Benefits of Acidic Food

If you are fond of eating high fatty foods or acid-forming foods, think again.

It is a medical fact that disease thrive in environments with high levels of acidity.  Foods included in the acid-forming category can cause the beginning of weight problem and obesity, osteoporosis and/or arthritis, different types of skin disorder and the worst cancer.  It can also result in hyper-acidity, acid reflux disease, stomach ulcers, insomnia, irregular bowel movement due to constipation, water retention, cramps, headaches, joint and muscle pain, fatigue, spasms and depression due to low energy levels.

There are very little benefits of acidic food it gives the body; indulging into too many acid-forming foods can compromise your stamina, limit your strength, impair your digestion and weaken the immune system.  In our everyday life, acid-forming foods are all over us, we are surrounded by it, they are easily available, are convenient and inexpensive.  The most popular factor why people consume more acid-forming foods is that they are delicious, appetizing and addicting.  These are foods we find in fast food restaurants, vending machines, convenience store, school cafeteria, food trucks and small mom and pop eatery.

Acid-forming foods are not all bad for our health but excessive consumption is.  There should be a balance of acid-forming and alkaline-forming foods in our daily meals; the ideal ratio is 70 to 80% of alkaline food and 20 to 30% acid foods.  Alkaline food diet helps restore the balance between acidity and alkalinity of the body’s pH level.  The pH level of our blood is tightly regulated by a complex system that is continuously at work to maintain a range of 7.35 to 7.45, which is slightly more alkaline than pure water.  When the pH of our blood falls below 7.35, the result will lead to a condition known as acidosis.  Acidosis is a state that leads to central nervous system depression. Severe acidosis is where the pH of blood falls below 7.00.  This level is dangerous and can cause serious illness that may lead to death.  When the pH of your blood rises above 7.45, the result will lead to a condition known as alkalosis. Severe alkalosis can cause all the nerves in our body to be hypersensitive and over-excitable, often resulting in muscle spasms, nervousness, and convulsions.  Convulsion is dangerous and should not be taken lightly if it happens.

Moderation in everything is the key to healthy living, acid foods are not bad.  What make it not so popular among health enthusiast are the effects it gives the body due to over consumption.  If we keep the balance in our diet then we can from time to time reward ourselves with a slice of chocolate cake, a glass of Italian wine and a bite of your favorite hamburger!

Easy Alkaline Diet Recipes

Easy alkaline recipes is composed of a meal planned with foods high in alkaline content after the body has digested the food.  It supports the principles of following a seventy to eighty percent alkaline forming foods and twenty to thirty percent acid-forming foods.  These easy alkaline diet recipes are abundantly available and are commonly found in our favorite grocers and health food stores.  These foods are fresh, raw, green leafy vegetables and freshly grown, organic fruits, legumes and nuts.  The human bloodstream must stay slightly alkaline, but too much alkalinity is also dangerous; we must maintain a balance pH level for a vibrant health.  There are several ways to maintain a healthy balance our of body and prevent the start of diseases, these are:

1. Hydrate your Body -  drink eight to ten glasses of alkaline or distilled water everyday to flush acids faster out of our body.  This practice will help dilute the urine to prevent stones from forming inside our kidneys.
2. Boost pH Balance -  reduce the amount of foods classified as acid-forming using the alkaline-acid chart.  High protein diets produce lots of acids inside the body, these acids are the seeds to stones forming.
3. Limit the Sodium in your Diet – diets high in sodium can reduce your body’s loss of calcium
4. Eat a lot of citrus fruits -  citric acids in citrus fruits is not bad aci like uric acid or phosphoric acid.  It helps to break up the formation of stones that have already formed inside the body. Make it a habit to squeeze lemon into the alkaline water you drink on a daily basis.
5. Make it a habit to test your pH level – a daily test of your pH level will help monitor the pH range in your blood. You will want to do your best to keep it at above 6.5 to stay at the perfect pH range.

