What is the ALKALINE DIET?
An alkaline diet is a diet that emphasizes, to a varying degree, fresh fruit, vegetables, roots and tubers, nuts, and legumes.
What is the HISTORY of Alkaline Diets?
Our hunter-gatherer ancestors consumed a diet very different from what's typical today. The diet was based on minimally processed plant and animal foods. But with the advent of agriculture, the standard Western diet changed greatly:
>Grains were introduced into the diet after the appearance of stone tools. Refined grains were available after the invention of automated rolling and sifting devices.
>Milk, cheese and other milk products were introduced with the domestication of livestock.
>Salt consumption rose when technology to mine, process, and transport it became available.
>Meat consumption increased with animal husbandry. It further increased with the advent of technology that enabled grains to be efficiently fed to cattle, which allowed cattle to be fattened quickly.
>Sugar consumption has risen since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Almost all foods that we eat, after being digested, absorbed, and metabolized, release either an ACID or an ALKALINE BASE (bicarbonate) into blood. Grains, fish, meat, poultry, shellfish, cheese, milk, and salt all produce ACID, so the introduction and dramatic rise in our consumption of these foods meant that the typical Western diet became more acid-producing. Consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables decreased, which further made the Western diet acid-producing.
Our BLOOD is slightly ALKALINE, with a normal pH level of between 7.35 and 7.45. The theory behind the alkaline diet is that our diet should reflect this pH level (as it did in the past) and be slightly alkaline. Proponents of alkaline diets believe that a diet high in acid-producing foods disrupts this balance and promotes the loss of essential MINERALS such as potassium, magnesium, calcium, and sodium, as the body tries to restore equilibrium. This imbalance is thought to make people prone to illness.
WHY Do People Try Alkaline Diets?
According to some alternative practitioners, the shift to an acid-producing diet is the cause of a number of chronic diseases. Some practitioners recommend the alkaline diet if a person has the following SYMPTOMS and other illnesses have been ruled out:
>Lack of energy
>Excessive mucous production
>Nasal congestion
>Frequent colds and flu
>Anxiety, nervousness, irritability
>Ovarian cysts, polycystic ovaries, benign breast cysts
>Headache
In conventional medicine, there is evidence that alkaline diets may help prevent the formation of calcium kidney stones, osteoporosis, and age-related muscle wasting.
What are the SAFETY CONCERNS?
It's a good idea to consult your doctor before trying a new diet. The alkaline diet should not be used by people with acute or chronic kidney failure unless under a doctor's supervision. People with pre-existing heart disease and those on medications that affect potassium levels in the body should check with their doctor first.
Alkaline Acid Diet The pH SCALE
pH is a scale or balance system. The term pH means “POTENTIAL OF HYDROGEN”. In order to understand pH we have to know what pH is measuring: alkalinity and acidity. pH numbers range from 1 to 14 with NEUTRAL being 7.0.
What is the DEFINITION of alkalinity and acidity?
Acidity is the concentration of the HYDROGEN ION. Alkalinity is the concentration of the HYDROXYL ION or OH’s. So the difference between acidity and alkalinity is OXYGEN.
The body attempts to maintain a pH of 7.4 in critical body fluids, and as such it must be mildly alkaline. If it is not mildly alkaline, it cannot use oxygen efficiently and if it is unable to use the oxygen effectively, it produces FREE OXYGEN RADICALS.
The alkaline side of the pH scale is called AEROBIC METABOLISM, where oxygen burns GLUCOSE to create ENERGY. This process is called OXIDATIVE RESPIRATION. It is important to remember that oxygen does not make the environment alkaline; oxygen is the currency, the substance that is used in an alkaline environment to keep you alive.
There are substances that keep you alkaline called BUFFERS.
There are two buffers in extra cellular fluids : CARBON DIOXIDE (CO2) and BICARBONATE (HCO3).
Intra cellular fluids have these buffers: HEMOGLOBIN, CALCIUM (Ca), MAGNESIUM (Mg), POTASSIUM (K), SODIUM (Na), CHLORIDE (Cl) and PHOSPHATE (PO4).
Our body doesn't produce these minerals: Ca, Mg, K, Na, Cl - you must first bring it into the body.
MINERALS bind to other minerals, creating very small, compact, tightly-bound substances.
Mineral IONIZATION (splitting them apart) happens in the stomach. It takes a lot of acid to do this.
The minerals are bound to ORGANIC ACIDS (large, weakly-bound molecules). The ease with which the body can ionize the minerals is an important factor. As such, we like to use organic forms of minerals, not necessarily certified organic, but bound to organic acids like lactic acid, malic acid, amino acids, alpha-keto glutaric acid and citric acid - basically large molecules that are easily ionized so that the body can use them.
On the other side of the pH scale is ANAEROBIC METABOLISM (i.e. without oxygen). This reaction uses a kind of fall-back fail system called FERMENTATION ; this process is not very efficient.
Some ANAEROBES include yeast, fungi, mold, bacteria, worms and other parasites.
