February 2013 Who do most trained scientists work for? What they get correct is the “it’s complicated”. They go out of their way to make you ill Thus, O.-L.J. Having a lemon in the water is not at all necessary; it is the water doing the trick. Great post! And everything that is “bad”, like artificial sweeteners, sugar, processed food, Monsanto, pharmaceuticals, dihydrogen monoxide etc is all supposedly “acidic”. I offered to help you with scientific facts but Nooooooo! If the sour taste is strong, your body is very acidic. April 2013 It almost makes me think she’s trolling us all! Please take note that those metals are trapped inside the lemon in an acidic environment as chemical salts. Let us say that a person drinks alkaline water (9.5 pH) for a whole year but then due to certain reasons, the person goes back to drinking neutral pH water. elicits a rate of secretion and bicarbonate output closely similar to that of an i.v. January 2014 Also notice “the air […] is recycled from direclty outside your window”. August 2013 (Or would be, if there weren’t so many people who believe her.) The acidification/alkalinization stuff is likely related to the known properties of some foods to change the pH of urine (ammonium chloride, Vitamin C), with the mental model being that the pH of what you’re peeing must be the same as your internal pH. 0:14 What is citric acid? As you wellness warriors know, an alkaline body is really the key to good health. This reminds me of a recent discussion I had with someone who was a foodie much in the same vein as FB. That was so constructive, #30, thank you ! But soaked in chemicals as I am, I must somehow find the motivation to carry on. J. Clin. November 2012 Also, they seem to have turned off comments? Lemon juice will certainly be neutralised during the digestive process but there is no mechanism by which it could possibly “become alkaline”. Compression leads to all sorts of issues. August 2014 If the pH of lemon juice is 2, what's the pH of a solution of 10 ml of lemon juice in 250 ml of water? Think what the food babe groups are teaching to their kids! People confuse hydrogen and helium, despite the slight difference in reactivity. The scariest part of all of this is that my debating opponent also homeschooled her children, and I’m scared as to what science curriculum would be acceptable that would avoid the scientific method, basic biology, or understanding periodic table trends well enough to give better descriptions of reactivity than “stronger.”. She isn’t referring to lemons being alkaline as is. Instead, the claims must be simply *believed*, and the motivations are *rhetoric*. Everyday, the movie Idiocracy is starting to look more and more like a documentary. She is not so dumb as to not realize that people love an underdog who takes on seemingly evil Big Bad Ag and Pharma. My goal is to post thought-provoking and informative articles so you can learn and apply the latest news from the world of natural health. Read this 5 myths about lemon water you need to know :-MYTH 1: IT CAN HELP YOU LOSE WEIGHT Some claim that because lemons contain pectin, the same satiating fiber found in apples, its juice will fill you up and in turn, aid weight loss. There is no scientific evident that lemon/lime juice mixed in alkaline water provides health benefits. (I did it myself in a kindergarden, great fun with red cabbage juice…). I was planning to start drinking lemon water again. It detoxifies the body: Drinking plenty of water helps eliminate waste from our bodies (aka pee and poop). And the nitrogen can then react with the hydrogen in our body to form ammonia – a base which is ALKALINE. When you try to explain something to students or laymen, one week after they have mixed up 99 percent of the message. April 2012 There is regularly misjudging of lemon’s pH outside the body versus inside the body. Perhaps you meant to say, why do people think consuming citrus (lemons/limes) in your water, makes “your body alkaline”. The alkaline diet is also known as the acid-alkaline diet or alkaline ash diet. And it’s possible that you can’t believe what lies underneath her rhetoric, either – given what she says, how do you know what she means by anything at all, other than to part you from your money? Food can influence our pH levels in the urine. Everything else is secondary. Food Babe is not stupid. There is more acid in lemons than oranges. Antibiotics. Is there any use in pointing out that the body regulates its own acidity and alkalinity very tightly? It’s very commonly advised to opt for a balance of 80% alkaline-forming food and 20% acidic-forming food. An editorially independent blog from the publishers of Science Translational Medicine. 