These are healthy habits you want to practice everyday in your life to ensure a well functioning body free of ailments, pains and aches.

Benefits of Alkaline Body

A person’s body is the greatest creation of the Almighty and the most complicated creation at that.  It is composed of different organs created to do different job but are required to work together as one.  The energy that the body needs comes from food we eat on a daily basis; these foods are digested and burned to release energy to be used for all the various bodily functions.  The human blood is normally at 7.3 pH range which is more on the alkaline side of the pH scale.  In order to keep a healthy and well functioning body, we need to consume 80% alkaline food and 20% acidic foods.

There are so many benefits of alkaline body such as the ability to combat disease due to superior immune system, strong bones and muscles that supports everyday activity, efficient digestive system that helps support proper food absorption of the body.  Alkaline food should be consumed in abundance; these foods are mostly green raw leafy vegetables, fresh and organic fruits, nuts and legumes.  A diet that follows the 80-20 alkaline to acid ratio is very beneficial to the proper function of the body’s vital organs most especially the brain.  The brain is the most powerful and dominant organ of the human body; the brain monitors and regulates the body’s actions and reactions. It receives sensory information then it rapidly analyzes the data and responds by controlling bodily reactions to this stimulus. The brainstem controls breathing, heart rate, and other autonomic processes that are independent of conscious brain functions. The neocortex is the center of higher-order thinking, learning, and memory while the cerebellum is responsible for the body’s balance, posture, and coordinated movement. Brain metabolism is dependent upon blood glucose as an energy source, since fatty acids do not cross the blood-brain barrier.  A healthy brain promotes a healthy body, mind and soul; to achieve this we must feed our body food that will promote alkalinity, exercise regularly and drink six to eight glasses of alkaline water every day.

High Alkaline Foods

A group of medical experts have published studies that shows high alkaline foods are beneficial to our health and well-being.  Eating a diet high in alkaline food can prevent the occurrence of disease developing in our body.

So you are ready to step forward, change your eating lifestyle such as alkaline food and stick with it.  What are the things you need to remember for an effective change to occur in your body?

Follow the 80-20 rule

Eat a diet of fifty to eighty percent high alkaline foods per day. This is your goal to maintain an alkaline pH level on your bloodstream.  It would be difficult at start but begin your new eating habits by consuming more organic fruits and vegetables everyday.

Buy alkaline forming vegetables

Switch to high alkaline forming vegetables like asparagus, onions, raw spinach leaves, broccoli, garlic, and parsley. Try to eat at least two to three servings of these veggies.

Buy alkaline forming fruits

Switch to high alkaline forming fruits such as lemons, limes, watermelon, grapefruit, mangos, papayas, blackberries, cranberries, blueberries. Try to eat two to three servings of these alkaline foods everyday to achieve the 80-20 ratio. Although lemons and limes are considered as acidic, when consumed, these fruits change and results in providing alkalizing effect on the body.

Use alkaline forming oils

Switch to high alkaline forming oils when preparing your meals, use extra virgin olive oil, flaxseed oil and grapes seed oil. Make use of these oils whenever you cooked anything requiring cooking oils, or use it to make home-made salad dressings.

Drink Green Juice

Drink high alkaline forming beverages instead of soda. These beverages include herbal green tea, alkaline water, spring water with lemon and juice extracts from wheatgrass, barley grass, oat grass mixed with organic fruits and nutritional supplements like spirulina.  You will experience a unique feeling of goodness as your body eliminates all the toxic in your system.

Alkaline Water Ionizer

Water is very essential to regulate bodily function and activity.  The human body is estimated to contain sixty to seventy percent water, we need to drink eight to ten glasses of water because the body needs it to maintain correct body temperature, provide the means for nutrients to travel to all our internal organs.  Water is responsible for the transportation of oxygen to our cells, waste removal, and it provides protection of the body’s joints and internal organs.

