After chugging about three beer-pitchers worth of high-alkaline, ionized water at the Kangen Hydration Center, a tired reporter felt an alert energy return, and experienced a tingling that seemed to come from the perhaps under-hydrated brain itself.
Meanwhile Lauren Hacker, a life coach, personal trainer and raw food chef who now heads up the Kangen store in the 200 Pier Ave. office-retail complex, was standing at the demonstration counter, pH-testing a row of popular beverages. Bottled water, a sports drink and soda pop all came up acidic, while Kangen water was so high in hydrating alkalinity, that adding a little to the other beverages overwhelmed the acidic content and turned it, on the whole, alkaline.
The water is also negatively charged, by the Kangen machine people can buy for their homes and businesses, and the result is a high-oxygen, anti-oxidant water that detoxifies the body as it hydrates, Hacker said. The oxidization is said to be more important than the pH feature.
“Kangen” in Japanese means “return to origin,” Hacker said. She said the molecular changes in the water restore it to the form in which it comes from the ground in “miracle water” places such as Lourdes, France. Smaller molecular clusters, she said, allow the water to more easily penetrate the body’s cells and do what water was meant to do.
The hydrating reporter took home a couple of jugs worth, and started sleeping better and exercising more. Not a large scientific sample, just saying.
Hacker, 29, who lives in Manhattan Beach, can point to studies including one concluding that alkaline water promotes “friendly” anaerobic microflora in the intestinal tract, and discourages “unfriendly” aerobic organisms. And she can point to the popularity of Kangen machines in Japan, where it is used in hospitals.
She is giving away 21 days worth of the water to whomever wants to try it out, as people will find if they attend her grand opening Friday afternoon on the rooftop of the 200 building. Food and drinks will be served.
The store is currently open noon to 6 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the 21-day fill-ups, and Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays for demonstrations by appointment.
Kangen units are not inexpensive, ranging from $1,280 to $5,950. But Hacker offers a payment plan of as little as $100 a month, and she says the savings on bottled water, soda and sports drinks even out the investment in time. In addition, cleaning supplies can be replaced with high-acid water that comes out of the Kangen machine’s non-drinking spout, she said.
“We only get one body in this lifetime. When we take care of it, it takes care of us. When you feel amazing, you perform amazing. [The water] truly cleans out the body daily and helps bring the body back to balance so it can do what it was designed to do, heal itself,” Hacker said. “We are born 90 percent water and die 50 percent. We are born alkaline and die acidic.”
In four years with Kangen, Hacker said she has seen bigger changes in people than she did when she was coaching and training them, chasing them around and trying to make them exercise.
Kangen Hydration Center’s grand opening is 3 to 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3 on the rooftop of the 200 Pier Ave. building. Twenty-one-day free trials of Kangen water are available. For more call 714-809-2714 or email Lauren@hydrationcenter.com.
