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EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW HOW TO "JUMP START YOUR LIFE"
AND DID NOT KNOW WHO HAD THE JUMP CABLE
LIFE BATTERY IS LOW, TRY ALKALIZING
:
IN SUMMARY:
Diet is wonderful, when at least 80% is from alkaline and 20% from acid.
Diet is especially great, if the majority of the alkaline foods are live or
raw - since in raw state, the mineral bioavailability is well over 20 times
higher, as well as bio-chemical metabolic activity is much higher. Organic
food have a much higher alkalizing effect than inorganic.
To alkalize,
1. organic greens, all sea vegetables, root & fruit (cucumber, pepper
...)vegetables
2. All sprouted seeds, and soaked over night raw nuts and seeds.
3. All enzymatically active algae from lakes and ocean.
4. All organic tree ripened fruit
5. Raw milks
6. Raw vegetable and grass juice
ALKALIZING INFLUENCE
1. Water - flush out acids
2. Enzymes - support digestion, prevents souring of starches and rotting
acidifying effect on protein.
3. Adequate rest
4. Peaceful thoughts, meditation and prayer
ACIDIFYING INFLUENCES
1. All cooked animal protein. Though in N and S Poles., people have been
known to live healthy lives on raw flesh into the 90’s, then dying from
acidosis.
2. Acid Red sauces (has vinegar, tomato, and or lemon), commonly used
with pasta, spaghetti. and other starches.
Acids when combined with starches, quite often, even when adding enzymes with
meals, will be acidifying due to the souring of the starches- with a burning
acid feeling in stomach. Best to use whole grain products and never combine
with acids, instead add olive oil, spice and sea salt, other cooked
vegetables.
3, All bottled fruit and vegetable drinks - use Ascorbic and other acids as a
preservative.
4. All processed foods; including most cooked foods
5. Inadequate rest and water
6. Alcoholic beverages
7. All fermented foods
8. Pro-biotics - create lactic acids. They are not a problem when a person has
high alkaline reserves, however, if one already has a compromised system,
where there is ongoing headaches, migraines and other ongoing aches, such
individuals would find the probiotic lactic acid generated, as being too
much. The lactic acid can be beneficial contributors to that 20% acidity of
ones diet which ones body can tolerate.
9. Ascorbic acids and many of the isolate B-complex vitamins
10. Excessive cold water intake - with food in stomach. Too much water, can
reduce digestive juice concentration. Cold and excess water, can effects
enzyme action leading to indigestion and acid souring. Enzymes function best
at body temperature.
Water - upon arise, as well as when stomach is EMPTY, one can drink as much as
needed to satisfy thirst. Then need to wait, till digestive energy is up, and
it might take 30 to 60 min. During the day, take a total of living fluids from
juice and pure water, where by one ingest at least 1 oz of , per 2 pound of
body weight (so a 140# person, can do well on about 3 quarts of fluid intake.
11. Acid air and acid water --- You have heard of 'Acid Rain'.
If you are in an over acid condition, the ingestion of starches, can easily
create indigestion (since the starch amylase enzyme digestion takes optimally
in an alkaline environment). Furthermore, most folks have digestive stress
where starch is combined with acid (even if the acid - vinegar, lemon, tomato
-was only in the side salad). Furthermore, for optimal health benefit do not
take probiotics with starchy meals - best at bedtime, on empty stomach or with
fruit, salad or a protein meal.
Please note. The more acidic you are, the more you will crave acidic foods,
until you bring the body into a more alkaline condition. The situation is
similar to an alcoholic craves daily intake of alcohol, as well as cigarette
smoker craves the nicotine, coffee drinker craves the daily caffeine etc. An
acid person craves acid. So just reduce the acids and increase the alkaline
foods and eventually not only will you have more energy, but you will find
distaste for the acid foods.
