Have you heard of the alkaline diet? you don't eat anything that is acidic?!

Have you heard of the alkaline diet? you don't eat anything that is acidic?

I heard even certain negative emotions put your body in an acidic state, and that when your body's acidic it's the perfect environment for disease, all diseases.. Also that most people esp. in industrialized countries are pretty acidic. who knows more about the alkaline diet, any good books recommend or websites?

The problem with this diet is that most people don't learn what alkaline and acid actually means in the context to the diet and how it affects the body.

For example, an orange is considered an alkaline food, even though the pH of the juices are in fact acidic.

Why? Because it contains "alkaline ash" which helps buffer the natural pH of your body. So just because a food is acidic doesn't make it a bad food to eat.

Another example is that refined carbs, if you were to mix them with water and test their pH would be on the alkaline side of the scale. However these foods are the most certain to move your bodily fluids to an acidic state.

The other thing that is often misunderstood is the range of pH. Your body tries to stay at around 7.4 pH.

A highly acidic diet might shift your pH down to maybe 7.1 or 7.0. This is actually a "neutral" pH but it isn't considered healthy. Your body will try to extract minerals from your bones to buffer your pH but you probably want to keep those minerals in your bones for real emergencies so that's why you want to avoid foods that disrupt this balance.

Foods that are considered to be "alkaline forming" are:

Cantaloupe, Celery, Dates, Figs, Kelp, Limes, Mango, Melons, Papaya, Parsley, Seaweeds, Seedless Grapes, Watercress, Asparagus, Fruit Juices (unsweetened), Kiwi, Pears, Raisins, Vegetable Juices.

On the other side of the scale, foods that are considered to be "highly acid" are, artificial sweeteners, animal meat, beer, breads, brown sugar, sodas, cereals (refined), chocolate, cigarettes, coffee, pasta, table salt

Finally, the pH test strips are mostly nonsense. Your saliva and urine are not accurate indicators of body pH. Why? Because they're how your body purges extra "stuff" to help adjust your pH. For example, your urine can have a pH of 5.0 and yet blood serum studies have shown that your body pH can still be normal.

So before you mess around with this diet, study it and check the references. There are good principals behind it, but there's a lot of nonsense out there that is being said under the umbrella of this concept.