Alkaline Water Facts

If you are researching and learning about Alkaline or ionized water for better health, you probably have heard about Kangen water. In fact, you may have first heard about alkaline water from one of the Kangen water representatives during a water presentation.

Just what is Kangen water, exactly? The word Kangen is Japanese, which is an era which spanned from 1243-1247, preceeding the Hoji era and after the Ninji era. The term also literally means “return to origin”, so in terms of alkaline water, the term “Kangen water” is actually a marketing term created by its maker and distributor, referring to the beneficial water their water ionizers can produce. The company Enagic is its sole distributor in the Western world.

How is Enagic’s water ionizers different from other ionizers? Without going into details, in a nutshell, they are designed to do the same things, which is electrolyze tap water and separate the water into alkaline (drinkable) and acid (waste or use for cleaning). Now most of these units, when used properly can produce the optimal alkaline water with the main beneficial qualities such as high alkalinity (9-11 pH), strong negative ORP/oxidatino reduction potential (-200mv and below).

With the cost of the top of the line Enagic unit costing around $4000 while the top of the line machine from other brands just under $2000 or so, the natural question to ask is why does the Enagic unit cost more? There are two reasons.

First and obvious, Enagic is an MLM company (I have no biases against good MLM companies), which has to pay its distributors commissions. The margin is over 50% as far as I know, however, that is the advertising, marketing, and distribution cost all rolled into one. For the other companies, while there are no MLM distributors, there are distribution costs, marketing costs and commissions to pay as well.

Second, the Enagic units definitely cost more to make when compared to the other machines because more expensive components are used, and for good reasons. The main component which is just about the most important piece of any ionizer is the Platinum-Coated Titanium plates. Both are precious metal and the more you use, the more it costs. Enagic uses solid, flat plates to achieve the necessary surface area needed to properly electrolyze water. Most other brands cut cost by using smaller plates (less platinum & titanium used) with a mesh design (numerous slits/cut outs) on the plates to create the same surface area. At first this sounds like a great idea, and in the short run, it will produce similar strength of alkaline water.

The drawback of the mesh design is that mesh plates tend to clog up pretty quickly unless the water source is soft water. The fact is, most of the United States has hard water, and some cities REALLY hard water, so without an expensive water softener already installed in the house, the “mesh design” machines will clog up in a matter of months, reducing their available surface area in the ionizing chambers, and producing inferior water. The Enagic machines on the other hand, with clean, smooth plates will remain clean for much longer without repair due to its non-mesh design.

There are other details such as the strength of the power supplies and the coating process used, which puts the Enagic machines ahead of the pack in terms of build quality, and longivity, but for the sake of simplicity I will not get into that for now. Knowing the above, the real question is one you need to evaluate and ask for yourself…is the better machine that will perform without problem for a long time worth the extra money (up to double the cost)? That is something you would have to decide for yourself.

For me, while I’m not a distributor at all for any machines, I can vouch for Enagic nevertheless based on my own research, and experience. I don’t have the money to invest into any ionizers right now (I get it free from my friend’s house), but when I am ready, this is how I would decide.

1)If my new house has soft water built-in without extra cost, I might possibly try a non-Enagic machine (if under $1000) and make sure I do the cleaning process often just to make sure I don’t clog up the “meshed plates” at all, in order to maintain high performance for a long time to come.

2)If my new house does not come with water softener and I don’t plan to install one, then I would go with the smallest Enagic unit (Model Sun US) which only costs about $1200 or so, and while it doesn’t produce the water as quickly as its bigger brother, it seems to work pretty well and I would also be sure to do the cleaning process often just to keep any  hard-water buildups on the plates, as even the smoothest surfaces can accumulate hard water build up if uncared for (the smaller Enagic machine has the same type of smooth, flat plates as its big brother, just less of it).

There you have it. Whatever ionizer you use, be sure it is the one that fits your budget, but at the same time, know what type of water source you have, and weigh out the long term cost and maintenance as well. Good luck, and happy hydrating!