ACID ALKALINE BALANCE
By Viktoras Kulvinskas MS
In all my teachings, I have stressed that optimal health is not
assured by eating just any kind of vegetarian diet but that eating a high
nutritional density, high enzyme, low protein, low fat vegetarian diet is
closer to our species-specific biological needs. In this article we will
focus on the critical importance of choosing our foods based on their
ability to maintain proper acid alkaline balance in the body.
Let us first define alkalinity, acidity and pH. The measure of acidity or
alkalinity of a food or body fluid is expressed by the term pH. The pH of
a solution is a measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions present in
it. The more hydrogen ions present in a solution or body secretion, the
more acid is the fluid. The less hydrogen ions present, the more alkaline
is the fluid.
Scientists set up a numerical scale from 0 to 14 to measure pH.
If a solution is 7 on this scale, its pH is neutral. Any number below 7
is acid. Any number above 7 is alkaline. This numerical scale used by
scientists and health practitioners is based on a mathematical logarithm.
What this means is that a pH of 5 is one hundred times more acid
than a pH of 6. A pH of 4 is one hundred times more acid than a pH of 5.
Analogously, a pH of 9 is a hundred more times alkaline than a pH of 8.
Normal human blood must maintain a pH balance from 7.35 to 7.45. From the
above scale, this would make the blood slightly alkaline.
One of the realities of biological life is that our bodies
continually generate acidity in the process of cellular activity. Uric
acid, phosphoric acid, acetic acid, carbonic acid, sulfuric acid, lactic
acid and urea are examples of acid waste products. This acidity must be
efficiently eliminated and/or neutralized by a some source of
alkalinity if we are to maintain the proper pH homeostasis in our cells,
bloodstream and other body fluids.
On a physiological level, the process of life can be looked upon as a
struggle to maintain alkalinity in the face of acid waste products. Nobel
Prize winner Dr. Cee W. Crile M.D. stated “All deaths are due to
progressive acid saturation.” (Bipolar Process of Life). He has said that the
higher the alkalinity of the
cytoplasm of cells in relation to the acid nucleus, the higher the
electro-chemical force available to the cell. Taken collectively, the
trillions of cells that comprise our bodies can become supercharged with
vitality and energy if they are given the proper nutrients and if the
waste products of metabolism are neutralized and removed.
Though the body has a limited storehouse of alkaline reserves which is
given to us at birth from our mothers, the primary sources of alkalinity
comes from what we eat and drink. It is preferable to continue to build
these alkaline reserves in the body and not draw upon our reserves. Though
it is possible to become too alkaline by not consuming enough acid-forming
foods, it is far less common for people to become too alkaline. Usually, when
alkalosis occurs, it is the result of abuse of alkalizers used to medicate an
acid condition. This being the case, we can gain control over our
acid/alkaline balance by monitoring
the alkalinity and acidity of the foods we eat.
It should also be mentioned at the onset that though monitoring our food
intake is important, it is not by any means the sole determinant of our
pH. Two other factors are also continually operative- the first one is the
quality of our thoughts. Though the metabolic pathways need to be better
understood, it is a fact that negative thoughts make the body
more acid. This means that one can be eating an alkaline-forming
vegetarian diet but still be generating an excess of acids. The
implications of all this is that positive thoughts and a minimum of
negative thoughts indeed have a profound effect on our metabolism and
physiology.
The other factor that influences our pH in addition to our food
consumption and thoughts is our physical activity level. We can be eating
a primarily alkaline forming diet, be exercising excessively and not
resting enough and we will become too acid It is also possible to become
too alkaline on an alkaline-forming diet if the physical activity level is
not maintained sufficiently. Some meditator types experience
this imbalance when they sit for meditation most of the day and do not get
up and move around.
Let us return to the influence of food on our pH levels. Most fruits and
vegetables have a pH of over 7 and are alkaline-forming. Most grains, with
the exception of millet and buckwheat, are acid-forming. Most beans, with
the exception of lima and fresh string beans, are also acid. Certain
man-made nutritional supplements such as ascorbic acid, the fractionalized
form of vitamin C, is acid forming. In its natural state, Vitamin C has
other component factors such as bioflavonoids and is associated with
buffering alkaline minerals.
