Do It Yourself "Alkaline" Water: Enagic’s Kangen Water | Multi Level Mondays

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bcYzy7hxKg"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]hmm [Music] [Music] hello and welcome to multi-level mondays a weekly series all about pyramid schemes ponzi schemes multi-level marketing and other forms of business fraud i'm the illuminati and today we're going to be talking about an mlm that sells water if it exists there's an mlm for it and this company is called enegic now that name might not sound familiar to you but how about the name kangen water kangen water is an alkaline water like the brand's essentia life water and flow cell as you'd expect unfortunately these sellers claim that their water has a ton of health benefits and that's how they justify selling these water alkalizers or ionizer machines and these aren't being sold for like 29.99 or anything like that these are being sold for thousands of dollars now although this mlm isn't quite as known in the states as the company is actually based in japan they still have a lot to hide although sources and articles for this particular company were more scarce those that do decide to really dive into this mlm such as anna's analysis for example are able to spend hours talking about the health claims studies and business model unsurprisingly the waters around this company are actually pretty murky and questionable at best of course before i get into these health claims as always i want to start with the company's history so let's get into it [Music] enegic's website states that sony specialty trading operation the precursor of this company began operations in okinawa japan in 1974. fourteen years later in 1987 the japanese ministry of health and welfare authorized enegek osaka factory as a medical equipment manufacturer and we will get into their claims about how their products are medical grade in just a bit so just keep that one in the back of your mind for now after another year in 1988 the company quote became kangen water specialist with philosophy of true health end quote i had no idea what these things meant so looking on another one of their about us pages you can find out what their corporate philosophy and true health principles are hovering over their stock photos of someone exercising a boat and a sunset each one reads that physical financial and mental health are their three philosophies energetic claims that they do this through healthy drinking water and have a statement from their ceo that reads as follows enegic celebrates its 45th year as a specialized manufacturer of high quality water ionizer generating systems today enegex pledge to realize a revolution in true health in the form of physical health economic health and mental health is supported by thousands of people around the world the human body is comprised of 70 water it is no exaggeration to say that the basis of vitality and long life is water enegic offers safe water that can be used with confidence to benefit health beauty sanitation and cuisine enegic is an integrated development manufacturing sales and service company of alkaline ionizer technology as the revolution of information technology continues we have entered the age of human technology marketing market vitality now depends upon emerging of high technology and the personal relationship between human beings energetic is teaming up with an international network of offices and numerous distributors around the world to spread the word water and health while building a global company with worldwide operations now if that didn't tell you much about the company then you're really not alone in that thought it didn't really tell you much at all to be honest i know the name officially became enegic in 1990 and that they created their eight-point system in 1998 a complicated and direct selling system that will break down in a moment as well overall though the history of enegic water isn't really told on their website and information such as how this superior ionizer came to be is pretty much left up to the reader now i did find one article from sequim gazette that does seem to answer this question it claims that in the 1950s a group of russian scientists started a research project on four of the world's miracle waters including those at lordz a pilgrimage site in france when the russians ran out of funding japanese scientists picked up the research and discovered that the water at the sites was chemically different with high levels of active hydrogen the article continues after discovering the secret the japanese began building the first machines that could mechanically create water with similar properties those first machines which would fill an entire room were sold to hospitals those living near the hospitals would bring gallon jugs to fill with the water creating long lines and towns across japan even today kangen water is a staple in japanese hospitals in 1974 hironari oshiro a sony executive decided to take up the challenge of building a machine for households that's how enegic began this is the story that distributors have told the sequim gazette but the actual website doesn't state this anywhere another article claims nearly the identical thing although they claimed that five different places were tested instead of four this article claims that this is why the water is called kangen which means back to origin and if you visit any of these