pH Test Paper Refill Rolls

pH, an acronym for potential of hydrogen (power of hydrogen; percentage of hydrogen) is a value that indicates the acidity or alkalinity of a liquid. The measurement of the hydrogen ion concentration in a liquid determines the pH value. Every liquid has a pH value, which falls on a scale between 0 and 14, with 7 being neutral. A pH value less than 7 is acidic; values greater than 7 indicate alkalinity.

Examples: Battery acid and vinegar - two very acidic liquids - have pH values on the lower end of the scale, while baking soda and ammonia, both of which are very alkaline, are on the higher end of the pH scale. Pure water, meanwhile, has a pH value of 7 - it's neither acidic nor alkaline.

Keeping Your Body’s pH in Balance

Your body also has a pH value. In fact, all your body fluids each have a pH value, but blood most accurately reflects the acidity or alkalinity of your body. Ideally, your blood's pH should be between 7.3 and 7.5.

Your body works hard to maintain a balanced pH because that allows its systems to operate more efficiently and effectively. Imbalance, on the other hand, leads to obesity, fatigue, premature aging and other health problems. To maintain a balanced pH, your body pulls certain minerals, such as sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium, from its tissues to neutralize acids in the blood. If it can’t do that successfully, it will dump the acids into various organs, which causes health problems.

You can help your body neutralize acids in the blood and maintain a balanced pH by taking some simple steps, like eating the right foods and exercising.

Finding Your Body’s pH

There are a variety of ways to determine your body's pH, the most accurate of which is to find the pH value of your blood using a pH meter. However, that can be impractical since it would require drawing blood and purchasing a special meter.

A more practical and inexpensive method is to find the pH level of your urine using litmus paper. But, since your urine pH varies with what you eat, you should measure your pH after fasting for at least 12 hours, or when you get up in the morning before you exercise, eat or drink anything.

How to use litmus paper to test your urine

1. Use 2-4 inches of litmus paper and avoid touching the end you're using far testing.

2. Quickly dip one end of the litmus paper into your urine sample. Dipping the litmus paper in a liquid, even for a few seconds, can wash the indicator off the paper and give an inaccurate reading.

3. Immediately shake off any excess.

4. Immediately compare the color of the paper to the chart that comes with the litmus paper.

For urine, the pH value should be between 6.8-7.0, which is in the medium green area of the litmus paper.

Keep in mind that when it comes to determining your body's pH, you should look at averages and trends over time, especially if you're using litmus paper. This paper tests for pH levels between 5.5 and 8.0 in either 0.2 or 0.3 increments.

One of the best ways to get a fairly accurate reading of one's tissue pH is to pass a litmus paper through a urine stream first thing in the morning. The 1st urine in the morning is a pretty good indicator because the body has had all night to process the entire day’s nutrient ingestion and balance itself out - hence a good indicator of real body tissue pH.

Do not be surprised if you test acidic. Most folks initially will test very acidic in the yellow zone (pH 4 - 5). Time to make changes to move this into the green zone (pH 6.5 - 7). Urinary pH is always more acidic than the saliva. A normal urinary pH reading in the morning should be somewhere between 6.0-6.4 while in the evening hour a healthy range is considered to be somewhere between 6.4 - 6.8. The pH of the saliva should be slightly more alkaline than that of the urine. A healthy pH for saliva fluctuates somewhere between 6.6 - 7.0.

A cola drink is 3.0 pH. It takes 32 glasses of neutral (7.0 pH) water to neutralize the acidic effect of one can of cola poison. Apple cider vinegar is high in potassium which balances pH.

pH 7.0 is neutral

pH 6.0 is ten times as acid

pH 5.0 is 100 times as acid

pH 4.0 is 1,000 times as acid

pH 3.0 is 10,000 times as acid as 7.0 pH

If you have taken your saliva and urine pH first thing in the morning and it is averaging 5.0 pH, you do need to take effective action. Drink only water that is 7.2 to 7.4 pH (Fiji™ = 7.5 pH, Essentia™ = 9.5 pH). You can use organic (food-grade only) baking soda to increase the pH of your water. Organic soda should not contain aluminum. You can take baths that contain 2 cups of Epsom salts. Eat oranges and watermelon!

If you indeed have a pH of 5.0, you are not assimilating the food and supplements you are taking orally that is why it is very important for you to get minerals through your skin with the baths.

Trying to eat a totally acid-food free diet is probably close to impossible for most of us. Also, probably not a good thing to try to do all at once - too severe a shock to one's system. It is possible to cut back on some of the biggest offenders, however - those soft drinks, coffee, grain products, large portions of meat, etc. It's a matter of retraining your eating/drinking habits, and taste bud too probably.

Drinking 2 large glasses of vegetable juice or even tomato juice will raise my pH to 7 from 6 or lower in less than an hour (tested on urine). Keeping a pH of 7 helps reduce pain from a gout attack considerably!

