Facts baby :)
tburkhol@lemmy.world 2 days ago
That girl can rant. Love her work, but always watch it at 2x to maximize the frustrated-teacher vibe.
inconel@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Even regular neutral water shift to slightly acidic (5.6) as long as it have contact to air CO2. Would be interesting to know how long those store bought alkaline water becomes base or acidic.
AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
True, but your body will not enjoy water that’s very alkaline, so there’s a chance it’s sufficient since lemon is pretty acidic.
Plus, if the whole point of it is to be alkaline, why directly counter that with what you add?
Ephera@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
The body doesn’t care much about alkaline water, since the stomach acid is so acidic that it will easily overpower it…
AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
That’s only after your mouth and esophagus. Those aren’t really geared to tolerate exposure to strong acids or bases. Even foods that aren’t acidic enough to immediately damage these regions can still contribute to tooth enamel being worn away, for example. It’s either strong enough to at least consider the impact on those, or it’s weak enough that adding lemon is a questionable move.
Ephera@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Alright, yeah, we’re talking about a pH value of around 8 for alkaline water. That’s also the pH value for eggs, sea water or blood. So, I do imagine our mouth+esophagus can deal with that. At the very least, alkaline water should be food-safe.
OmnipotentEntity@beehaw.org 2 days ago
It turns out, that for the values we are talking about here, it actually more or less does! A lemon has a pH of around 2.5, while “Flow” has an advertised pH of 8.1. This means roughly that to neutralize 1L of this water you need approximately 0.4mL of lemon juice or about 8 drops/half a gram. It’s hard to tell how much a “spritz” is intended to be, but a single lemon contains about 60mL of juice, so this represents about 0.67% of the total juice inside.
It’s a surprising consequence of using a logarithmic scale for pH.
GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world 1 day ago
No. But thinking it does sure helps inflate egos.
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 2 days ago
No, but it does reveal a distinct lack of understanding on her her part as to what these pseudoscientific health products even are that are supposedly doing things for her. Like saying “I always drink decaf coffee and pop a shot of 5 hour energy in the morning.” “I drink skim milk with a splash of double cream.” “I love honey on my keto toast.” Like, even if it’s not enough acidity to completely negate the alkalinity, it’s literally antithetical to the supposed goal.
Arcka@midwest.social 2 days ago
All the posts advocating for combining baking soda and vinegar for cleaning.
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I mean… if you want to clean up a bunch of salts you’re creating.