Types of Water

Raw Water – comes from natural source as it is obtained from municipal sources suitable for drinking purposes such as potable water.  It is freshly drawn from the ground source or collected from the natural source.

Purified water – once the water has undergone a process that involves treatment and the eradication of physical, chemical and microbiological impurities it becomes purified water.  This type of water can be produced by various treatment procedures like ion-exchange, reverse osmosis, electro de-ionization and ultra filtration.

Ionized water – water ionization is a process of exchange of electric ions.  Water can be ionized through the use of alkaline water ionizer; these will result in de-mineralized water that may contain little or no minerals.  This water is now popularly known as alkaline water.

Modern technology has provided household consumer to improve the quality of their drinking water through filtration to deliver optimum benefits to our health.  Water purification can be achieved by using various types and grades of water filters.  These filters are designed for specific types of water contaminants.  The process of filtration involve the removal of impurities, suspension of particulates and micro organisms; impurities removed by specific water filters may range from bacteria, inorganic chemicals, viruses, organic chemicals, pesticides, pollens and heavy metals.  Filtration can removed all these impurities by it cannot filter out soluble minerals.  This is what makes water ionization as the most efficient way of purifying drinking water.  A water ionizer is a small kitchen appliance that is capable of ionizing the water, producing both alkaline and acidic water.  It is built and set up to contain both water filter and water ionizer.  The ionizer unit contains activated carbon filter to remove soluble materials like chlorine and fluoride; the water passes thru a positive and negative electrodes for ionization to take place then water gets separated into alkaline and acidic water stream.  The alkaline water is used for drinking water while the acidic water can be utilized as cleansing agent.

Apple Cider Vinegar Alkaline

The human body is the greatest architecture of God composed of various vital organs and body parts that are made of cells and tissues.  The cells and tissues are composed of sixteen chemical elements.  The equilibrium of the sixteen chemical elements in the body is a significant factor in the body’s health and healing from diseases.

The alkaline and acid balance plays an important role in this body equilibrium.  All food taken inside the body leave an acid ash or alkaline ash after digestion or absorption based on their mineral composition.  The normal body chemistry is composed of eighty percent alkaline and twenty percent acid.  This is what health advocates call the acid-base balance.  Changing your diet to include a majority of fruits and vegetables supports the alkaline food diet system.  Thus, our daily diet should consist of four-fifth of alkaline-forming foods like organic fruits, tubers, legumes, leafy and root vegetables and one fifth of acid-forming foods to include lean protein and low carbohydrates.

Apple cider vinegar alkaline content has been proven through the years and is considered a powerful homeopathic remedy for various types of diseases and bodily problems.  ACV is packed with minerals as well as elements like calcium, potassium, phosphorous, magnesium, silicon, sulfur, copper, chlorine, sodium, iron and fluorine.  ACV and apple juice alkaline nutrients are excellent for those wanting to speed up weight loss, clean out arteries and veins, reduce bad cholesterol levels and combat hyper acidity.  This combination is high in vitamin B1, B2, B6, A, E, C, P (bioflavonoids), Petins and Beta Carotene.  Fruit pectins found in ACV are good source of fiber that helps regulate blood pressure and  cholesterol levels.  ACV can help extract calcium from the fruits or vegetable it is mixed with that helps promote strong and sturdy bones.  ACV is packed with potassium which is important to prevent deficiencies that can cause hair loss, brittle finger nails and teeth and sinusitis.  And the most important benefit of ACV is that it helps restore acid-base balance in the body. ACV is an acidic solution but has an alkalizing effect on the body once digestion or absorption has occurred.

