Alkaline V Acidic (80/20) - As seen on A Lust For Life
I originally had this on A Lust For Life website.
The founder of the cause of cancer and Noble prize winner Dr. Otto H Warburg, said “no disease including cancer, can exist in an alkaline environment”.
Your bloods PH sits at slightly alkaline level of 7.365. The harder it has to work to maintain this level the more stress it causes on the body.
The majority of the food that we eat nowadays is more acidic and acidic forming meaning that the body will be at a higher level of acidity. There are a lot of people walking around in a chronic state of acidosis. I liken this to a ticking time bomb. It leaves your body open to more illnesses and diseases. You might be reading this and thinking you need to be eating 100% Alkaline foods. Like everything, we need a balance. The balance between these two should be a ratio of 80/20 - 80% Alkaline to 20% Acidic.
Getting back to Dr. Warburg, he found out that oxygen deficiency leads to an acidic state. He also found that cancer cells are anaerobic (meaning they live without oxygen) and cannot survive in the presence of high levels of oxygen. An alkaline state is to have high levels of oxygen. Dr. Warburg found that if you “Deprive a cell 35% of its oxygen for 48 hours and it may become cancerous.”
You can decide from the chart below how acidic or alkaline your last meal was. A nice ham and cheese sandwich for example will be close to 100% acidic. An excessive state of acidic PH can lead to many serious health problems and drastically accelerate ageing.
The reason behind this is because parasite, bad bacteria, viruses and candida (thrush) love and excel in acidic environments. On the contrary, an alkaline environment neutralises bacteria and other pathogens.
There are two types of acid and alkaline foods;
One is acid or alkaline foods, which means how much acid or alkaline the foods contain.
The other is acid or alkaline forming foods, which means the acid or alkaline forming ability of foods to affect the body or to say differently, the pH condition foods cause in the body after being digested. This is the one that will be the focus in changing the body’s pH.
Improved Muscle Function
Ageing is something that everyone wants to slow down. Age related muscle wasting can be slowed down with an alkaline diet.
A three-year study looking at a diet rich in potassium, such as fruits and vegetables, as well as a reduced acid load, resulted in preservation of muscle mass in older men and women. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2597402/).
An acidic condition inhibits nerve action and an alkalinity stimulates nerve action. This is a similar action to foods that turn on and off your genetic adaption which I will get into in another article.
A study by Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise showed that using
“sodium bicarbonate prior to exhaustive exercise resulted in significantly less acidosis in the blood than those that were not supplemented with sodium bicarbonate.”.
Basically his means that using bicarb soda before exercise will act like a buffer for lactic acid (that feeling where you muscles want to explode and stop working)
Some studies have shown that a higher alkaline diet reduces back pain. The reasoning is due to the muscle wasting as we get older. Alkaline supplementation reduces age related muscle waisting.
High-protein diets may also affect bone health but some protein is also needed for good bone health. Muscle wasting however seems to be reduced with an alkaline diet.
An increase in intracellular magnesium, which is required for the function of many enzyme systems, is another added benefit of the alkaline diet. Available magnesium, which is required to activate vitamin D, would result in numerous added benefits in the vitamin D apocrine/exocrine systems.
Does Lifestyle Factors Effect Your PH?
Yes. Stress, too much exercise, and environmental pollution are just three examples of how your body has to fight to keep your PH levels balanced. The harder your body has to fight to keep the balance the more susceptible it is to illnesses, diseases, or injury. Every single illness and disease is from too much stress. Whether its too much stress on a muscle, or too much stress on the heart. These excessive patterns create something called “oxidative stress”. This is when the body has an imbalance between the rate of production and the rate of removal of free radicals.
TIP - try not to consume anti-oxidant foods for a few hours after hard exercise as it can actually hinder the bodies ability to remove the oxidants.
Lemons and Lime Taste Acidic, So Should I Stay Away From Them?
No. Taste is deceiving when it comes to acidic and alkaline. Acidic tasting foods doesn't necessarily mean that they are acid forming in the body. For example, a lemon is alkaline but it tastes acidic. The best thing to do is not mix up tastes and functions in this scenario.
Sea and Soil
The PH of the sea has decreased in over the last 100 years due to increased industrialisation, and increased CO2 deposition. The soil in which we grow our fruit and veg has been compromised.
Balance
Like everything else in life, the ultimate goal is about getting the balance right.
Eating too many alkalising foods can lead to its own fair share of complications over time, but the risk of this is seemingly less likely, given the current sorry state of today's highly addictive consumerist diet.
Homemade Alkaline Drink
Filtered Water
Bicarb Soda (baking soda)
Lemon
My Top 6 Alkaline Foods (based on taste and ease of consuming and buying)
Root Vegetables - usually have higher nutrients then other veg.
Cruciferous vegetables - broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower
Lemons and Limes - squeeze into water
Leafy Greens - Its coming into summer so you can stock up on salads!
Garlic - It works in nearly every sort of dish. So throw it in.
Spices (chilli, cumin, turmeric etc) - Again, these turn a boring dish into something you look forward to eating.
