Thank you all for your response! I was quite surprised to see so many replies.
It does appear that not many people know much about drinking vinegars, so to enlighten you i will just give you a brief introduction, to the 3 kinds of vinegars on the market.
1. Specially brewed vinegars
2. Distilled Vinegar
3. A mixture of the two above.
I think it is obvious to see, which is the better quality of vinegar, but how many read labels! A guide is price, the cheaper the vinegar, the more artificial it is, and some will just mix distilled water and acid, with no health value at all. So label reading is very important.
It is dangerous to drink vinegars, as one poster quoted, so do not drink vinegars for bets or for fun, it is a weak acid, that needs to be diluted if drinking, and only the fruit vinegars are nice anyway.
Actual ready to drink vinegars are mixed, and the acetic acid is only about 1% but all the other organic acids in vinegar are natural for the body, and come from the fermentation of the brew of aged vinegar and fruit juice. So all consumers should realise now, that everything you consume is either acid or alkaline, even all the fruits and veggies, which is why they say balance your diet.
But who does! Not many in this day and age, of fast food chains and junk food, so a drinking vinegar will supplement the food, for digestion and health benefits.
Drinking vinegars are specially brewed vinegars, in Asia mostly rice is used for vinegar because of the mellow taste. Western vinegars are quite harsh, and the apple cider vinegar, taste awful.
Although vinegar has been used for many health benefits, over 100's of years, and the Japanese are quite famous for their special brew of health vinegars, which are made by the traditional manual way, which makes them quite expensive.
The Taiwanese vinegar I am on about is specially brewed for drinking and not as a food additives, they have been developed by bio chemists, for drinking on a daily bases.
Vinegar is a weak acid and not a base although when consumed, it will have an alkaline effect on the stomach acid. This is because stomach acid is lower than the vinegar acid, stomach acid around pH 2 and vinegar pH 3 to 4.
This means that vinegar must be a neutraliser of acid and alkalines, if the pH is out of balance.
Quite logical if you think about it, a pH of 8 which would be alkaline, would be reduced with vinegar too, So we call drinking vinegar "Balance" because that is what it does. Once the pH is disturbed through diet, illness creeps in, if too alkaline, yeast infection and spots like acne may appear, and if too acidic, tummy upset and gastric problems occur.
Drinking vinegar made from brown rice vinegar is the best, because it provides the building blocks of the human body, it is critical to consume the 8 essential amino acids, the body cannot reproduce, and amino acids are protein based, hence aged brown rice is good, and Apple Cider Vinegar is not so good, when we discuss quality of amino acids, because apples have no protein, and cannot deliver the essential acids for the metabolism to function correctly.
Drinking vinegars are in fact the most healthiest beverages on the market, and the Taiwanese ones do not have a vinegar taste, it's very hard to know it's a vinegar at all.
The idea is to deliver the essential acids every day, for the body to function, or i should say to optimise the pathways of the metabolism and the quality of ATP...which is kind of a currency that the body runs on.
I proved to myself that vinegar does reduce cholesterol and all other blood lipids, by taking blood tests every month for 6 month, although i have no idea it will do the same for everyone, so more data is relative to the study.
Vinegar should break down all blood lipids, and scavenge free radicals in the body, it also effective on some cancer cells, and is more likely to be a true energy drink, when compared to energy drinks, because it does revitalise the body and cells, preventing ageing, it is a preservative and all natural and organic.
Take a look at
3000 year old Drinking Vinegar and view the various flavours and sparkling vinegars...Unfortunately you cannot get these in Japan yet!
I have tasted all of them! I will not bore you much longer, with my passion of vinegar...maybe another day or two, to enlighten those that are interested.
By the way I am English married to a Taiwanese!