However, this affects your saliva and urine, but is not indicative of a change in your intercellular fluid. The original reading may be indicative of the pH of your intercellular fluid if you take it first thing in the morning. You have 1 gallon of water in your body for each 10 pounds of body weight. That means that a 100 lb person has 10 gallons of water. It takes more than the minerals in two glasses of juice to change from pH 6 to pH 7. pH 6.0 has 10 times as much acid as pH 7.0.

(Get rid of toxic overload, and get the pH of your intercellular fluids to 7.0 or better, and you can eliminate gout attacks. If you have a gout attack, try a foot soak in cold water with 1 cup Epsom salts and 6-8 drops of therapeutic grade Ginger essential oil if you or someone you know has a gout attack, and add ice cubes every 20 minutes until pain subsides).

pH is a measure of acidity and alkalinity. The pH scale goes from 0 to 14. At pH 7, the half way point, there is a balance between acidity and alkalinity. Such a solution is neutral. The principles of pH begin with a definition of the term pH. The p comes from the word power. The H, of course is the symbol for the element of hydrogen. Together, the term pH means the hydrion ion exponent. The pH of a substance is a measure of its acidity just as a degree is a measure of temperature. A specific pH value tells the exact acidity. Rather than stating the general ideas such as orange juice is acid or the water is hot, a specific pH value gives the same relative point of reference, thus providing more exact communication. The orange juice has a pH of 4.0 or the water is at 80°C provides an exact common language.

pH is defined in terms of the hydrogen ion activity:

pH equals the negative logarithm of the hydrogen ion activity, or the activity of the hydrogen ion is 10 raised to the exponent -pH. By the latter expression, the use of the p exponent becomes more obvious. The activity is the effective concentration of the hydrogen ion that is in solution.

If the solution has excess acid, the balance is shifted so that scale reads a number lower than 7. –the greater the acid strength, the lower the pH value.

Similarly, a solution that is alkaline has a pH that is higher than 7, and the greater the alkali strength, the higher the pH value –up to 14.

Each unit on the pH scale actually represents a 10 fold difference in acid activity. Thus, a pH 4 solution is ten times as acid as a pH 5 solution. A pH 3 solution, in turn has ten times the acid activity of the pH 4 solution–and 100 times the acidity of the pH 5 solution.

The pH scale of 0 to 14 is derived from the chemical properties of water and this pH scale cannot be used with other solvents such as alcohol, oils and other non-aqueous systems.

Perfectly pure water is neutral - pH 7. However, almost anything dissolved in the water, in any amount, will affect the pH. Freshly distilled water rapidly absorbs carbon dioxide from the air and reaches a pH of 5.5 in a very short time. Other materials dissolved in the water may have an even more marked effect. Depending on its chemical characteristics, it can either raise or lower the pH value. Thus the pH of any solution depends on the amounts and types of materials dissolved in the water.

Some Materials tend to stabilize a solution at a specific pH value. These are known as BUFFERS. Buffered solutions resist pH change when small amounts of acid or alkali are added.

Plain water (fresh water, purified water, etc.) contains only traces of dissolved material. There is almost no buffer effect. When a "Dip and Read" test paper is used with this type of water, the test paper itself becomes the predominating influence and will usually indicate a pH of a approximately 5, regardless of the true pH of the water sample.

The neutral pH level for water is 7.0. However, the neutral pH level for testing urine and saliva are lower due to the extra elements contained in the fluids. According to Reams Biological Theory of Ionization (RBTI), the ideal pH level for both urine and saliva is 6.4. Therefore, any reading less than 6.4 is more acidic and any reading above 6.4 is more alkaline.

For fresh water; tap water; steam condensate returns and similar unbuffered water samples use TheraPure® Lo Ion Kits for accurate pH determinations.

pH papers are made with the special indicator dyes that change color at specific pH values. The useful limit of color change for most individual indicators is about 2 pH units. Beyond this limit no further noticeable color change takes place, regardless of further change in pH.

For example, with pH 6.0 to 8.0 range test paper, a reading of a solution which falls within these points can be taken correctly. However, if the pH of the solution is lower than 6.0 or higher than 8.0, the test paper cannot indicate the correct pH value but will show the 6.0 or 8.0 color of the chart.

Some materials, such as proteins and alkaloids, interfere with the indicator color changes. Strong salt solutions (2% or more) may also have an adverse effect. In these cases, pH papers may not give reliable results.

When a "Dip and Read" test paper is used in plain water (fresh water, pond water, purified water, etc.) the paper will read low. For fresh water, tap water, steam condensate and similar unbuffered water samples use our Lo Ion pH Paper Kits for accurate pH determinations.

TheraPure® pH Test Papers are formulated with ultra sensitive indicators and calibrated to test for the pH of "non-buffered", dilute solutions i.e. fresh water, tap water, rain water, steam condensate, etc.

pH papers provide a simple, fast and economical method of pH measurement. For most solutions it is only necessary to dip a strip of test paper in the solution for a second or two. Then shake the excess liquid off the strip and match the color of the wet test paper with its color chart and read off the pH value of the best color match.