pH Balance

The body should be slightly alkaline in order to build an alkaline reserve for acid-forming conditions such as stress, lack of exercise, or poor dietary habits. The most alkaline-producing foods are the fruits, vegetables, sprouts, cereal grasses, and herbs. Food such as meat, fish, poultry, eggs, most dairy, most grains and legumes, refined sugars, drugs and chemicals are acid forming. When the body is too acidic as a result of these foods, disease and infections proliferate. This is especially the case with arthritic and rheumatic conditions.

When foods are metabolized, acids are produced which are neutralized by the alkaline salts (carbonates) of calcium, magnesium, potassium. and sodium. So our intake of these mineral salts affects our acid/alkaline balance, as does the type of food we eat. Foods containing large amounts of chlorine, phosphorus, sulfur, and nitrogen (most animal products) tend to be acid-forming. Those rich in calcium. potassium, magnesium, and sodium, (most vegetables) tend to be alkaline-forming. Nearly all fresh fruit, vegetables, and legumes are alkaline-forming. Exceptions include butter beans and broad beans, asparagus, olives, and mustard and cress.

The over-acid person is grouchy, sensitive, and exhausted, inclined to aches and pains, headaches, problems with sleeping, and acidity of the stomach. When excessive amounts of acid can't be buffered, due to a lack of alkaline reserves, the gastric secretions of the parietal cells diminish and bile becomes acidic, and pancreatic enzymes become ineffective at breaking down food into micronutrients. The acidification and resulting congestion of bile results in a blockage of liver detoxification functions and lymphatic congestion. The resultant biliary dyskinesia commonly causes an insufficiency of pancreatic enzyme and insulin production that results in exhaustion of one or more endocrine glands, low blood sugar, diabetes and many other degenerative disorders.

Alkalizing Support