12 Steps to Whole Foods

Achieving an Alkaline Inner Terrain
Pi water and PiMag water. Hoping to jump in on the booming altered-water industry, a magnet-selling
Japanese network marketing company is marketing a technology that, no matter how much I read, makes no
scientific sense whatsoever. The only research I find documenting its value is dubious claims about goldfish
living in the water, sealed, for months, and other claims of that nature. I can’t find any evidence that this
machine is worth your money. The company, Nikken, has marketed magnets as health cures for many years,
without any scientific evidence I can find that they are effective.
Bottled water. When bottled water first came on the scene in the 1990s, it was always “spring water,” bottled
at the source in clean springs. Since then, water in bottles has become so pervasive that I was once asked by a
woman in her 20s, “If there weren't water bottles until the last 10 years, how did you used to get your water?”
Only people in their 30s or older will smile at that. We used to drink out of cups, or fill a thermos or bottle from
the tap or water cooler.
So, because people no longer think that bottling makes water somehow special—it’s simply the only way they
know how to get water now—often the water sold in bottles is no more clean or pure than tap water. It’s simply
convenience water, and very little of it is bottled from springs anymore. Sadly, over one million water bottles
daily are landing in U.S. landfills.
Spring water or mineral water. When water in an underground aquifer surfaces, it has generally picked up
dissolved minerals by flowing through underground or mountainous rocks. The term “mineral water” is
misleading, though, since no extra minerals are added; the water is simply natural water containing nature’s
trace minerals. However, this is rather ideal water in its natural state.
Reverse osmosis water. Reverse osmosis (R.O.) filters remove over 99% of impurities from the water. I have
had one in my kitchen for many years, and when I added an ionizer, I had to install an inexpensive
remineralizer after the R.O. and before the ionizer. (Water flows through organic minerals to replace what has
been removed.) That’s because you cannot ionize water that contains no minerals, and reverse osmosis
removes all minerals, including those naturally found in water that are beneficial. Thus, water molecules with
minerals removed become aggressive in seeking out and leaching those missing minerals from bone and tissues
in the body over time. And R.O. water is slightly acidic.
Distilled water. Distilled water goes through a steam process to collect water completely free of impurities.
However, it has a distinctive taste that many people don’t like. And, as with R.O. water, all the minerals
naturally occurring in water are removed along with impurities, with the same result described above regarding
reverse osmosis. This water is also slightly acidic.
Why Is Alkalinity Important?
Reputable nutritionists, doctors, and others are mostly unaware of the effects of “acidosis” or the overacidification
of the human body. But those who have been studying it, such as Dr. Gabriel Cousens and Dr.
Robert O. Young, all come to conclusions like Young’s:
Physiological disease is almost always the result of too much acid stressing the body’s pH balance, to
the point where it provokes the body into producing symptoms of disease. (Disease can also be simply
the toxic effects of an external source, but that is much more rare.) Symptoms can be the expression of
that stress, but they can also be a sign of the body’s effort to balance it. 1
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