Apple Juice Alkaline

In general, alkaline food have the full power to offset the pH effect of acid-forming foods in the body.  People who are very fond of consuming acidic foods can develop acidosis.  Acidosis is a condition in which there is an excessive level of acid in the body.  This can cause loss of the mineral calcium that is wholly responsible for bone health and loss of muscular mass.  A body that is acidic can affect the immune system by decreasing its resistance and vitality. Food or things that are high in acid content include meat, dairy, grains, pasta, fish, coffee, soda, alcohol and tobacco. To maintain a healthy pH level, it is recommended that eighty percent of your daily diet should consist of foods high in alkaline content and the remaining twenty percent from acid forming foods.  A balance between alkalinity and acidity should be maintained in order to have a healthy, well functioning body.

Below is a list of food and their category

Vegetables – most vegetables are slightly alkaline; spinach is the one vegetable with the highest alkaline content, celery is second, carrots is third.  Although spinach will lost fifty percent of its alkalinity if cooked, steamed, and blanched or sautéed.  Spinach must be eaten raw and fresh in preserve its full alkaline-forming power.

Fruits – raisins have the most alkaline content among fruits.  Next to raisins are black currant, then bananas comes third.  Most fruits fall between (1.9) and (4.8) PRAL making the fruit category from slightly alkaline to very alkaline.  Fruit juice made from fresh fruits are considered alkaline-forming beverage.  Apple juice alkaline content is (2.2) in terms of PRAL calculation.

Beverages – red wine is the most alkaline beverage with a PRAL of (2.4), mineral water is second with a (1.8) PRAL followed by coffee.  White wine, tea, cocoa and draft beer are all considered alkaline beverage in terms of PRAL calculation.

Nuts – nuts are considered healthy snacks but out of all the nuts in the world, only hazelnut is alkaline-forming with a PRAL value of (2.8)

To determine the Potential Renal Acid Load or PRAL of food, calculate the amount of protein, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and calcium content of each food individually.  The United States Department of Agriculture or USDA has a website that publishes all the nutritional values of a wide variety of foods and drinks.

Input the values into the fields below to discover if the food you like to eat has acid-forming or alkaline-forming potentials based on the data you will find from the USDA National Nutrient Database.  If your result is a positive value, these foods are acid forming while a negative value is indicative of alkaline-forming potential.

Protein (g)

Phosphorus (mg)

Potassium (mg)

Magnesium (mg)

Calcium (mg)

PRAL

In a perfect world, your daily meal should be slightly alkaline; this can be accomplished by adding up the PRAL scores of alkaline and acidic foods and adding them to each other. If the net amount is a negative number then you have succeeded in following an alkaline food diet.

Alkaline Foods for Baby Boy

Medical proponents and supports of the alkaline food diet claims there are evidence to support that consuming foods high in alkaline nutrients can affect the baby’s gender.

Is there a direct relationship of the body’s pH level and the getting pregnant likewise influencing the baby’s gender to conceive a boy?

The practice of healthy eating is for everybody not just for women planning to get pregnant and eats alkaline foods for baby boy conception.  Although most mothers would want that kind of control and be able to choose the baby’s gender at the time of conception.  There are some ideas on the internet that supports it but we must be careful not to believe in everything we read especially on the world wide web.

1. Maintain a perfect pH balance  - our body’s pH level is directly influence by the food we eat.  To conceive a baby boy your body should not be too acidic nor too alkaline.  If the woman trying to be pregnant has greater consumption of acid-forming foods then her body gets too acidic which can weaken the “boy sperm” .  The acid content can reduce the ability of the boy sperm to survive in the woman’s uterus.  Eating more fresh fruits and raw vegetables are examples of alkaline food that are excellent whether your trying to get pregnant or not but if you are avoid acid rich food, meat and whole grains to keep your body alkalinize.

2. Eat foods high in potassium and sodium to conceive a baby boy.  An easy, nourishing and healthy way to provide potassium in our body is to eat bananas.  Bananas have high potassium content.  Other foods rich in both sodium and potassium are raisins, nuts, figs, baked potatoes with skin on.  The combination of sodium and potassium increases your chance of having a baby boy while diets high in magnesium and calcium result in having a baby girl.

