Alkaline Foods
What In The World Is An Alkaline Food?
Foods are classified as acid forming or alkalizing. Once you have eaten your food, and it is digested, it tends to make the body either acidic or alkaline. This may be quite different from the acidity or alkalinity of the food itself. Citrus fruits which are known to be acidic actually make your body alkaline after they are digested.
How Do I Know Which Food Is Alkaline/Acidic?
This can be determined by testing the urine sample in a laboratory after a meal or by burning the food and testing the pH of the ash in a lab; pH is the acid/alkaline scale for any solution including body fluids – pH ranges between 0-14 with 0 being highly acidic. Your ideal body pH level is around 7.4 or 7.5. So if a food, after digestion, tends to increase the acidity of the urine it is acid forming food; conversely it is alkaline forming food if it increases the alkalinity.
How Will Alkaline Food Affect My Diet?
As with everything in life, an optimum balance is important. If your body tends to sway too much either way you will end up feeling sick and distressed. Since the pH of your blood is 7.4, it means that it is slightly alkaline. So it makes sense that our diet should veer towards the alkalizing foods. However, today’s fast food diets which are high on sugar tend to upset the balance and make our bodies more acidic. This can result in heartburn, belching, bloating, and symptoms like insomnia, water retention, migraine, constipation and bad breath.
So What Is The Solution?
Balance your diet. Ideally your diet should be made up of 4 parts of alkaline forming foods to one part acid or, in a ratio of 2:1 if you are an elderly or otherwise sedentary individual. The rule of thumb for this diet ratio is 75-80% should be alkalizing and 20-25% acid forming. The large base of your diet should be raw fruits and vegetables because other than a few exceptions, they are alkaline to the body.
You can also get a pH test done using a kit, but mostly that’s going a bit too far unless advised by your doctor.
Which Foods are Alkaline?
Potatoes, most green veggies( raw or cooked), corn, brazil nuts, chestnuts, dried fruits, most citrus fruits, almond milk, avocadoes, figs, dates, mushrooms, wheatgrass etc. are some of the alkaline forming foods. The list is endless; just remember that you don’t need to go overboard on these foods – just keep a good proportion of them in your daily meals and cut out on the junk and sugary foods as much as possible.
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