You eat to maximize your fiber. You eat for omega-3s. Well, there's another way to figure out what to put on your plate and what to avoid: the pH your food produces.
Foods that fall on the alkaline side of the pH scale offer many health benefits. Along with fighting inflammation, which is thought to lead to heart disease and some cancers, alkaline-producing foods can help maintain bone density and muscle mass. It is not the food's pH measurement that counts, but what happens to its acidity level during digestion. If a food increases the acidity of your urine, it is considered an acid-producing food. For instance, orange juice is an acidic food source but becomes alkaline as it is metabolized, while cheddar cheese is considerably more acidic than Camembert.
I am not advocating giving up all acid-producing foods — I love cheese too much — but you can make some healthy swaps, which will diversify your diet as well.
To see my ideas, read more.
Alkaline-Producing Foods |
Acid-producing foods |
| Plain yogurt | Hard cheeses |
| Green tea | Cola |
| Hazelnuts | Peanuts |
| Orange juice | Cranberry juice |
| Quinoa | Brown rice |
| Mangoes | Prunes |
| Raw spinach | Cooked spinach |
I have a few friends with inflammatory issues in their digestive tracts, and increasing their intake of alkaline-producing foods has improved their symptoms. Do you pay attention to the pH level your diet creates?
PPQ
Marithe' F. Girbaud
Matthew Williamson
I'm a little bit confused. Is hard cheese acidic or an akaline producer? I have a feeling that yogurt and hard cheeses were switched in the lists.
I ask because I love hard cheeses as well! I do love yogurt as well.
1In fact both plain yogurt and hard cheese is acidic. And even orange juice is acidic. Fresh squeezed grapefruit juice would be the ticket in the juice category. In fact most water is acidic, yes even our tap and bottled waters. I find way too many different views on what people think is alkaline vs acidic. The best rule is of it's green, it's alkaline. And raw is going to pack the most alkaline. But I will agree that a alkaline diet and lifestyle will change your life. You will feel like a new person. Read books with real life success stories of people over coming disease.
2My love of cheese blinded me. Yes you should more yogurt and less cheese. I just fixed the chart and sorry for the confusion.
3To be honest, I don't buy into the whole food pH thing. Your digestive tract is all buffered by your body's natural stomach acid, bile, etc. And unless you're eating your food one item at a time, it all gets mixed together in your stomach anyway. So if you eat an "acidic" food and an "alkaline" food at the same time, do they cancel each other out? I just try to eat lots of fresh veggies, fruit, yogurt, nuts, and whole grains.
Incidentally, your body will respond pretty quickly if the pH level of your gut gets messed up. If the contents of the stomach empty too quickly into the intestine, your gall bladder can't buffer it fast enough and the acid level will cause your intestines to empty really quickly and you'll be in the bathroom in about 5 minutes. It happens a lot with elderly people whose pyloric sphincters get weak and "leaky".
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