The pH of Everything You Drink

The practice. A cart at the corner, a green coconut lifted off the pile, three strokes of the blade and a straw pushed in. You drank it standing there in the heat, then handed the shell back to be split so you could scoop the soft malai out with a sliver of husk. At home it went to whoever had been out too long in the sun, or was coming through a fever. Nobody called it a health drink. It was what was there.

What the research says. Tender coconut water is genuinely an electrolyte solution — roughly 250 mg of potassium per 100 ml, more potassium than sodium, plus magnesium and modest natural sugars. A randomised crossover trial in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition (2012) put twelve exercise-trained men through dehydrating exercise and found coconut water restored hydration markers about as well as a carbohydrate-electrolyte sports drink, though some reported more stomach discomfort at large volumes. Its pH is only mildly acidic — nowhere near a cola’s 2.5.

Before you start. Fresh is not the same as packaged: many cartons carry added sugar and are heat-treated, so read the label. Potassium is the one real caution — anyone with reduced kidney function, or taking ACE inhibitors or potassium-sparing diuretics, should ask their doctor before drinking it daily. For most people one coconut a day is a sensible ceiling.

The practice. The last thing at lunch, after the rice: curd whisked thin with water in a steel tumbler, salted, sometimes a little roasted jeera, a few curry leaves, a scatter of coriander. It was made from the curd already sitting in the kitchen, so it cost nothing and nobody planned for it. In Gujarat and Rajasthan it arrived unasked. Further south it closed the meal as a matter of course, and children were handed the mildest version.

What the research says. Chhaas is diluted fermented milk, carrying live lactic acid bacteria along with the lactic acid they produce. The European Food Safety Authority assessed live yoghurt cultures and concluded the evidence supported improved lactose digestion in people who digest lactose poorly — one of very few food claims ever to clear that bar (EFSA Journal, 2010). And worth stating plainly in a piece about pH: chhaas is itself acidic in the glass, around pH 4.5. Fermented does not mean alkaline.

Before you start. Salt is the variable most people ignore — a heavily salted glass twice a day adds up if you are watching your blood pressure, so salt lightly and taste before adding more. Make it thin rather than thick; dilution was always the point. And if dairy genuinely disagrees with you, fermentation softens that problem, it does not remove it.

The practice. Half a lemon squeezed into a glass of water, a pinch of salt, a little sugar, stirred with a spoon until the grains disappeared. It was made in the afternoon when someone came in flushed from outside, and carried in a bottle on long train journeys. Some households kept it savoury with black salt and roasted jeera, some kept it sweet. The proportions were never written down and never quite the same twice.

What the research says. The salt-and-sugar version echoes the principle behind oral rehydration solution: glucose and sodium are absorbed together in the small intestine via the SGLT1 co-transporter, and water follows them across. On pH, be precise. Lemon juice is strongly acidic in the glass, around pH 2 to 3. What is loosely called its alkalising effect concerns the urine — Remer and Manz’s potential renal acid load work (1995) measured urinary pH, not blood, which the body holds close to 7.4 regardless of what you drink.

One caution worth taking seriously. Acid at pH 2 to 3 softens dental enamel, and repeated exposure erodes it — this is well documented in laboratory studies on human enamel. Drink it in one sitting rather than sipping across an hour, rinse the mouth with plain water afterwards, and wait roughly half an hour before brushing, since brushing softened enamel does more harm than good.

The practice. Before the hot months began, someone bought a bundle of khus — the washed, fibrous roots of vetiver grass, smelling of wet earth after rain. A handful went into the day’s drinking water at night and was lifted out in the morning, leaving the water faintly woody and, to anyone raised on it, unmistakably the taste of summer. The same roots were woven into screens, wetted, and hung across doorways so the breeze came through cool.

What the research says. Here the honest answer is that there is very little. Vetiver root contains a well-characterised set of sesquiterpenes — khusimol, vetiverol, the vetivones — and almost all published work is chemical analysis, laboratory antioxidant and antimicrobial assays, or aroma studies in animals. We could find no human trial on drinking khus-infused water, and none on its cooling effect. What it does reliably is make plain water taste of something without sugar or acid, which is not nothing.

Before you start. Buy roots, not syrup: the bright green khus sharbat on shop shelves is mostly sugar and colouring, and belongs with the drinks this article is measuring rather than against them. Rinse the roots well, steep overnight, keep the water refrigerated and finish it within a day or two. Never drink vetiver essential oil — that is a concentrate, not a beverage.

The practice. A teaspoon of cumin dry-roasted until it darkened and smelled faintly of smoke, then either steeped in hot water and drunk plain, or crushed into cold water with black salt and lemon as jal-jeera. It came out after a heavy meal, after a wedding lunch, on the evening when someone said the food was still sitting there. Most households kept a small jar of roasted seed ready through the season.

What the research says. Cumin’s aroma comes largely from cuminaldehyde. Rodent feeding studies from Platel and Srinivasan’s group reported that dietary cumin raised pancreatic digestive enzyme activity and stimulated bile secretion. Human evidence is much thinner: a 2013 report in the Middle East Journal of Digestive Diseases described symptom improvement with cumin extract in irritable bowel syndrome, but it was a case series — no control group, so it cannot establish an effect. Many people find it settles heaviness; the mechanism remains largely inferred.

Before you start. Culinary amounts — a teaspoon or two of seed across a day — are what both tradition and the research describe; concentrated extracts and oils are a different matter and are not needed here. Roast lightly, since burnt cumin turns bitter and stays bitter. And be clear about what jal-jeera is not: the bottled jeera sodas are soft drinks, carbonation, sugar and acid included.