Acid Base Balance

Alternative Health Treatments - Acid Base Balance

produce stand (alakine forming produce)

Eating more fruits and vegetables generally makes your body more alkaline. While many alternative health advocates think alkaline diets are best, I'm not so sure. When I stared using pH paper my family was all too alkaline, which can hamper absorption of minerals. I started serving more pH balanced meals, inlcuding more acidic meats, and some of our health issues cleared up. So I think the key lies in true pH balance: not going to one diet extreme or the other.

One of the important concepts I have learned from my holisitc health books has been the importance of eating foods to properly balance your pH levels. Interestingly, most doctors ignore the concept of ph balance, but then write out massive amounts of prescriptions each year for anti-acid medications. Based on my experience, I suspect that most of these prescriptions would be unnecessary if people just paid more attention to their diets and ate more alkaline forming food. You can monitor the pH of your urine of saliva with a special pH paper.

A few years ago one of my children was having problems with an over acid stomach. We took him to many different doctors and non seemed to be able to help, even the holisitc doctors we tried. In searching the Internet I found information on a Ayurveda web site on how to relieve an acid stomach. My son followed this diet and in a few days he was fine, after being ill for months. He even had to be home schooled for awhile he had been so sick. He would complain of head aches, nausea, an acid stomach and night sweats. At night he was so hot he could sleep because he was burning up. Then in the morning he was too tired to go to school from being up all night. You could tell he was really ill because his head would get all sweaty every evening.

The Ayurvedic diet site recomended alkaline forming foods for his symptoms. These included cabbage, brocolli, milk and bananas. We gave him lots of these foods and within a few days he was fine. He actually didn;t eat too much cabbage because it is n;t a favorite food, but he would tolerate the broccoli and had no problem with the bananas and milk. In hind sight he probably would have been better off without the milk, but overall the diet still helped him recover.

Even though it isn't one of the most alkaline vegetables around, cabbage seems to have some ingredients that suppress stomach acid. Traditionally cabbage juice has been a home remedy for ulcers and acid indigestion for many years. Modern day scientists are calling it vitamin U, for an anti-ulcer ingredient.

Acid and Alkaline Forming Foods

Food that are acid forming are most grains, meats, cheese and beans. Cultured food like yogurt are specially acid forming because the acid forming "good" bacteria they contain. I've noticed that if I eat too much yogurt I'll get nausuas from an over acid stomch. While yogurt is good at killing many types of harmful bacteria, I also think it is possibl to get too much of a good thing. Most fruits and vegetables are alkaline forming, with a few exceptions like corn, prunes, plums and cranberries.

For an over acid stomach, some of the best foods to eat seem to be potatoes, cabbage, bananas and brocolli. Mineral water also seems to help. My kids favorite home remedy for an acid stomach in an Izzy soda. I think it help because it is made with mineral water and fruit juice, which tend to be alkaline forming foods.