Extreme Cuisine: Dr Masaru Emoto plays Beethoven or Mozart to water before drinking. There are people in rural Ireland who still tend Holy Wells but it's unlikely they try to communicate with the tsunami waves.
Emoto does. He also gives water things to read.Sometimes he agitates it with a stick and then takes a picture of its microscopic particles, the water crystals. He also prays to water and believes he can send messages across the world via this liquid medium that few of us realised can act as a stand-in for the internet.
There are tribes who still use the bush telegraph. There are scientists who use the phone. Masaru taps into water's ubiquity and as yet no multinational corporation has found a way to charge him. I pick on Dr Emoto only to illustrate a point. Water holds a special place in our bodies but also in our minds and, for some, their spiritual world. Dr Emoto happens to go further than others. He believes water can differentiate between languages, for example, understanding German and English, and that a prayer to water in Russia can affect the H2 and O in America. Water treated to a prayer or a few bars of the pastoral symphony is symmetrically structured and aesthetically more pleasing than water pouring out of a tap - when you look at its microscopic crystals. Enough.
In the course of 2004 a rumour gained currency that drinking any liquid was as healthy as drinking the obligatory eight glasses of water a day. This happens to be untrue. Coffee, for example, is an acidic drink, perhaps one of the most acidic drinks available. Citric acid, malic acid and acetic acid are all present in coffee, as are several more, making the Ph as low as 4.7. The Ph of blood varies between 7.35. and 7.45, with 7.4 being normal. Many soft drinks induce acidity in the digestive process whereas some foods might begin as acidic yet induce an alkaline response. What does this mean?
The body is constantly adjusting itself to the food and drink we put in there, with the lungs and kidneys, as well as certain cellular buffer processes, maintaining blood within its narrow acid-alkaline range. Of course our digestive systems require acidity to break down food and that's why our stomachs pump out hydrochloric acid. Coffee stimulates digestive acids in the mouth which is probably why it is prized in some parts of the world as an after-dinner drink. Pouring it into an empty stomach several times a day is not as wise as drinking water which in most cases has a neutral to alkaline Ph and is body friendly. Few consumers understand water.
Water from home purifiers tends to have its minerals stripped out and the minerals are what give it is alkalinity. It becomes acidic. Water with bubbles is acidic and spring water is not necessarily pure.
Water definitions are as obscure as those of olive oil and vary between regulatory authorities. In America, for example, it is possible to label water as well water, which gives it a nice rustic appeal, when what the regulators mean is that it has been bored and pumped.
Spring water in the US is water that flows naturally to the surface and filtrates through the earth on its way up; spring water can also be bored and pumped without natural filtration but it has to come from a natural flow. Well water does not. To Americans, spring is the gold standard for water.
It is difficult for a consumer in Europe to know where true quality lies between spring and mineral. As we put more of our trust in the bottlers for perhaps the most important item we consume, the mess should be cleared up by the industry. Mineral waters by their nature range in quality with some containing very high quantities of sodium. And not all are Ph neutral or alkaline. There are few areas of the market where the definitions and benefits of a product are so vague. The typical analysis of water that bottlers expose on their labels can be read for specific qualities you may wish to consume. For example, you may want a low sodium content and high potassium content. My own preference after a coffee is a large glass of alkaline Evian (Ph 7.2). It provides balance to the acidic coffee and yet has very little sodium. I've been trying to source higher Ph waters like Henniez (Ph 7.8) but to no avail yet. Tipperary fits the bill but why do I hesitate? Perhaps it's the green bottle.
All of which brings us back to Emoto. The world of alternative medicine attributes a higher value to water that has been at rest for long periods of time. Alpine water, like the holy wells of Ireland, appear to have a symmetrical cellular structure. They look great under a powerful microscope. This seems to equate with subtle medical properties that science has yet to catch up on. Their aesthetic qualities to one side for a moment, mountain waters like Evian have the benefit of a moderately high Ph (7.2) and low sodium. The drawback in Ireland is the price.
Take a bottle weekly and treat it to a mellow Brahms violin concerto before pouring.