places and fill up a water bottle you'll be drinking the same quality of water as kangen water once again though it's just a few articles that state this without any genuine source so i can't really confirm or deny it it's possible that this is part of their company history but it seems equally if not more likely that the company was simply hopping on the alkaline water bandwagon as it began to grow so before we talk about enegex some more let's provide some important context when was alkaline water created and what exactly is that according to the molecular hydrogen institute electrolyzed reduced water is the most commonly used term in scientific literature when discussing this topic their sight reads erw has an alkaline ph 8 to 10 and contains molecular hydrogen water ionizers were invented in the early 1900s research on electrolyzed water started around 1931 in japan where it gained popularity in the 1950s around this time the water was touted as having healing effects in 1962 separate water ionizer companies one from nagano prefecture and the other from kyoto prefecture brought the electrolytic apparatus to the cabinet welfare bureau equivalent to the japanese ministry of health labor and welfare and applied to manufacture the apparatus as a medical device their site goes on to add that the development of these water electrolysis apparatuses continued and as water filters were added to these machines the marketing became common in 1992 alkaline ionized water was referred to as wonder water and was shown being used in hospitals leading people to believe that the water actually did help ailments such as diabetes gastrointestinal issues digestion and so on but how does it do this well to put it all in simpler terms the alkaline in alkaline water refers to its ph level the ph level is a number that measures how acidic or alkaline a substance is on a scale of 0 to 14. for example something with a ph of 1 would be very acidic and something with a ph of 13 would be very alkaline alkaline water has a higher ph level than regular drinking water because of this some advocates of alkaline water believe it can neutralize the acid in your body normal drinking water generally has a neutral ph of 7. alkaline water typically has a ph of 8 or 9 however ph alone isn't enough to impact substantial alkalinity to water alkaline water must also contain alkaline minerals or negative oxidation reduction potential or or rp orp is the ability of water to act as a pro or antioxidant the more negative the orp value is the more anti-oxidizing it is all in all because all these water ionizers must meet the same basic requirements to be approved by the jmhlw which has a similar process to the american fda there aren't significant differences between any of these various machines in terms of design yet kangen water claims to be the best among a slew of other things sources advocating for kangen explain that their machines will give you strong kangen water to drink and then the waste the strong acidic water can be used for cleaning produce acne sunburns sore throats and even mouthwash so again to really boil things down here to the most basic of terms this company sells a machine that separates the acidic water from the kangen water that you would want to drink they claim the acidic water is bad for you and that the kangen water is so fantastic that it's being used in the medical field and this is the ultra simplified version normally when i talk about mlms i'll have one specific section set aside to discuss their claims but today because there are so so many claims involved i feel the need to break it down piece by piece and go over every single claim and this is going to include the pseudoscience kangan uses and what the medical community actually has to say about this alkaline water so let's get into it [Music] we'll start with where it comes from and some of the boldest claims and let's talk about those locations that they tested all have waters with supposed healing properties before we see what these machines actually produce let's look at all these sources and see if these locations are as beneficial as the companies like to claim so as far as i can tell yes a lot of the water they studied does have anti-oxidizing properties that much appears conclusive one source explains that in lords france the water is filtered through the rock and sediment surrounding it and its high mineral and alkaline nature are properties shared by other healthy springs in glacial stream waters around the world antioxidants are amazing absolutely and oxidative stress has been linked to heart disease cancer stroke and a number of other things you can find antioxidants in dairy produce berries green leafy vegetables depending on the kind you're looking for of course blueberries are especially high in antioxidants so while i have no issue with kangen or anyone else promoting antioxidants as a whole it's the way in which it's done that becomes alarming for example decades ago back in 1931 dr otto warburg proved that there's a link between acidity and cancer this pivotal discovery now called the warburg effect helps shape the way the medical community views cancer however supporters of alkaline water have twisted this to mean that every single person who has cancer has a ph that is too acidic facebook has had to flag posts such as these for misinformation because of the way this is worded is incredibly misleading it makes the