Others claim that timing of conception, couple’s position and day of ovulation affects the possible gender of your baby.  For most women, it is more important to focus on having a healthy baby but in some cultures a baby boy means a lot, it ensure the continuity of the family name and legacy.

Alkaline Foods Apple Cider Vinegar

Apple Cider Vinegar or ACV is considered by many as a folk remedy but has in recent years become popular and well-known starting in the late 50’s.  Vinegar is a by-product of fermentation, which is a process by which sugars in food are broken down with the use of bacteria and yeast.  Sugars are turned to alcohol in the first stage of the fermentation process, when the alcohol ferments further the result is vinegar.  Apple cider vinegar is made by crushing or pulverizing apples and squeezing out the liquid.  By adding yeast, the liquid from the apples will start the fermentation process, which will turn the sugars into alcohol.  As the second fermentation process begins, the alcohol is converted by acetic acid-forming bacteria into vinegar.  Acetic acid and malic acid give vinegar its sour taste.

Proponents of the use of apple cider vinegar considers this liquid a miracle solution and have the ability to treat numerous diseases, health conditions and afflictions.  Apple cider vinegar supposedly has the ability to kill head lice, reverse aging, ease digestion difficulty and clear your body of toxins.  Most of these claims do not have sufficient support or backing of medical organization and experts because the studies and experiments conducted failed to provide such evidence of effective remedy.  Although apple cider vinegar does not have a great taste, it does come with many good nutrients helpful to rid the body of toxic elements.  Health enthusiasts who practice clean living use a chart that lists food category by its ability to maintain a good pH level.  In the category of alkaline food, apple cider vinegar is listed as something that can effectively alkalize the human body. Alkaline food consists of fresh and organic fruits, green leafy vegetables such as lettuce, spinach, beet greens – the greener the vegetable the higher the level of alkalinity it can deliver to the body after digestion.  A diet with a ratio of eighty percent alkaline-forming foods and twenty percent acid-forming foods will provide you the best chance for a healthy pH balance.

Alkaline Broth Recipe

Below is a compilation of alkaline broth recipes that are inexpensive, easy to prepare, appetizing and good for the body and soul.  These soups follow the principle of alkaline recipes and uses fresh, raw and organic vegetables, alkaline forming herbs and spices.

Vegetable Broth

Ingredients

2 cups	Spinach
2 cups	Broccoli heads
2 qrts	Alkaline water if available or distilled water
3 cups	Celery stalks
2 cups	Organic red potatoes (peeled and sliced)
1 pc	Zucchini

Cooking Preparation

Chop all the vegetables into very small pieces; place them in a casserole together with the alkaline or distilled water.  Bring to a boil then lower the heat to simmer for another half an hour.  Strain the liquid.  The broth when refrigerated can last up to three days and a few months if kept in the freezer.

Vegetable Cleansing Broth

Ingredients

4 pcs	Carrots (cut in small squares)
4 pcs	Celery stalks
4 pcs	Radish (red)
1 pc	Beet (cut and quartered)
1 pc	Leek (tops cut off)
4 pcs	Okra (cut in half)
2 inch	Burdock roots
3 pcs	Red potatoes (cut)
½ head	Green cabbage
3 pcs	1-inch chunk of peeled ginger root
2 pcs	Green onions
2 tbsp	Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 cloves	Fresh garlic
2 pcs	Cucumbers (cut)
	Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar
	Handful of green beans
	Handful of fresh parsley
	Sea salt to taste
	Cayenne pepper to taste
	Shavings of turmeric root or dash of turmeric powder

Cooking Preparation

Wash all vegetables well before cutting; put all ingredients in a slow-cooker.  Set the heat on low and let the broth cook for twenty-four hours.  The next day, strain all the vegetables and keep the vegetable cleansing broth in a pitcher or storage container.  Use the cleansing broth as a tonic drink hot or cold.  You can add lean chicken breast to provide protein content to this powerful soup that will help cleanse your body by getting rid of free radicals in the blood.