Balancing Your pH part2

Wow!

Quite the responses from all of you in talking about this subject , internal pH and balancing your health. Before we jump into why/how it can affect your weight I think first some of you need a better understanding of what the body recognizing as a food being acidic or alkaline actually means… 

You make think its acid but its not

Considering whether a food is acidifying or alkalizing in the diet can require some mind-bending, because some foods that we think of as “acidic” are, in fact, alkalizing in the diet. It’s actually better to look at whether the food isacid–forming or alkaline–forming, not where the food itself falls on the pH scale. So even though we think of citrus as acidic, fruits like lemons and tangerines are alkalizing because when they’re consumed, they break down and donate alkaline mineral salt compounds like citrates and ascorbates.Similarly, foods we might normally think of as meek and mild in nature are acid-forming when ingested. Grains and milk are two examples.

What’s important is not so much the pH of the food as it goes into our bodies, but the resultant pH once the food is broken down — and this is dictated by the residues the broken-down nutrients leave behind, particularly sulfates and phosphates.Below is a chart that will hopefully help you to make better sense of what foods to consume more of or less of.

You will notice that  their are some very healthy foods on the acid side of things; it does not make them bad to eat. Remember that there needs to be a balance between acidic and alkaline not a dominance.

Chart of alkalizing  and acidic foods

Alkalizing vegetables
Alfalfa Barley grass Beets and beet greens Broccoli Cabbage Carrot Cauliflower Celery Cucumber Fermented veggies    (sauerkraut, kim chee) Garlic Green beans Green peas Kale	Kohlrabi Lettuce Mushrooms Nightshade veggies    (tomatoes, peppers,    eggplant, etc.) Onions Peas Pumpkin Radishes Sea veggies Spinach Sprouts Sweet potatoes Wild greens
Alkalizing fruits
Apple Apricot Avocado Banana Berries Cantaloupe Cherries, sour Coconut, fresh Currants Dates, dried Figs, dried Grapes Grapefruit Honeydew melon	Lemon Lime Muskmelons Nectarine Orange Peach Pear Pineapple Raisins Raspberries Rhubarb Strawberries Tangerine Tropical fruits Watermelon
Alkalizing protein
Almonds Chestnuts Millet	Tempeh (fermented) Tofu (fermented) Whey protein powder
Other alkalizing foods
Apple cider vinegar Bee pollen Green juices Lecithin granules	Mineral water Molasses, blackstrap Probiotic cultures Soured (cultured) dairy products
Acidifying vegetables
Corn Olives	Winter squash
Acidifying fruits
Blueberries Canned or glazed fruits Cranberries	Currants Plums Prunes
Acidifying grains
Amaranth Barley Bread Corn Oatmeal	Quinoa Rice Rye Spelt Wheat
Acidifying beans and legumes
Black beans Chick peas Green peas Kidney beans	Lentils Pinto beans Red beans Soy beans White beans
Acidifying dairy
Butter Cheese	Ice cream Milk
Acidifying nuts
Cashews Legumes Peanuts	Pecans Tahini Walnuts
Acidifying animal protein
Bacon Beef Carp Clams Cod Corned beef Fish Haddock Lamb Lobster Mussels Organ meats Oyster	Pike Pork Rabbit Salmon Sardines Sausage Scallops Shellfish Shrimp Tuna Turkey Veal Venison
Acidifying fats and oils
Avocado oil Butter Canola oil Corn oil Flax oil	Hemp seed oil Lard Olive oil Safflower oil Sesame oil Sunflower oil
Acidifying sweeteners
Carob Corn syrup	Sugar
Acidifying alcohol
Beer Hard liquor	Spirits Wine

Now some of this may get a little ‘science-geekish’ on you, but its important to understand!

As food makes its way from your mouth to your stomach, the digestive tract becomes more acidic. Pepsin, the enzyme responsible for protein breakdown, needs an acidic environment and therefore gets released into the stomach, where pH is very low (about 2.0–1.5). Your small intestine is where most of the nutrients in your food get absorbed, and where the pH increases from 2.0 to 6.5 as the food travels from the stomach to the small and large intestines.

Protein — particularly in the form of red meats — requires huge amounts of alkaline minerals for complete digestive processing. When the system goes looking for the alkalinity needed to offset the acid load, it looks first to the minerals currently in the digestive tract. If it fails to find alkaline nourishment there, it draws on the calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium minerals stored in our bones.

This is where the healthy, good for you greens and essential vitamins and minerals come in. When we eat a diet that is rich in nutrients, there’s no need to draw on the stored minerals in the bones. It’s when we don’t consume a nutrient-rich diet — or, worse, when we overconsume foods that promote acidity in the body — that we start tapping our bone resources. In the short-term, this isn’t an issue, but in the long run, it can have serious consequences, not just for our bone health but for our overall health.

Tune in tomorrow for the portion of why this can be affecting your weight…I do believe we’ve chatted long enough today~

Smiles and see you tomorrow!