reader believe that high acidic conditions create cancer in actuality warburg's research proved that cancerous cells can help develop or produce a low oxygen and high acidic environment that doesn't mean they were created by one correlation does not equal causation and this isn't the first time and i doubt it will be the last time that i've seen an mlm fail to understand that ted gansler a strategic director of pathology research at the american cancer society told politifact this does not mean that a cancer patient's entire body is acidic only the tumor is also growth and metabolism of a tumor causes low oxygen levels and an acidic environment locally but this definitely does not mean an acidic environment or low oxygen level cause the cancer or that eating an alkaline diet or breathing air with higher levels of oxygen can effectively treat the cancer the fact that unc school of medicine and the american cancer society have had to speak out against these claims is pretty ridiculous if anything it reminds me of when the american cancer society also asked plexus to stop making claims about cancer but on a much larger scale so even if the water may be beneficial you're probably better off just eating some blueberries and antioxidant foods right well other sources claim that kangen isn't even remotely beneficial to begin with one article from mcgill's office for science and society reads as water molecules break down at the negative electrode to release hydrogen gas they leave behind negative hydroxide ions this is what makes a solution alkaline basically what this means is that as electrolysis proceeds the dilute solution of sodium hydroxide negative ions are always paired with positive ones is produced around the negative electrode and can be drawn off as alkaline or ionized water but you don't need an exorbitantly expensive machine to produce a dilute sodium hydroxide solution a couple of pellets of drain cleaner in a liter of water will do the job so will a spoonful of baking soda of course these solutions will not produce any medical miracles but neither will the posh alkaline water what is the benefit or point to this ionized water then after all kangen distributors swear by it and you can see the difference when looking at it changing color beside other waters and sodas as its ph is tested so that has to mean something right well let's take a look at that next aspect the ph levels anna's analysis cassandra benson hell even dr oz all discuss the ph and acidity levels between these waters on their youtube channel and demonstrate the ph tests that have become somewhat a fad online these ph tests are supposed to show the difference between the alkaline waters that you want for drinking and the acidic waters the ones that are almost like the waste of the ineject machines that you can clean for use for acne but that are supposedly aren't meant for drinking according to the usgs excessively high and low phs can be detrimental for the use of water high ph causes a bitter taste water pipes and water using appliances become encrusted with deposits and it depresses the effectiveness of the disinfection of chlorine thereby causing the need for additional chlorine when ph is high low ph water will corrode or dissolve metals in other substances during all of these demonstrations online when ph test droplets are placed into kangen water versus dasani or aquafina or even sprite the kangen water comes out dark purple and with a ph of 14 as opposed to the competitors which are always more acidic there always seems to be some validity to kangen water striving for a lower ph and the machines do work in lowering ph levels yet it's strange that they never compare their product to other spring waters as far as i've seen i'm not saying that they don't do as they claim but other ionizers have proven to be just as if not more effective for a lower price kathleen lograsso the owner of alkaline water plus a website that sells multiple different brands of ionizers put the machine to the test against other brands and proved that it simply doesn't perform as well against other brands out there she wrote that it did fine but not as fine as other water ionizers however as a disclaimer i do believe that kathleen has some bias considering she sells other ionizers that aren't part of the enegic brand and she admitted that however regardless if kangen water does have a ph level of 14 or not the actual benefits to this are yet again pretty questionable one source writes what this expensive water does produce is a bevy of daft claims here is the most popular one it is well known in the medical community that an overly acidic body is the root of many common diseases such as obesity osteoporosis diabetes high blood pressure and more puppycock there is no such thing as an acidic body that though doesn't stop the hucksters from treating it how by neutralizing the acidity with their alkaline water the alkaline water will restore your body to a healthy alkaline state they say it counteracts the acidic foods you eat and the effects of the harsh elements in your environment in order to bring about the natural balance your body needs change your water and change your life the only thing you'll change is your bank balance this source as well as many other sources have explained that all these claims about alkaline or oxygenated water are unsubstantiated again you're better off eating some blueberries and having