Alkaline foods as part of an acid alkaline diet are vital for preventing the toxic cellular environment that can lead to cancer and other chronic diseases. Thus you should strive to alkalize the body to prevent disease.
What is Cellular Acidosis
The PH balance of the body is critical to maintaining good health. Your body’s acidity must be in balance with its alkalinity for your cells to function properly. When the PH of your body is out of balance chronic disease results.
When acidity is too high, the blood can’t carry as much oxygen, and your cells become oxygen deficient. This is called hypoxia. Oxygen is vital to all cellular functions and the lack of it results in abnormalities in cell function, and eventual cell death.
Alkaline foods offset the tendency of your cells to be more acidic as you age, and help ensure that normal oxygen levels and thus normal cell function is maintained even into advanced age. This can be done with the proper acid alkaline diet.
Alkalize Your Body
To promote the proper PH balance of your body, which is, 7.35 to 7.45 you will want to include enough fresh fruits and vegetables to offset other foods, which are more acidic. These foods should be eaten in their fresh and unprocessed state whenever possible.
An alkaline green drink is a popular new addition to the list of food supplement products, and probably one of the most effective for enhancing health.
The invention of agriculture and the processing of food contributed to the increased acid in our diet. The classification of a food as either acidic or alkaline depends on the effect it has on your body AFTER it has been digested and metabolized.
The list of acidic and alkaline foods below should be used as general guides for an acid alkaline diet and not taken as being precisely accurate. For the most part Animal products tend to be acidic and fruits and vegetables tend to alkalize.
Checking your PH Levels
You can cheaply and easily test your PH levels with PH strips, which you can purchase at a drug store or on the web. These specially treated paper strips will turn certain colors, which indicate the degree of acidity or alkalinity in your saliva or urine.
You should wait 2-3 hours after eating before testing your saliva with PH strips, to get an accurate result. The paper should turn blue indicating a healthy PH level of 7.4. If you get a lower reading wait a couple of hours and repeat the test.
There are also digital PH meters available which require just a drop of urine or saliva to give you a digital readout of your PH level. These are a more expensive option for testing and run anywhere from $50 on the low side to over $200 for more expensive models.
Cellular Acidity and Disease
Simply stated an acidic condition in your cells spells trouble. Your body does have a mechanism for maintaining a healthy PH level. The problem is that when your diet is creating excess acidity, the body uses minerals such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium from various tissues to alkalize your body.
This causes problems because these tissues lose the proper balance of acid and alkaline minerals. One aspect of this is the body pulling calcium out of your bones to balance your PH, and some of the calcium winds up on your artery walls as artheroschlerotic plaque.
This can also contribute to osteoporosis, as calcium is lost from the bones. Calcium deposits do not occur from excess calcium intake as some people believe, but from a lack of calcium to buffer excess acidity.
The Cancer Connection
In 1931 Otto Warburg won the Nobel Prize in physiology for his discovery that cancer cells have an anaerobic (low oxygen) metabolism which functions in an acidic environment. Cancer cells require large amounts of sugar to produce energy.
Thus cellular acidity contributes to an environment in your cells that is conducive to the development of cancer. For this reason consuming alkaline foods in an acid alkaline diet that helps the body maintain the proper PH is a logical step in preventing cancer.
Processed foods are high in sugar and contribute to cellular acidosis, which in turn creates the conditions under which cancer develops and thrives. It makes good sense to take steps to alkalize your body as one of the ways to prevent cancer from developing.
The Value of Juicing
Juicing is a practice that has long been associated with healthy nutrition. Juicing can help ensure a proper PH in your body. Juicing fruits and vegetables is one of the best ways to ensure the proper acid alkaline balance in the body.
Getting required amounts of fruits and vegetables on a regular basis is easier and more convenient with juicing as a method of preparation.
In light of the importance of proper PH, it is probably one of the most effective things you can do to ensure your health.
Acid Alkaline Diet
An acid diet is the result of modern eating habits and processed foods and leads to chronic disease. Thus the acid alkaline diet should be a cornerstone of your wellness and antiaging efforts.
Test your PH levels and try to work more alkaline foods into your diet in whatever way works best for you. Maintaining the proper PH levels is a matter of life and death!
Acetyl L Carnitine – Key Antiaging Supplement
CoQ10 Benefits and Heart Health