40 623 It’s religious superstition. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M7595KZ, December 2015 The truth doesn’t matter to her because she knows that even when she spouts nonsense, it just gets more people talking about her. Potassium can be exchanged against hydrogen ions. By Derek Lowe 24 March, 2015 Here, folks, is someone to explain to you that “lemon water is very alkaline” (a direct quote), and that cayenne pepper has been “proven to … Timestamps 0:00 Is lemon juice acid or alkaline? And even bad press is good for the bank account. Keeping your dosage of lemon juice per 1 cup water consistent, a simple indicator of whether your body is more acidic or alkaline is whether lemon juice in hot or warm water tastes sour or not. October 2013 This comment is even a waste of time. You’d think that if science on its own is not enough, then reality checks like the recent death of the “Wellness Warrior” (an advocate of woo who succumbed to her otherwise treatable cancer, for those of you who don’t know) would be enough to nip this kind of idiocy in the bud. Thank you for this post. So let’s not throw out the baby with the (high-pH) bathwater here! These antioxidants are most effective when consumed, rather than applied topically to the skin. Glad to see Orin Hatch’s daughter is still working at Whole Foods. I was recently having a discussion with someone about whether lemon water actually increases the pH of your body (by which I assume they mean the blood); their claim was that once Citric acid was metabolised it results in an increase in pH due to the "anionic properties of citric acid". Unfortunately she goes back off the rails in the very next paragraph and talks about how people want to keep us dependent on chemicals. Fruits and vegetables, many of which are acidic in their natural state, undergo a dramatic change during metabolism – acids are neutralized and alkaline elements become the dominant presence. But it only requires a tiny amount to sweeten. If she doesn’t care about how things work, then it’s presumably irrelevant to what she’s doing (which would, probably, not be helping people). 82 254. Do you think her fans are reading here to get information? I personally prefer it as pellets, because then it’s crunchy like granola, minus the evil GMOed grains from big business. October 2012 But that isn’t true for the rest of your body — which regulates its blood . The O.-L.J. “I want to know why companies aren’t coming up with chemical inventions that are improving our health. Or that someone who sets themselves up as a beacon of good sense and sound nutritional advice and who still doesn’t know any of this might perhaps be just a bit out of their depth? You’ve given my intro for tomorrow’s gen chem II class. There’s indeed a sucker born every minute for her brand of charlatanry. . Citric acid which is the acid in lemon juice can then reabsorb this nitrogen in an ion exchange electron tunneling reaction and itself turn ALKALINE. Lemon juice stimulates enzymes and bicarbonate production that alkalizes the lower digestive tract - NOT the blood. What happens if I use lemon water for 3 weeks? Pop! Alkalizing Foods. First off your body’s digestive organs start to shrink, taxing your ability to digest large quantities of food. Its premise is that your diet can alter the pH value — the measurement of acidity or alkalinity — of your body. I hate this. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/.../www.ncbi.../pubmed/3221108. The idea that some foods – like meat – lower the pH in the body and lead to disease is a myth. http://jezebel.com/autism-busting-paleo-book-for-babies-pulled-because-it-1692592094. So drink your limonoids! The alkaline from the lemon would start ‘helping’ neutralize the acid buffers over a looong time. According to her research, improved bile function is the first step to weight loss. “I eat organic because I want to avoid soil sludge, which is from sewers and gutters.” All Vegetables, especially when Green and Raw; All Fruits like Melon, Apple, Berries, Grapes, Lemon. That means you are breathing everything that the airplanes gives off and is flying through. By the way, I wanted to share your post on Google +, but you have no button for it. I see this as the content of potassium in the food. She knows exactly what she is doing. Once digested and metabolized, lemon juice produces alkaline byproducts, which make the urine more alkaline. There is evidence that eating a more alkaline diet may be beneficial: In academia, we are constantly told by the administratives to participate in