 Should you drink lemon water every day? All right, you've heard all about it and you've seen it everywhere, the lemon water trend. And if you've hopped on board, I'm here to tell you you're wasting your time and your lemons. That's right, lemon water is not all it's cracked up to be. So where does this idea come from? Well, the idea started out that lemon water is actually really good for you. Because of one of the oddest and quite frankly, most unfounded diets there is out there, the alkaline diet. Now, interestingly enough, lemons are acidic. They contain citric acid, but they are associated with alkaline effects. What the heck does that mean? Well, the body operates at a very, very, very tightly controlled pH level. They find balance between acids in the body and alkaline effects in the body. And while it is absolutely true that most vegetables have an alkaline effect, they trend towards the alkaline side of the pH scale. And many animal products tend towards the acidic effect. There really is no evidence that eating a slightly alkaline diet or drinking a slightly alkaline water has any effect on your body's pH balance. This became very trendy and still trendy because you see all the alkaline waters for sale now. And normally, a normal pH is 7.0. We, our bodies operate on a pH between 7.35 and 7.45. So a very, very narrow band. Interestingly enough, Italian waters, Italian sparkling waters, by law are required to have a balanced pH of 7.0 or higher. So you would think that if you're kind of trying to get rid of acids in your body or you're eating a lot of acid-contained foods, that you ought to balance that with alkaline water, with alkaline foods. The problem is there is so little available bicarbonate in alkaline water or in these foods that you would actually have to eat tons of these foods to have any effect on your pH, even your stomach pH. And you would have to drink untold thousands of gallons of lemon water a day to have any effect on your alkaline status. In fact, on our podcast a few years ago, we had an expert in alkaline water, one of the founders of studying alkaline water, and he had a good chuckle about the idea that we could actually affect our alkalinity by using alkaline water. So that's not why they have lemons. Well, what are people saying about the benefits of lemon water? Well, according to an article by Harvard Health, there are quite a few benefits. And here's their benefits. Well, the first being that it prevents oxidation. Now, you've heard me talk about oxidation. And in fact, one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of the cholesterol theory of heart disease is that if you like that theory, then cholesterol has to be oxidized. It has to be rusty or rancid, kind of fish that smell bad. That's the omega-3 fats in the fish that are oxidizing, and that's that fishy smell. That the amount of antioxidants in lemon water are so infinitesimal that again, that's not where to get your antioxidants from. How about phytonutrients? Yeah, lemons are an excellent source of phytonutrients. But all you're doing by drinking that lemon water is getting a very dilute amount of phytonutrients. You'd be much better off taking that lemon that you were going to squeeze in the water and eat some of the peel, eat the pith, and have a bite of the lemon. In fact, my father used to actually eat a lemon with salt almost every day of his life. That's the way to get a lemon into you. Harvard says it's a great source of vitamin C. Here's the problem with vitamin C. Vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin. Once you take vitamin C, within two to four hours, it's left your system. And so the amount of vitamin C in lemon water is very small, and once you drink it, it's gone. So as I've told you before, it's really important to have a continuous supply of vitamin C in our body because we're one of the few animals that do not manufacture vitamin C. So my advice, get yourself timed-release vitamin C capsules. They come in 500 milligrams. They come in 1,000 milligrams. Take one twice a day. If that's a pain in the neck, get yourself some chewable vitamin Cs, about 500 milligrams, and chew for a day, every morning, noon, dinner, and before you go to bed. That way, you're guaranteed to have a continuous supply of vitamin C. Just to remember, rats have been bred to not produce vitamin C. Those rats live half as long as a normal rat. When you give those rats who can't produce vitamin C, vitamin C continuously in their drinking water, they re-establish their normal lifespan. That's how important continuous exposure to vitamin C is. How about a potassium boost? Actually, lemons are not a great source of potassium, and just getting that little bit of potassium is not going to be enough to help your muscle cramps. As you know, I recommend potassium magnesium aspartate for muscle cramps, and there's actually good data out of athletic performance that potassium magnesium improves muscle performance in athletes. Finally, lemon water prevents kidney stones. Well, it's true that having a lot of citric acid is one of the treatments for one type of kidney stone. But here, the same thing happens. You have to take citric acid multiple times during the day at much higher concentrations than you'll ever get in lemon water. So, throw the lemons in your food, but don't put it in your water. So what are you going to do instead? Get yourself your balsamic vinegar. Get yourself other vinegars. Vinegars are going to give you huge benefits. You're going to get all the polyphenols that you get from vinegars. You're going to get all the postbiotics, short-chain fatty acids from vinegars, and you're going to get all the postbiotic benefits that have now been shown to occur when we drink or eat fermented foods. There are lots of other good options, water-based kefirs, kombucha, which is low sugar. Now a word of warning, there are so many high sugar kombuchas out there that it's scary. And I spend some time looking at them in the grocery stores every week. Kombuchas have been sugarized because quite frankly, kombucha is an interesting taste. And to cover it up, companies have added more and more and more sugar to their products, so you'll drink them. Now back to balsamic vinegar. A lot of people really don't like the really kind of bitter vinegary taste of balsamic vinegar. Here's a trick. I have no relationship with this company, but I use their product. It's called Napa Valley Naturals, and they make a 25-year aged balsamic vinegar which is thick, it's almost sweet-tasting, it's syrupy, and a little goes a long way. And it's incredibly reasonably priced. You can find it in a lot of stores, you can find it on Amazon, again I have no relationship, but it's a great way to get a high quality balsamic vinegar into your sparkling water that makes it taste like a Coke. And for those of you who are not aware, I actually invented the idea of the new Coke made out of balsamic vinegar and sparkling water. Well over five years ago, and you can actually watch my YouTube on how to do it. Finally, you're going to see in my upcoming book that dead bacteria that are left over from fermentation actually carry important messages to the bacteria that live in our gut. So anytime you can have a fermented food, even though it has no living probiotics, you're way ahead of having something like lemon water which has none of these benefits. Now if a little lemon water motivates you to hydrate throughout the day, that's great. Be my guest. Mix it up. Use limes for a while. Use lemons. Use tangerines for a while. That's fine. If that's what you want, go ahead and do it. Just know, if you're drinking lemon water for the health benefits, there are so many better options out there for you, and that's what I'm here to do, give you the best options for your immediate and long-term health. This next one is sure to surprise you. Over 90% of people who go on a quick weight loss diet regain not only that weight, but actually more weight than when they started.