a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables and if kangen water does help you it could be just the placebo effect dr tanis fenton an evidence analyst for dietitians of canada says that the marketing claims behind alkaline water come from the acid ash hypothesis this posits that eating certain foods like meat dairy and eggs results in something called acid ash in your body which increases your acid levels and causes adverse health effects including osteoporosis in 2002 an alternative medicine practitioner called robert o young spun an acid ash hypothesis into a fad alkaline diet with a popular series of books called the ph miracle according to these books an alkaline diet could treat all manners of woes from poor digestion to cancer young by the way was sentenced to three years in jail in 2017 for practicing medicine without a license as a brief aside there are fascinating articles debunking dr robert young's theories and credentials quackwatch has a particularly good one all about him which illustrates how unqualified he was and further emphasizes how worrying it is how many people believe him his alleged doctoral degrees two of them were acquired from credential mills for nearly 30 years he operated a network of enterprises that included a mexican clinic that offered quack treatments a company that marketed dubious drugs and dietary supplements a research institute that did no significant research and a non-accredited medical school that operated for about five years in 2011 bradford his wife and their company american biologics doing business as crb incorporated were convicted of conspiring to violate federal food and drug laws and defraud individuals seeking medical care the indictment stated that he marketed bogus lyme disease products and a microscope system that was falsely claimed to diagnose the disease people will ultimately hear what they want to hear and believe what they want to believe the idea that drinking a specific kind of water will cure you of all ailments is interesting and fascinating sure plus when you sprinkle in the truth about how important water is it can seem almost believable in actuality robert young was a quack which makes it all the more appropriate for quack watch to call him out anyway sorry for the momentary detour there but let's get back to dr fenton from the guardian while people have been touting the benefits of upping your alkaline levels for decades fenton says the belief is not supported by any scientific evidence fenton who analyzes studies looking at the association of alkaline water with cancer treatment notes that while there are a very few poorly designed studies that suggest alkaline water confers health benefits there is no rigorous evidence this is the case what's more fenton stresses you simply can't change the ph of your body by drinking alkaline water your body regulates its blood ph in a very narrow range because all our enzymes are designed to work at ph 7.4 if our ph varied too much we wouldn't survive so where does this leave us well with a whole lot of nothing to be honest the antioxidant claims and ph claims seem unsubstantiated and cancer claims and health claims seem largely based on twisting warburg's words and the medical community at large doesn't really support this idea of alkaline or kangen water having any massive clearly defined benefit don't get me wrong some studies have shown results in favor of the alkaline water by minor margins but many seem to support the narrative that there's still no conclusive answer if drinking alkaline water is more beneficial it's by a negligible amount if that is the case then why has it been approved as a medical device why is it used in hospitals well that's just one of the many false claims that enoch has made about their product and after we take a moment to thank today's sponsors for this episode we're going to dive right into those false claims for me the end of summer means wearing shorts and skirts as much as possible while i still can even if i'm not going outside and that means shaving my legs more and luckily there's no better razor than athena club razors not only do they make it easier to shave but they moisturize my skin and leave it bump free and dolphin smooth and you know exactly how important dolphin legs are to me athena club razors have these built-in skin guards that prevent razor burn plus the blade itself is surrounded by a water activated serum that has shea butter and hyaluronic acid that leaves your skin 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spoon has ridiculously good flavors that'll take you back to watching saturday morning cartoons they've got classics like cocoa frosted peanut butter and my favorite fruity magic spoon has zero grams of sugar 14 grams of protein and only four net grams of carbs in each serving it's also only 140 calories so if you want to get started today make sure to click the link below and use my code mondays for five dollars off you can build your very own variety box from their many awesome flavors and if you don't like it they'll refund your money no questions asked so click the link below and use the code mondays for five dollars off or go to magicspoon.com mondays to save five dollars off your order today also for my canadian fans magic spoon is now shipping to canada too [Music] aside from all the health claims about alkaline water in general there's the idea that kangen water started as a medical device