popularizing science. But it’s possible that FB got her alkaline lemons from an early, unjudgemental exposure to the bitter lemon trope. (90 min) ingestion. Everybody knows this. But, it’s better not to view this as science, even if they claim it is. ingestion proved to be an unexpected powerful stimulus of exocrine pancreatic secretion. Chris Kresser explains the acid/alkaline myth in-depth here. However, once fully digested, its effect is proven to be alkalizing with many health benefits. Dunno LOL, I especially love her comment about how she pledges to no longer consume any chemicals. induced purer pancreatic secretion response (flow, bicarbonate and enzyme output) than that triggered by the R.M., S.S. and A.P.B. Simply portray yourself as the little guy (or gal) fighting for everyone’s health and against big moneyed interests, distort or ignore the facts and you are guaranteed to win, no matter how much quackery and disingenuity comes out of your mouth. Things that Food Babe et al scoff at and do their best to undermine, as they would every single chemical invention. .oh the hell with it, I can’t keep reading that crap. http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/clinical_pharmacology/pharmacokinetics/drug_excretion.html August 2012 She is telling people things she knows they want to hear. The effect of the correction of metabolic acidosis on nitrogen and potassium balance of patients with chronic renal failure, Am. The O.-L.J. or some large corporation (big business!) I don’t know about anyone else, but I start off my day with a big bowl of lye. September 2012 She’s getting skewered pretty bad in the comments, which is nice to see. Her upcoming NYT best seller: Natural Foods “They” Don’t Want You to Know About, {sarcasm} I am learning from Ann Louise Gittleman about health and weight loss. Think of titrations with buffers. Below are some myths about the health benefits of adding lemon in your water: Myth 1: The fiber in it assists in weight lose. We’re discussing acids & bases. The myth that we need to “alkalize” our bodies is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of human physiology. She may not intend them as such, but the concept of “private language”, I thought, bit the dust a long time ago. Back in the 1980s when I was a TA in Physiology Lab, I recommended my students read The Andromeda Strain: a best-selling novel whose plot turned on blood pH regulation. December 2014 But the study was about OLJ, so I didn't understand why you were picking out only lemon juice, so that was my point. Here, folks, is someone to explain to you that “lemon water is very alkaline” (a direct quote), and that cayenne pepper has been “proven to boost your metabolism”, and that “an acidic body promotes disease” and. Perhaps I am very bad at explaining… Then you should not be surprised to see ads chanting the benefits of “quantum medicine” against “electromagnetic sensitivity”. “The gods themselves struggle in vain against stupidity”, There are times when I wish serial acts of stupidity constituted a criminal offense…. Derek Lowe's commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry. Stay tuned to my twitter and facebook feeds for the latest posts. You can keep the ring as well, it was fake anyway! The Food Babe is good looking. Erwin Schrodinger has written a small book called ‘What is Life?’ which has influenced great many biologists (Schrodinger was a chemist/physicist). I’d heard about FB’s whine that airplanes aren’t using 100% O2, but I’d never seen a copy of her complete rant. She was arguing that fluoridated water was bad for you since the fluorine (being a halogen and “stronger,” exact terminology) in the water would prevent you from uptaking iodine for your thyroid. FB you had your chance! and “willful public displays of stupidity” and/or encouraging others to the same stupidity should be a capitol offense. OTOH the paragraph where she talks about what she eats at each meal isn’t bad advice, just not really obtainable for a lot of people who don’t make megabucks off their blog. That would avoid the destruction of experimental gmo fields by new age hairy activist that get away with it (at least in France). January 2013 There are a few different versions of the acid-alkaline theory circulating the internet, but the basic claim is that the foods we eat leave behind an "ash" after they are metabolized, and this ash can be acid or alkaline (alkaline meaning more basic on the pH … @33: Please, tell us, at what point in human history did large numbers of people *not* shun science and common sense? The OLJ is lemon juice plus orange juice. Hello friends and fellow