All animal foods have a pH of under 7, making them acid-forming. Many
natural health practitioners, including myself, advise that we minimize or
eliminate animal based acid forming foods and eat a diet comprised of 80%
alkaline forming foods and 20% acid forming foods. The exact optimal
proportion of these foods will vary with each individual and even vary
within the individual at different times based on one's environment,
activity level and stage in the life cycle. Because of deficiencies in
their education, most dietitians and medical doctors do not teach this
valuable acid/alkaline food choice awareness.
What makes a food acid or alkaline is dependent on the mineral content in
the particular food. Most fruits and vegetables have more of the
alkaline-forming minerals of calcium, potassium, sodium, iron and magnesium
than they do the acid-forming minerals of phosphorus, chlorine, and
iodine. Animal foods such as beef, chicken, fish, eggs have more
phosphorus, chlorine and iodine than they do calcium, potassium, sodium,
magnesium and iron and are therefore acid-forming.
There is sometimes confusion about whether so-called "acid" fruits
such as oranges and lemons are acid or alkaline. It is true that
oranges, lemons and other acid fruits have naturally occurring organic
acids (citric, malic, etc.),but if the fruit is well-grown and thus
possesses the normal stores of alkaline minerals that the tree's roots have
extracted from the soil, then the alkalinity of these minerals will be
more significant than the acid effect of these organic acids. The overall
effect will be then be alkaline.
However, if the orange or lemon is not well-grown it will not have picked
up a sufficient amount of alkaline minerals to offset the effects of the
organic acids. Most commercially grown fruits and vegetables are either
grown on deficient soil that does not have enough alkaline minerals
available, or are picked prematurely, which does not give the plant or
fruit time to collect enough alkaline minerals.
The Standard American Diet (SAD) is for the most part an acid forming
diet. Foodless foods such as white bread and refined sugar products are
acid-forming because they it takes alkaline reserve minerals to complete
the digestion of these fractionalized foods. Animal foods, which also make
up a large proportion of the SAD have a preponderance of acid-forming
minerals and thus always render the body more acid, forcing the body to
draw upon alkaline reserves. This causes a progressive acidification of the
body's tissues which in turn causes premature cellular death.
To understand how premature cellular death comes about from consuming too
many acid foods, we must explore some basic facts about general and cellular
metabolism. Firstly, with the exception of the hydrochloric acid (HCL) of the
stomach, all body fluids, such as the blood, extra-cellular fluid, saliva,
bile, urine, are meant to and function best when they are alkaline. One
can consult any standard medical physiology textbook and find the pH
range for any given body fluid. If the pH of a body fluid falls on the low
end (more acid) of this optimal pH range, associated bodily organs and
cells will function less efficiently. We are getting closer to our search
as to why cells die when they become too acid.
As was stated above, it is critically important that the blood maintains
a steady pH between the range of 7.35 and 7.45. This is the body's
priority, and the body in its wisdom will pull alkalinity or acidity from
other organs and body fluids to balance blood pH.
Another priority of the body is to maintain the alkalinity of the fluid that
surrounds the cells. This fluid is called the extracellular fluid. To do
this, the body must have a sufficient amount of alkaline minerals to set
up the proper proportion of alkaline electrolytes in this fluid. When the
proper electrolytic balance is present, this draws out, by osmosis, the acid
waste products from in the cells. If alkaline elements are not present in
sufficient quantity, the efficient removal of cellular acid waste cannot
occur and oxygen and nutrient transport to the cells are also diminished.
If this condition persists, the cell dies before its time. Cellular
turnover due to excess acidity as well as nutrient and oxygen starvation, is a
vicious cycle. When too many cells die at one time, the body struggles to
neutralize and eliminate the acidity of these decomposing dead cells. This
further taxes the body's alkaline reserves and the organs of elimination-
the kidneys, intestines, liver, lungs and skin. Constitutional hereditary
weaknesses in these systems can compromise one's ability to effectively
eliminate acid waste. In this regard, we are not created equal. This
explains why some people live longer than others despite the fact that
they do not eat as healthfully as more conscientious, genetically weaker
people. However to compensate for our genetic weakness we can do things
for ourselves to enhance the elimination of acid wastes, such as deep
breathing, spot therapy on the feet and hands especially, lymphatic
massage, meditation, etc.