being spread by the company and their distributors and this is unfortunately only a half truth the molecular hydrogen institute explains that any device that can make water with a ph of 8.5 or higher must obtain jmhlw approval as i said earlier it's similar to the fda when they require performance tests of dental floss examination gloves and wheelchairs every single ionizer in japan could make this same claim there's nothing special about this company's devices or kangen water seriously this is the equivalent of oral b dental floss in the united states saying they're certified as a medical device they're not technically wrong as they've had to undergo further testing but it sounds far more impressive than it actually is despite this distributors continue to make this claim and spread this falsehood all in the name of giving themselves an air of legitimacy but as the molecular hydrogen institute states the fact these units have been classified as medical devices do not offer any evidence for their potential to treat and or prevent disease it has also been claimed that the majority of hospitals in japan use and prescribe ionized water to their patients but this is also not true many medical doctors in japan have never seen or even heard of a water ionizer being used for hospital patients there was an early japanese advertisement that made it appear that this was the case but it is not this is only one of the numerous false claims that have come out of enegic over the years i really recommend a well-sourced wordpress blog called kangen facts if you want a breakdown on every single one of them as i'm covering a bit more of an overview but it's safe to say that many of them revolve around health claims in fact this got so bad that enoch had to release a statement asking their distributors to stop spreading the lie that the acidic water from their machines could fight kovid aside from this if this wasn't bad enough there's also the issue where distributors will claim that kangen water is better than any other brand of ionized water out there and again this simply isn't true other blogs and sources about ionizers claim that other products have more platinum on their machines than enegic does so there's really no justification for their high cost i know i haven't touched on the cost yet but the cheapest enegic brand ionizer is almost three thousand dollars and the most expensive is around six thousand dollars so that's a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables that you're just better off eating so why does this machine cost so much more if i had to speculate i'd say once again it's because they're an mlm we've seen it before time and time again that mlms have bloated inflated prices in order to accommodate their distributors not to mention many if not most purchases made by the company are completed by distributors themselves as opposed to the average consumer so if someone is convinced that this is a fantastic business opportunity and it's really the best water on the planet then they can absolutely sell their distributors on a 5 000 model that's purely my own speculation though as it's what i've seen with other mlms we've covered before on yet another note of false claims though this isn't exclusive to enegek many alkaline waters advocate the use of hunza people those that live in hansa valley as an example to prove that this water extends your life some blogs claim that the huns of people are free from disease and can live to be between 120 to 140 years old all of this is apparently because of the minerals in their water some say it's magic water that it's because of the massive amounts of hydrogen and some sources even claim it's because lightning has struck the water this is plain and simple a massive lie told by the alkaline water community in fact disease plagues the hanzo community and the life expectancy is in the early 50s the fact that the hunza people are largely illiterate overestimate their age by a few decades and don't really keep track of death records according to one 1996 article from the new york times the mountain air did seem pristine but the people spent most of their time inside mud huts breathing horribly polluted air from open fires they suffered from bronchitis and a host of ailments like tuberculosis to century malaria tetanus and cancer an iodine deficiency in their diet cause mental retardation children went hungry in the spring as food stores dwindled the life expectancy for people in the isolated traditional villages according to a 1986 medical study was only 53 years old for men and 52 for women the healthiest people were the ones living in more modern villages near a new road to the outside world there trucks were bringing in food vaccines antibiotics iodized salt and stoves with vented chimneys nearest this road life expectancy was rising a trend that would have delighted the designers of general motors futurama there are a ton of myths about the hunza people and this is simply another one of them now given all these false claims this is where i start to disagree with other sources just to touch some may state they don't believe kangen water is a scam because it's solely the distributors making these claims to some extent i understand that line of thinking the company can't control every single one of their distributors no company can but without even discussing their pyramid scheme look-alike type business model i believe this