Healthy food

Today I would like to talk about a book I just received where the subject matter is the acid-alkaline balance of the body-or PH. The book is called, “The Acid-Alkaline Diet” by Christopher Vasey, N.D.

Now, DON’T FREAK out or tune out because I have found that the acid-alkaline balance is a very easy subject to understand yet very important for the body. Even if you failed out of 11th grade chemistry, this should be a no-brainer. Here is how it works:

“The body is acid by nature/ alkaline by necessity.” (Tim Brantley N.D.). That is all you need to remember!

What this means is that when you stress out or move or work out or digest food-when you do just about anything with the body-you create acid; In fact, you create 8 different kinds of acid.(the body is acid by “nature”.)

For example, we create hydrochloric acid (to digest food) and lactic acid- which everyone who works out knows because sore muscles are the result of lactic acid build-up after a workout. (Plus 6 other acids that if I named them all I would bore you to death!).

But the ‘catch’ is: the organs in the body work better in a neutral or slightly alkaline environment!

So, are we screwed or what? It looks like we are set up to get old fast and diseased early because we have acid running thru our veins!!!

I mean, the body is acid, but likes to be neutral, so, how can that be? What do we have to do to get it to be neutral?

We need to give it the complete opposite of what it has-in this case we need to give it something alkaline. Since the body does not make alkaline like it makes acid, we need to look to outside resources to find this alkaline. (The body is alkaline by “necessity”)

If the body is naturally an acid (5.0 ph) but likes to be neutral (7.0) then we need to put into it anything that is alkaline (8.0 ph) to neutralize it out. That is the Math of it!

(We can understand how acid works by looking at an old car. Acids eat the metal in the form of rust. Well, our bodies are really no different. If we are acid, we will rust from the inside out! Unless of course, we do something to neutralize that acid.)

Well, this is why I eat raw foods! Raw foods are more alkaline then cooked foods are. Raw foods stress the body less; add neutralizing, alkaline minerals that are in their whole and intact form and they are easier to break down because they have their enzymes intact ready to work!

Water should be alkalizing and it usually is alkaline-depending on your source, however.

So you can see that if you are high-stress person, work out a lot, are always on the go-you would need more alkaline food and drink then, say, someone who is more relaxed .

But, even relaxed people should eat some alkalizing foods to make sure they stay in a neutral/alkaline PH. (We DO live in a polluted world and this IS stressful on the body!)

A neutral/alkaline PH is a healthy PH.

So, how do you know if you are acid? You can find your PH very simply-your saliva and your urine tell you everything! Get some PH papers (on carolalt.com) and just dip. Dip in urine and saliva in the morning, the afternoon and in the evening. Dr. Brantley says between 8-10 am (not first urine) 2-4 pm and 8-10pm in the evening. Just NOT around food: 1 hour after eating or just before eating. It’s simple.

Keep tabs on your PH. Check it for three days and adjust your diet, water intake or supplement intake to help neutralize or alkalize or body. And check your results thru your urine and saliva!

So what happens if we find that our PH is acid but we don’t want to go thru the “trouble” of alkalizing? What if we just don’t care about acid- we want to ignore the body’s cry for neutralizing and we want to “eat that Pasta” or we just “can’t live without chicken”? We want to continue to eat cooked (acidifying) foods and work at high stressed jobs (acidifying) and workout in our time off (acidifying)? What happens? Think about it-what ELSE can it do? The body starts to store acid.

Here’s how it works: Understand that the body eliminates acid in several ways-thru the kidneys (urine), lungs (co2 breath and moisture) and skin (sweat). If you are producing too much acid, the body can only get rid of a certain amount of acid a day-AND THAT’S IT!

After that limit is reached, the acid that is not dumped is stored in the body-in the tissues, specifically-making for an unhealthy environment.

So, realizing that all the acid was not dumped-out and that the environment is becoming unhealthy the body then tries to buffer (or neutralize) the acids stored in the tissues to help “sneak” them out of the body. (Remember the body can only dump a certain amount of ‘acid’ day and that is it!)

But, it can neutralize some acid with minerals and dump it as neutral salts! In order to do this, the acid draws its neutralizing minerals from your tissues and organs thereby depleting them of these minerals and weakening them.

As we get older, the damage from years of this type of neutralizing begins to be known thru different aliments and illnesses. (Kidney salts/stones perhaps?)

Also, at some point we start to use up our mineral “reserves”(a misnomer since they are not reserves at all but an integral part of tissues and organs!) and we stop being able to neutralize all of this acid. What happens then is that some of this acid remains in the tissues themselves causing other problems and illnesses. (Skin disorders, burning urination, arthritis, neuritis, colitis perhaps?)

So, if we are acid, what can we do to alkalize our bodies? we can take alkalizing supplements, enzymes, alkaline food/drink and replenish the alkalizing minerals in the body by eating raw foods, as these are all useful to help buffer the acids (neutralize them). This should help the body to restore its perfect PH.

I mean, we can get more complex then this in explaining the PH of the body. And if you wish to understand more about PH there are plenty of books out there such as the one I mentioned above: “The Acid-Alkaline Diet” by Christopher Vasey N.D.

But, this blog is pretty much a layman’s take on the PH of the body-specifically this laymen-ME!

(I also remember: “Alkaline or Die” or “The PH Miracle” to name a couple more books.)

This is such an important subject and I believe that so many aliments and illnesses can be relieved by just changing diet and alkalizing the body! Try it, you might be amazed!

Check on carolalt.com for raw foods, enzymes and other great supplements! (Always check with a doctor!)