Alkaline Diet

Most of today’s diets tend to emphasize foods that have an ability to form acid in our bodies.  Balancing those acidifying foods with those that alkalize or even consuming predominantly alkalizing foods can go a long way to making us healthier.  The idea behind this diet is though homeostasis will maintain the blood pH relatively tightly between 7.35 and 7.45, the amount of stress and thus raw materials within our bodies that is used to maintain that pH by our acid base balance systems can be influence by the diet we eat.  In other words, wouldn’t you rather have your organs do something other than fight the acids you eat?  The more acidity the food the more it drives the system and causes certain minerals to be used at increased rates depleting other areas in the process.  The kidney is the prime organ involved as it has most of the responsibility of regulating long term acid base balance.  People who suffer excessive fatigue, muscle soreness and stiffness, bone loss, mineral imbalances, and kidney dysfunction may especially be helped by using this therapeutic diet.  The diet focuses on fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, seeds and tubers while avoiding grains, meat, dairy and salt.  Really though, nothing is off limits with this diet, rather it is the emphasis on consuming many more calories from the alkaline list than the acid list.  

One footnote is that the food in raw form may be acid, but if it’s turned to an alkaline ash when broken down, then it’s ok.  Thus, citrus is actually quite alkaline forming.