When the organs of elimination cannot keep pace with the rate of acid
toxins generated, then subtle and not so subtle metabolic changes occur in
the way the body deals with its ongoing problems. It is important to
recognize that there is an awesome wisdom in the way the body goes about
dealing with imbalances. The body doesn't make mistakes. Often what we
call disease is the body's best way of keeping us alive. For instance, in
the chapter on cancer I make a case for the idea that cancer is the body's
attempt to deal with the problem of protein storage.
Though it has not been conclusively proven, it has even been proposed
by one researcher that the amount of acidity and alkalinity we
need to eat in our foods to stay balanced is in part hereditary determined.
Acid/Alkaline researcher Dr.Rudolph Wiley, in his book Biobalance,
believes that people are hereditary acid or alkaline bio-types, and that
people also cycle through acid and alkaline phases during different times
of the month. Wiley proposes that each individual has a biological
predisposition to generate more acid or more alkaline elements
independent of food intake. He departs from the 80% alkaline, 20% acid
proportion because he believes that some people need to eat more acid foods
to stay in balance. In a controlled experiment involving 297 people with
severe psychiatric symptoms, he was able to eliminate most all of these
symptoms in 86% of the participants just by giving them the appropriate
diet based on their acid or alkaline bio-type.
One of the potential problems with Wiley's animal food based acid diet is
that it happens to be the same diet that is associated with the increased
incidence of cardiovascular disease. I believe that similar positive
outcomes could result by substituting an acid forming plant-based diet for
Wiley's "deadly" animal-based acid diet. In this way, one could achieve "
Biobalance” and not die from cardiovascular disease in the process! It is
obvious from this fascinating study that more research needs to be done in
this area. I still believe that because of the overwhelming fact that our
bodies generate acid waste products all the time, for most people the 80%
alkaline, 20% acid diet still holds.
Another researcher exploring pH issues is holistic physician Dr.Gabriel
Cousens. Cousens offers an alternate explanation to the problem of pH
bio-balancing that may make Wiley's hereditary based explanation
unnecessary and perhaps un-merited. Based on his clinical findings with
approximately 200 of his patients, Cousens believes that digestive
difficulties based primarily on low enzyme availability and not inborn
hereditary metabolic traits can explain why someone eating an alkaline
forming vegetarian diet can still be too acid or even too alkaline.
Cousens believes that if someone eating an alkaline forming vegetarian
diet but cannot effectively break down sufficient quantities of complex
carbohydrates, not enough alkaline minerals will be taken into the body
and the person can still have an acid pH.
On the other hand, a person eating a vegetarian diet may not have
enough acidity in the stomach to efficiently break down protein.
This individual will then become too alkaline. Cousens thinks that are many
possible reasons why one cannot break down protein, but one possibility is
that a person might be eating too much alkaline forming foods. In this
case, the body takes away the stomach's acidity to buffer the excess
alkalinity of the blood. The siphoning off of this protein-digesting
stomach acid is the reason why the person is having difficulty in
digesting proteins. Dr.Cousens corrects these digestive problems with the
use of specific plant-based digestive enzymes as well as teaching the
person how to monitor pH and correlating the pH reading with food intake.
It is beyond the scope of this chapter to offer up more than the most
general guidelines for what constitutes normal pH. According to Dr.
Gabriel Cousens research, one reason for the difficulty in offering up
some definitive range for what constitutes normal pH is because live food
vegetarians will have a different normal than someone who is on a heavy
meat- eating diet. This also holds for vegetarians and meat-eaters for
Vitamin B-12 levels as well.