health enthusiasts. Although studies have shown that lemon juice may make the pH of our urine more alkaline , this does not have an effect on the pH of our blood. So who wants to start the kickstarter campaign for FB to get a degree in chemistry? April 2014 I am sure the food babe didn’t write this article for scientists, and that indeed is the problem. It’s the Food Babe, of course, profiled in New York magazine, and it’s the usual geyser of nonsense. That’s great news, it’s only one row of the periodic table then, no heavy metals in anyone’s water. And that anyone talking about how disease is somehow related to a systemically out-of-whack body pH is almost certainly a fool or a con artist? July 2013 But there’s only a trace amount of that fiber (if any) still present in the juice by the time you squeeze it into your water. If only they just gave you the pure stuff, the 100% pure oxygen you find in a forest at sea level, everyone would be much safer… Christ. You can keep adding an acid to a buffered solution, and the pH will not change or hardly change at all. These changes were compared with those evoked by a regular meal (R.M. One of the reasons is that lemon juice contains alkaline minerals such as magnesium and calcium. Does Alkaline Water Taste Good? I found the following statement very telling: “I started by researching food like I was a debater in high school.” When you are researching a topic for a high school debate, you don’t look for the truth but only for material that supports your side of the topic (or refutes your opponent’s side). http://www.freezepage.com/1415667665TBMRBWICKU, Wow. PRAL would list them as acidic, due to the ash residue, however, because of the low, low sugar content and high alkaline mineral content they are actually alkalising to the body once consumed. February 2015 People presumably feel out of control and blind in a world they don’t understand and wish to assert some control over pieces of their lives; I wish, though, that they would find better and more honest exponents and implementations of those wishes. Find out. Doesn’t make her a non-idiot, of course. OK, let’s calm down now and think hard about this. Fortunately, Big Lemon is out there to balance all your silly book learning! If you believe what lies underneath her rhetoric, why should the need to cover it in half-truths, stupidity, or lies give you any security in your beliefs? It’s we who need to reexamine our assumptions and it’s the FB who is blazing new directions in chemistry here. This alkaline food myth has gotten huge recently, using online marketing and buzzwords you can get people believing in anything. (Lime, as in calcium hydroxide). So, outside the body, anyone can see that lemon juice is very acidic. We all know that nitric acid – which is ACIDIC – can be metabolized into its constituent elements which include nitrogen. Is lemon juice acid or alkaline? How about we get this straight and explain 10 advantages of consistently bringing lemon juice with warm water (note: NOT equivalent to lemonade!) AAAS is a partner of HINARI, AGORA, OARE, CHORUS, CLOCKSS, CrossRef and COUNTER. Do you think Jenny McCarthy would get the time of day if she looked like Golda Meir? If you know anything about fruit acids, lemon juice is high in citric acid. One is that diet affects the pH of our blood. For details see In Germany we teach 5 year olds (not 5th graders) that lemon juice is acidic! (hint: it’s brown, aromatic, and bears a striking resemblance to the crap she comes out with). The sort of experiment I would like to see : urine pH in a plain sugar soda diet VS vegetables diet. Lemon juice in its natural state is acidic with a pH of about 2, but once metabolized it actually becomes alkaline with a pH well above 7. Myth 1: Lemon Water Can Help You Heal Faster When Sick. #9 Mike: Agreed. Please consider adding a Share button for Google +, and even Pinterest. Sounds sciencey, no ? Are Lemons Alkaline or Acidic? Is that why we don´t have a German food babe? Thank you for this post! The buffers will slowly start to be ‘unsaturated’ and the blood will return to optimal pH. Lemons are high in limonoids, known to reduce the signs of aging — they’re frequently used in natural skincare and cosmetics products to support clear, smooth and healthy skin. To post comments and start a conversation ( aka pee and poop ) eating more. Green and Raw ; all Fruits like Melon, Apple, Berries Grapes... Lemon ’ s not throw out the baby with the ( high-pH bathwater. Improve metabolism would be, if there weren ’ t coming up with chemical inventions that obvious... 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