CANCER CELLS are an anaerobe ; oxygen is toxic to cancer cells.
LACTIC ACID damages cell membranes ; the body tries to get rid of it.
All cancer cells are bathed in lactic acid.
An increased craving of SUGAR is due to high acidity of body fluids.
To CURE disease, we have to correct the acidic environment of the body.
Many individuals use pH TEST STRIPS to check the pH of the body, but urine or saliva pH doesn't tell you what the pH of the body is, only what the overall burden is on non-critical fluids to keep blood at a pH of 7.4.
Checking blood pH is not that useful because blood pH doesn't change that much (if it drops a few tenths of a point, you are dead).
If you are DEFICIENT in minerals, your body robs minerals from your SALIVA, a non-critical body fluid.
It also robs minerals from the MUSCLES, which is why you get muscle cramps, twitches, charlie horses, leg shakes, night shakes, eye twitching and many other physical disorders associated with ELECTROLYTE deficiency or mineral deficiency.
And, it robs minerals such as calcium phosphate and calcium carbonate from the BONE, but not the organic forms needed for your diet. The body needs these minerals for pH regulation. So where does it send these minerals in order to ionize them? To the KIDNEY, since the kidney is where acidic and alkaline levels of the body are maintained (CO2 and HCO3), hoping that the acidity of the CO2 will ionize the minerals so that they can be used for the important role of maintaining pH.
CALCIUM is the most abundant mineral in the body and has the most rapid turnover in pH maintenance.
The individual who is mineral deficient is at RISK of developing kidney stones, gall stones, bone spurs, calcium deposits, tendon and ligament tears, muscle strains and sprains, muscle scar tissue, heart problems and atherosclerotic plaqing. The sequence of problems begins to escalate, but it all starts with low back pain and large muscle cramping.
So, you need to consume either ionic minerals or weakly organically-bound forms of minerals in your diet.
If you are craving carbohydrates and you are getting muscle aches, muscle cramps and twitches and low back pains and you have headaches, neurological problems and your digestion is down, you know that you are acidic.
Yeast problems, worms and parasites are all low level symptoms of issues of ACIDOSIS.
All life exists in a healthy alkaline pH, where oxygen can be efficiently utilized to burn sugar and make energy. If oxygen can not be utilized on the acidic side of the scale, the body produces a lot of free oxygen radicals. If you want to be healthy you have to be alkaline. Does that mean eating alkaline foods? No, it means eating foods rich in FATTY ACIDS because fatty acids and minerals work together like “handshakes.” But you need to have the minerals, because the minerals in your food and water help to fund the resources needed to maintain an alkaline pH.
Q: If my body is no longer acid, there is no way that my body would have cancer or any other known disease?
>A: There are times when certain areas of the body become more acidic and buffers are applied to make them more alkaline. So you do get manufactured cancer cells many hundreds, if not thousands of times a day, but the elaborate, protective measures of the body are able to intervene and terminate those processes and kill the cells and the associated bad bacteria. So it is not a linear, stable relationship, it is a very dynamic environment with major fluctuations and falls back to the fact that you have to put good things into your mouth in order for you body to have the resources to do what it needs to do to stay alkaline. Thus, I can’t say that you won’t have cancer, what I can say is that cancer cells can not thrive in a healthy alkaline, life promoting environment. If you change the stagnant pond and make it a clean pond, you don’t get the mosquitoes.
Read
Reclaim Your Inner Terrain and “Spoiled Rotten.”
BUFFERING is the process of maintaining equilibrium in the middle, it doesn’t just mean alkaline ; acids are also buffers when you get too alkaline.
Q: It is a known fact that detoxification is a key aspect in your body remaining healthy. We’ve heard a lot about CORAL CALCIUM and the fact that it is a great detoxifying product and it can help you to stay detoxified on a regular basis. Is that true?
A: Yes, because the body needs to have the complete arsenal of resources, especially the most abundant ones in the environment. CALCIUM is an extremely abundant mineral and is probably the most abundant mineral in the body. It’s required for the body to support itself on an ongoing basis and detoxify its cells. As well, OXYGEN is needed in an alkaline environment to fund energy production. When you have too many toxins in the body, they actually occupy the sites where oxygen would need to be attached in order to be utilized. So the other thing that pushes acidosis is having so many toxins in the body hindering oxygen usage and forcing the body to slide into the acidic side. In order to intervene in that process, you need to supply the body with the minerals that it needs to fund those detoxification systems. You also need an ENHANCED HYDRATING WATER, FIBER and OTHER VITAMINS AND MINERALS as well.
Q: If we get our pH alkaline, is it true to say that it really aids us in the SIMULATION of our food when we eat it?
A: Yes, but let me make one point. We always have to get and keep our body alkaline. There is never a static point. It is an ONGOING PROCESS dependent upon the constant consumption of all the resources needed to maintain that process. There is a question of CYCLING: your body is constantly living in a dynamic state where acid and alkaline are opposing forces and the things that you consume to promote acidity have to be countered by the things that you consume that promote alkalinity in order to maintain a pH of 7.4 in the blood. So, even though the digestive system has a somewhat different acid-alkaline dynamic, the tissues supporting the acid-alkaline dynamic have to fall within the guidelines of 7.4 pH, even though the actual digestion environment pH may change quite dramatically.
