Does bottled lemon juice change the digestive system to alkaline like fresh lemons do?

Answer 1

Interesting question. Lemon Juice does NOT change the digestive system to alkaline, nor do lemons.

The digestive "juices" contain Hydrochloric Acid, pH of gastric juices are between 1.5 and 3.5. This is a measure of the acidity of a liquid solution. Lemons and lemon juice have a pH of 2 to 2.5, nearly the same.

The reason for adding lemon (or lemon juice or pickles) to a meal is actually a bit more confusing but it works. The stomach senses somehow, I don't know the bio-mechanics exactly, whether a food entering is acidic or basic (Alkaline) and starts generating gastric juices in order to digest it. By adding an acidic food (pickle, lemon, citric juice...etc.) you trick the stomach into not over producing gastric juices, thus reducing a condition which leads to heartburn or acid reflux.

In a nutshell. (others might have a more lengthy explanation but this does seem to work.)

There is another effect ascribed to lemons called an "alkalising effect" this has nothing to do with the digestion directly, but more to do with the cellular processing of some of the minerals present in citrus fruit. This is not the same as making digestion alkaline.