company might be kinda scammy clearly they were responsible enough to tell their sellers to not make these covet claims and yet these health claims about alkaline water are rampant distributors and the company perpetuate the idea that alkaline water is something you need when they have no studies to back it up studies have been done on ionized water sure with varied and minimal results yet no studies have even been done on konkin water whatsoever promoting alkaline water as anything other than water hurts people it hurts because these medical claims give people false hope or may discourage those that need medical treatment from getting any and this of course hurts those that genuinely believe that this is a business opportunity now when it comes to the mlm model their eight-point commission structure is very confusing to say the least from my perspective at least typically when i see a business model this complicated it's a bad sign but i'll try to give enegic the benefit of the doubt as we take a look to start with the company says there are 6 ranks 1a to 6a and all ranks have 8 points to pay the website reads in order for you to advance in rank you and or your team need to accumulate a specific number of sales a distributor can advance directly from one a must have two direct sales to any other rank when the accumulated sales volume meets the stated requirements for example you are 1a with 2 direct sales you become 2a when you sell a third unit or you can jump directly to 6a from a personal sale if the total amount of units sold in your team is at least 100 the chart below will give you an idea on how you can rise and rank on the sale of k8 units alone the chart that they're referencing shows the 1a rank has to make 1 to 2 sales the 2a rank has to make 3 to 10. the 3a rank has to make 11 to 20 and so on and so forth however because this is an mlm and not just a traditional company with salespeople indirect sales also count towards ranking up you can become 2a if once you become 1a the people that you have signed up beneath you also make sales or sign up people beneath them enegic and those that support them say this is a great business model for a number of reasons one being that there's no sign up fee no stocking of inventory no annual renewal no time limits and they pay daily i will see that although i've seen distributors brag about how quickly they've gotten paid before the other benefits are genuinely bonuses when compared to other mlms that said they're pretty standard for other traditional business models most jobs don't make you stock up on their product it's just a quality that many mlms tend to have that said the fact that there's a bunch of blogs and videos simply breaking down their business model is again quite telling not to mention even though this article says there's no startup cost the fact that you need to own your own machine to get started sure sounds like a type of startup cost to me and again these machines are going for like three to six thousand dollars so that's not a small amount of money in their own advertisements they claim to not be an mlm and yet one of their certifications is from dsa or direct selling association so which is it although i've discussed the dsa here before just as a brief refresher for those of you that may not know the direct selling association's job is essentially to protect mlms and they lobby to pass anti-consumer protection amendments all of this is extremely well documented and there will be many links again if you want to look at that as well the dsa has given vemma a now defunct energy drink mlm in award even though they were shut down for being a pyramid scheme dsa member companies such as enegic frequently make health claims that violate the law and dsa doesn't do anything to stop them all in all it's the health claims that bother me the most the mlmers that are shown making false or at least unproven financial claims preying upon unemployed or desperate people and the confusing business model are pretty typical here unfortunately claims that your brain cancer will be evaporated or the idea that you'll live longer because of molecules micro clustering in kangen water is just unproven and according to a biochemist laughable they've also had some billing and return issues according to bbb and several customers have reported them as a fraud so there's that too but it's mostly these health claims that make me feel uneasy when it comes to this company funny how the company that was so quick to tell their distributors off for making claims about kovid but they also seem perfectly content to turn a blind eye to some of these claims about alkaline water as a whole but with that being said that's where i'm going to end today's episode of multi-level mondays i hope you enjoyed it and if you did make sure that you're liking following and subscribing so that you can stay up to date on all the latest episodes thank you so much for making it to another one and i'll see you in the next one bye [Music] you<br><!-- wp:image {"id":1776,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none"} -->rn<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img class="wp-image-1776" src="https://en.videoencontexto.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Do_It_Yourself_Alkaline_Water_Enagics_Kangen_Water__Multi_Level_Mondays_2bcYzy7hxKg.jpg" /></figure>rn<!-- /wp:image -->[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]