"Do We Need a Carb Soda Drink?"

Written by Tessa Jupp RN for the Post Polio Network of WA

 

Remember Faulding’s Lemon Health Saline??

 

Our parents used it as a pick-me-up.  And if we were lucky we might have been given a glass too.

 

Fizzy !!  - we called it.  A spoonful in a glass of water bubbled up prickling our noses - “Quick drink it before it stops fizzing.” Mum always said.

 

The basis of this drink was bi-carbonate of soda or sodium bi-carbonate - sodi-bic as my mum said.

 

Mum gave Dad a glass if he was not up to scratch.  We kids got a glass or two a day if we were poorly.

 

At the end of a long hot summer our bodies are paying for it - dehydrated, acidic.  But sometimes water is not enough.  Hot weather makes us sweat and sweat is salty.  We are losing precious minerals in sweat that our bodies need.  These are called electrolytes.  If you taste a good quality sea salt with lots of minerals it tastes really nice.  Much better than the common table salt which is just sodium chloride.

Here is a good explanation I found on the internet.

 

 

Fluids and Electrolyte Balance

Electrolytes are salts (minerals) in your body that have an electric charge. They are in your blood, urine and body fluids. Maintaining the right balance of electrolytes helps your body's blood chemistry, muscle action and other processes. Proper balance is essential for muscle coordination, heart function, fluid absorption and excretion, nerve function and brain concentration.

 

Sodium, calcium, potassium, chlorine, phosphate and magnesium are all electrolytes. You get them from the foods you eat and the fluids you drink.

 

Levels of electrolytes in your body can become too low or too high. That can happen when the amount of water in your body changes.  Causes include some medicines, vomiting, diarrhoea, sweating or kidney problems. Problems most often occur with levels of sodium, potassium, magnesium or calcium.

 

The kidneys regulate fluid absorption and excretion and maintain a narrow range of electrolyte fluctuation. Normally, sodium and potassium are filtered and excreted in the urine and faeces according to the body's needs. Too much or too little sodium or potassium, caused by poor diet, dehydration, medication and disease, results in an imbalance.

 

It is important to keep a balance of electrolytes in your body, because they affect the amount of water in your body, blood acidity (pH), muscle action, and other important processes. You lose electrolytes when you sweat, and you must replace them by drinking fluids.  Some fluids are better than others.”

 

We need to drink 8-10 glasses of water a day to prevent dehydration.

Water from cooking your vegetables will be full of many of these minerals so don’t throw the water away.  Use it to make soup, gravy, white sauce etc.  Even better is to boil up your peelings and use that water too.  Much of the goodness is just under the skin.  Fruit is full of minerals too. But restrict yourself to only 2 pieces of fruit a day as fruit is full of fructose (sugar).    Tessa Jupp RN

 

“Sodium intake is restricted in patients with hypertension, but it is demonstrated that the bicarbonate or chloride part plays an important role.

It is now well established that sodium bicarbonate as well as citrate and phosphate salts do not raise blood pressure to the same extent as do the corresponding amounts of sodium chloride (ordinary salt). A study on mineral water containing sodium bicarbonate has confirmed the absence of effect on blood pressure in elderly individuals.

Bicarbonate of soda, also known as baking soda or sodium bicarbonate, has numerous uses - it's a cleaning agent, antacid, fire extinguisher and more. There also are interesting health benefits when you drink carb soda, which is alkaline, in water. Viruses and diseases such as colds, flu, cancer and even heart disease thrive in an acidic body, but cannot survive when your body is alkaline.  The 2009 Journal of the American Society of Nephrology revealed a study of 134 patients with advanced kidney disease.  Taking carb soda daily dramatically slowed down the progression of kidney disease, resulting in no need for dialysis.

Fatigue could be due to the accumulation of metabolites in muscle, such as lactates, hydrogen ions and ammonia.  During prolonged sub-maximal effort, the major cause of fatigue is the energy substrate depletion (namely carbohydrates), but it has been shown that hyperthermia (temp over 40.1 C) or dehydration (over 1 or 2 % of body weight loss) could also contribute to the occurrence of fatigue.”

“People assume that lemon is acidic- which it is outside of the body. But once inside of the body, lemon becomes extremely alkaline.  A glass of water with freshly squeezed lemon juice and ½ a teaspoon of bi-carb soda first thing every morning is a great way to alkalise the system and make the body an unhospitable environment for all the nasties like germs, cancer and organ failures.”

 

Pleasant Frothy Carb Soda Drink

 

Recipe:

½ teaspoon of carb soda

in ½ cup of desired fruit juice.

 

Stir with spoon until froths to top of cup/glass then drink.

 

Take this 1 - 3 times a day away from food ie on rising or going to bed or an hour or 2 after a meal.  I am finding that people with “piggy shaped” eyes need 2-3 times a day but only once if big “cow” eyes

 

Use what ever fruit juice appeals to you.  You need some acid to make it froth so add at least a teaspoonful of lemon, orange or lime juice; apple cider, vinegar, citric acid or tartaric acid.  This absorbs the salty taste.

 

Fruit juice gives you other needed vitamins and minerals. Some people are just adding a teaspoonful of lemon or orange juice to half cup of water then adding carb soda. Experiment a bit to get your best taste.  Tasty, healthy, cheap, good for you.  

 

“Sodium bicarbonate is not only an excellent agent for natural chemotherapy, bringing as it does higher O2 levels through increased alkalinity to the cells, it is also one of the most basic medicines we have for kidney disease. New research by British scientists at the Royal London Hospital shows that sodium bicarbonate can dramatically slow the progress of chronic kidney disease.  We don’t need a thousand years of tests to understand something as simple as water and it is quite the same with bicarbonate, which is always present in the best drinking waters.

This simple household product used for baking, cleaning, bee stings, treating asthma, cancer and acid indigestion is so effective in treating kidney disease that it prevents patients from having to be put on kidney machines. The findings have been published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. Bicarbonate is a truly strong universal concentrated nutritional medicine that works effectively in many more clinical situations that we would not normally think of.  It is a prime emergency room and intensive care medicine that can save a person’s life in a heartbeat and it is also a supermarket item that you can take right off the shelf and use for more things than one can imagine – including diaper rash.”  source:  Internet



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