Nutrition: What Does pH Have to Do With It?

NUTRITION:  What does pH have to do with it?

There's an exciting free event next week, NUTRITION: What You Need To Know, where you'll be empowered to improve your health by learning to muscle test and understanding how your body processes what you ingest. 

So why should you care how your body processes food?
Let's consider pH. Technically speaking, pH stands for the "power of Hydrogen." Why is hydrogen important?  In order for our cells to function they must communicate with each other through electrons but electrons cannot move in the body without hydrogen. Cells must have oxygen but oxygen does not work without hydrogen. Cells cannot multiply or grow without hydrogen. The very fabric of our being, our DNA, is held together by hydrogen bonds. Hydrogen is literally the fuel of life.

Simplistically speaking, our bodies are composed of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. The pH measures the action of hydrogen and the balance of acidity and alkalinity in our bodies.  Many Americans have an acidic pH below 7.  The optimum pH range for our body is 7.2 to 7.6... slightly alkaline.

Our bodies may be alkaline by design but they're acid by function. We are constantly metabolizing and metabolism creates acid such as cholesterol, uric acid, and acetic acid, which is needed for energy and other biochemical processes. Even with the best diet these acid wastes are unavoidable.  It becomes a matter of balance.

What happens if your pH is low?
The human body has an incredible ability to maintain life no matter what we do to it.  However the compensations it's forced to make come with a price. Having an acidic pH is like driving your car with the oil light on. The car will continue to run without any apparent problem but eventually it will simply stop. To maintain life our blood and cells must defend themselves against acidity.

Calcium and magnesium are two key alkalizing minerals. Fortunately we have what amounts to an alkaline mineral bank in our bones and teeth. To buffer the acid overload the body will make withdrawals from this bank account. While this is effective in the short term, in the long run we see tooth decay and brittle bones.

Another way the body raises blood pH is to solidify acids and deposit them in the tissues. This enables our blood to remain in an acceptable pH range but as these harmful byproducts accumulate, overall pH goes lower, oxygen levels fall, and the seeds of a variety of degenerative diseases are sowed.

This process of gradually depleting minerals from the bones and building up acidic deposits in body tissues is a slow one. For many years we have no symptoms, no clues. Eventually we begin to experience aches and pains and other subtle signs that we associate with getting older.  These are warning signs. Heart and circulatory disease, blood sugar disorders, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue (even cancer) are all directly associated with an acid pH.

So what can you do to maintain your pH?
You are what you eat. Knowing the priority that your body places on proper pH allows you to make more intelligent choices of the food and beverages you ingest. Below is a list of acid and alkaline foods. As you can see, just because a food is acid-forming doesn't necessarily make it unhealthy. In fact, many of the acid foods are necessary for proper health. The bottom line is that we need to eat enough alkalizing foods to help our bodies neutralize the acid-forming foods.  Since acid forming foods are a little stronger, the rule of thumb is about 25% Acid to 75% Alkaline.
 

Acid-Forming Foods  (pH under 7)

• All meat (beef, pork, lamb, chicken) and fish
• Rice (white, brown, or basmati)
• Cornmeal, oats, rye, spelt, wheat, bran
• Popcorn
• Pastas
• Breads and most other grain products like cereals (hot or cold), crackers, pastries
• The following beans (unless sprouted, in which case they become alkaline-producing): pinto, navy, mung, lentils, black, garbanzo, red, white, adzuki, and broad
• Cheese (Parmesan is the worst, along with the sharper cheeses)
• Wheat germ
• The following nuts: walnuts, pecans, cashews, dried coconut (fresh coconut is alkaline-producing), pistachios, macadamias, filberts, Brazil nuts, and peanuts
• Sunflower and pumpkin seeds
• Colas (The phosphorus in cola turns to phosphoric acid and destroys bone
• Alcoholic drinks
• Coffee and other caffeinated drinks
• Sweetened yogurt
• Most forms of sweeteners (artificial sweeteners, cane sugar, beet sugar, barley syrup, processed honey, maple syrup, molasses, fructose, lactose)
• Refined table salt
• Soy sauce
• Mustard (dried powder and processed)
• Ketchup (unless natural and homemade
• Mayonnaise (unless natural and homemade)
• White Vinegar (apple cider and sweet brown rice vinegar are less acid-producing)
• Nutmeg
• Tobacco
• Practically all drugs


Alkalizing Foods  (pH over 7)

• Practically all vegetables
• Practically all fruits with the exception of blueberries, plums, prunes, and cranberries. Even citrus fruits such as lemons, which we think of as being acidic, are alkaline-producing in the body. They are rich in organic salts, like citrates, which are converted into bicarbonates.
• Beans such as string, soy, lima, green, and snap Peas
• Potatoes
• Arrowroot flour
• Grains such as flax, millet, quinoa, and amaranth
• Nuts like almonds, pignoli, fresh coconut, and chestnuts
• Sprouted seeds of alfalfa, radish, and chia
• Un-sprouted sesame
• Fresh unsalted butter
• Milk
• Cream
• Goat's milk
• Eggs
• Whey
• Plain yogurt
• Sweeteners like raw, unpasteurized honey, dried sugar cane juice (Sucanat), brown rice syrup
• Fresh fruit juices
• All fresh vegetable juices
• Most herbal teas
• Garlic
• Cayenne pepper
• Gelatin
• Most all herbs
• Miso
• Most vegetable and unprocessed sea salt
• Most all spices
• Vanilla extract
• Brewer's Yeast
• Most unprocessed, cold-pressed oils are neutral or alkaline-forming

Testing your pH level and, if needed, using an alkaline supplement will go a long way.  Bicarbonate of Soda (Baking Soda) is extremely alkalizing but not recommended for long periods of time and, of course, an alkalizing supplement should never be taken with meals because it may reduce the stomach acid needed for proper digestion.

How fast can you change your pH?
When testing pH, the result is a number from 0 to 14. Neutral is 7 with lower numbers representing an acidic condition and higher representing an alkaline condition.  You can test your pH with litmus paper available in many drug stores simply by wetting the paper with your saliva and matching the color of the paper to a chart.

Shifting pH is not an overnight process. In fact, it is difficult and requires consistent effort. Consider this: It would take 32 eight ounce glasses of highly alkaline water (10 pH) to bring one glass of cola (2.5 pH) to a neutral 7 pH.

The body contains roughly 10 gallons of water. That same glass of cola added to 10 gallons of water with a pH of 7.4 (normal body pH) would bring the overall pH down to 4.6. Fortunately the body has a buffering system that prevents such a severe decline in pH.  If it didn't, drinking cola would literally be fatal.

The point is, taking proactive steps not only to eliminate acidic substances such as soda from our diets but also to assist our bodies by tipping our food intake to the alkaline side is essential.

NUTRITION: What You Need To Know will be detailing other crucial information needed if you are to remain healthy in this upside-down world where nature is vilified and synthetics rule.  Set aside Saturday February 26 from 12:30 - 3:30 to come to Ebenezer United Methodist Church and enjoy meeting Newark's holistic family.  Pre-registration is required for free admittance.  Register Now!

Marie McCaffrey
YOU - Your Own Understanding
angel@altmedangel.com
altmedangel.com