In addition to probable variations whole groups of people based on their
dietary habits, what constitutes normal pH depends on what authority one
is talking to. Several holistic practitioners who each have extensive
clinical experience in balancing pH differ in the ranges of what they
consider normal.
To gain first-hand insight into how what one eats affects pH, there are
two bodily fluids most amenable to self-test pH measurement:
our urine and our saliva. The saliva gives an indication of the
status of the intracellular environment and indicates how much alkaline
reserves are present. The urine gives an indication of the extracellular
environment-the pH medium in which the cells are exchanging their wastes
and nutrients in. The urine pH varies more than the saliva reading because
it is influenced more by what one ate in the last few hours. The saliva
reading will slowly become more acid or alkaline based on one's cumulative
eating patterns and lifestyle over weeks and months.
To get a pH reading, one needs pH paper that is sensitive in between the
5.5 to 8.0 range and that can calibrate in two tenth increments between
the whole numbers. The procedure is that one simply dips the pH sensitive
paper into either the saliva or urine. To get an accurate urine reading, it
is recommended to collect a whole 24 hour cycle of all the urine one
excretes. To avoid social embarrassment issues, it's not a bad idea to do this
sometime on the weekend when you are in the privacy of one's own
home. Collecting a 24 hour urine gives a more accurate picture of the state
of one's extracellular fluids. A 24 hour test avoids the ups and downs of
unreliable urine pH measurements when one measures just on the basis of
before or after a meal. This is because the composition of each meal will
immediately effect the reading. In drawing useful information from a pH
reading it is crucial, especially with urine readings, to keep in mind
what one has eaten in the last 24 hours.
Here's where it gets a little complicated. If one for the most part eats
an acid-forming diet, including the last 24 hours, and one's urine pH was
from 6.8 to 8.0, then this is a reading that indicates little if any alkaline
reserves. But, you might say, this is an alkaline reading, why is this bad?
Well, according to Dr. Ted Morter, a holistic chiropractor and
nutritionist, the reading is too alkaline ( false alkaline) and shows that
ammonia, a strong alkali at 9.25) has been added to the urine by the
kidney. When ammonia kicks in, this shows that the body has fallen into
its emergency backup system in a desperate attempt to alkalize the body.
Incredible as it may seem, the same reading would indicate good health if
one's diet was an alkaline-forming one, including the last 24 hours of
food intake. For an in depth but very simply written explanation of the ins
and outs of balancing pH, Dr. Ted Morter's excellent book, Your Health,
Your Choice, is strongly recommended.
According again to Dr.Morter, an optimal saliva reading taken before
meals should be at least 6.8. He says that if the saliva pH is
below 6.2, one’s system is has inadequate alkaline reserves. He says that
one's saliva reading does not go up after eating a meal, then the body is
low in alkaline reserves.
In summary, maintaining a balanced pH by way of intelligent dietary eating
habits is as important as the quality of the foods we choose to eat. By
consulting a list of alkaline and acid forming foods, one can begin to
cultivate a consciousness of whether our meals are predominantly alkaline
or acid. In this way, we will be able to eventually shift our diets in the
direction of 80% alkaline forming and 20% acid forming.
If one has symptoms of ill-health, it is a good idea to consult a
holistic health practitioner that recognizes the importance of pH. This
health practitioner should preferably be a vegetarian so that the dietary
recommendations that follow your readings will support long-range health
and not be just a short-term temporary fix-up job.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED ON ALKALINITY
BIOBALANCE, Dr.Rudolph Wiley
YOUR HEALTH, YOUR CHOICE, Dr. Ted Morter's -- the classic
CONSCIOUS EATING (O) Cousens, MD - raw point of view
ACID AND ALKALINE Aihara, Herman -- Macrobiotic point of view
ALKALIZE OR DIE: Baroody, Theodore A. - Excitement
SBG Algae , Rich in full spectrum minerals and high in alkaline influence:
Algae to the Rescue, Karl J. Abrams
The Genesis Effect, Dr. John W. Apsley, III
From most book stores, or call
21st Century Books 800-KYE-BOOK (593-2665)
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