About 80% of the LYMPHATIC TISSUE resides in and around the gastral intestinal tract. This is interesting, since it must also be healthy, alkaline and well nourished in order to detect and respond to agents, foods, substances and toxins. It must differentiate between things that are supposed to be in the body from foreign matter. So the digestion system does not just work for digestion, it is also a very active, IMMUNOLOGICAL PROCESS that takes place on an ongoing basis within that environment. As such, maintaining an alkaline pH in that system is critical for digestion, absorption and assimilation.
Q: Does STRESS have any affect on pH?
A: Absolutely! Stress is a metabolic demand or burden on not only resource utilization but also the body’s HORMONAL SYSTEM.
Q: Does it create a more acid environment?
A: Again absolutely, because when you are using up your SUGAR you are increasing the velocity of sugar utilization. Therefore, you are increasing the velocity and need of mineral and fatty acid utilization and other nutrients. So stress uses up nutrients quicker and you have a greater predisposition to fall into the acid arena.
Q: In regard to balancing our body, are there any acidic foods or drinks that we should stay away from?
A: SODAS are a catastrophic imposition on the body. It takes approximately 30 GLASSES OF WATER to rehydrate what is being dehydrated by the imposition of carbonated soda. In addition, the CARBONATION PROCESS effortlessly cannibalizes very acidic food that also leaches minerals and the phosphates that bind to minerals out of the digestive system. So it definitely does promote OSTEOPOROSIS and OSTEOARTHRITIS.
Q: You have been making an important point of the significance of bioavailability of minerals in the foods that we eat and the importance of restructured enhanced water we drink and that we have to have ionized minerals in order to buffer the body in order to make it more alkaline versus acidic. Is it possible to eat enough of the RIGHT KIND OF FOODS in order to achieve the buffering affect from the minerals?
A: In a perfect world the answer would be yes, but since the early 30s, the agro business has devoted itself to finding ways to produce bigger and better abundant foods from our dwindling land sources. 98% of our domestically produced food comes from the same 2% land mass, year after year. Factory farms are designed to produce mass quantities of large food with only a minimal attention to the full spectrum nutritional status of the soils from which they are produced. In addition, they are gassed and put on ice to be shipped across the country to distribution centers that go into your grocery stores. That process takes about 4 to 7 days in which, if food is not sustained in suspended animation, it begins to die gradually. That is why it is RADIATED and gassed to kill everything that is in the food to minimize that death process so that by the time it gets to your grocery store it at least looks good. The sum total of that is that there are pesticides, herbicides and growth enhancers that make things look really good. Much of the food that we consume today is missing those important substances that give them the fullness of flavor and nutritional value. In sum, we do not get enough nutrition needed even from the fresh food that is available and certainly not from the packaged processed food that we excessively eat. We are a country that is overfed and undernourished; therefore, we need to SUPPLEMENT with foods that have quality nutrients in them from diverse sources: food, water and dietary supplements.
I would suggest that while it is possible to get the nutrients from a perfect food in a perfect world, the current rate of degenerative disease in our culture is pretty much solid enough evidence that it is not happening and we do need to supplement. As well, since we are 70% WATER, the type of water we ingest is as important as the type of minerals we consume.
Q: What should our PRIORITIES be?
A: Your priority should simply be to take care of yourself and take control of your family’s health.
Reclaiming your Inner Terrain means following a custom tailored plan for better health that works! This includes a cleansing program as well as cutting-edge nutritional products, supplements and minerals. Cleansing the body is an essential and necessary part of each and every health program. And let’s not forget water. Your body is over 70% water and my professional experience has proved to me the health benefits of including clean, alkalizing, restructured and enhanced water in any wellness program. Water is the most important compound you put into your body.
Alkalinity 101Bottom line to his (Robert O. Young's) program entails 3 things:
1. Super-hydrate the body by drinking plenty of water (4-5 liters a day)
2. Alkalize the body by eating foods high in alkalinity (and this is where people get stuck ... you don't have to eat like them and fix all those fancy meals ... simply increase the % of veggies at each meal).
3. Supergreens - if you can't get enough veggies, and most of us can't, then use the supplements or powder. I mean you really can't beat them - 49 different organic grasses, vegetables and sprouts; as well as 125 different vitamins, minerals and amino acids.
The pH MiracleOf course, everybody is different - but most of us should aim to eat 75-80% ALKALINE foods and a maximum of 20-25% ACID forming foods.
List of Alkaline FoodsThe effect foods have on URINE pH may be quite different than the pH of the foods themselves. For example, orange juice is a highly acidic food due to its high citrus acid content, but after being metabolized it will cause urine to become alkaline.
Alkaline Foods-Acidic FoodsAlkaline Foods ListAcidity Self-TestpH Test Strips
