Want more Personal Energy and Vitality? Want to feel better fast? Want to make fighting disease easier and develop a stronger immune system? Here’s a quick way to do it: Eat a more Alkaline diet. Many of you have heard of the importance of an alkaline diet but don’t know what it is or why you should do it. So to discover what it is and why it works to make you feel better . . . read on.
You know how your body temperature can vary up and down with an average healthy body temperature of 98.6 degrees? Well there’s a similar scale that refers to the acid-alkaline balance in your body. This is called pH balance or acid-alkaline balance. Although pH ranges are different in various parts of your body, the most important for health and personal energy is the pH value of your blood.
By the way, the term pH means “Potential Hydrogen”. If you are interested in the chemistry, you can find a less than elementary explanation online at Wikipedia.
The pH scale ranges from 0 to 14 with 7.0 being neutral, 0 being the most acidic and 14 being fully alkaline. The pH for stomach acid is around 3.5 (highly acidic), but that’s not relevant to our energy level as discussed here. The ideal blood pH is 7.36 which is slightly alkaline.
How can you tell what your blood pH is? A regular blood test from your doctor or medical lab is the most accurate. You can also purchase pH strips at most pharmacies for both urine and saliva measurements. Follow the instructions and the results you get will be close enough.
What are the primary benefits of an alkaline blood pH? They include:
- Increase in personal energy and vitality
- Feel better overall
- Empower your immune system to help ward off disease
- Often you will lose weight as your blood pH becomes more alkaline
- And many more.
The way to get to a more alkaline blood pH is through the food you eat. Most Western diets are highly acidic. Other factors include alcohol, caffeine, stress and many medications. The most important way to develop a slightly alkaline blood pH level is by being aware of the pH makeup of various foods and making simple adjustments.
Meats, dairy (including cheeses) and sugars are considered to be the biggest acid producers. Green, leafy vegetables are the most alkaline with most other vegetables still high on the alkaline scale. Most fruits are somewhere in the middle with some being slightly acidic and others more alkaline. As for grains, there still seems to be inconsistency among nutritionists as to the pH range.
Here’s a surprise. Lemons, limes and Apple Cider Vinegar provide an alkaline response in the blood. That’s why you often read or hear about drinking water with lemon or Apple Cider Vinegar to help promote weight loss and nutritional detox.
Nutritional scientists have produced strong evidence that a diet of alkaline foods will help prevent chronic disease. They seem to agree a diet that is 70 to 80 percent alkaline and 20 to 30 percent acidic will provide an ideal alkaline blood pH.
And here’s a real kicker. Although all the evidence is not in, there is evidence to indicate that most cancers cannot survive in an alkaline environment. This bears out evidence that many people claim to have cured their own cancer by changing to a heavily plant based diet, and have significantly cut back on, or eliminated, the acidic meat and dairy from their diets. (Disclaimer: That’s not a recommendation. It’s simply evidentiary, based on claims of others).
You can find numerous charts and graphics online which provide the blood pH values of various foods. I suggest you take a look at them.
There is strong and increasing evidence of the nutritional and medical benefits of adjusting to a more alkaline diet. It simply means increasing your veggies and cutting back on meats and dairy. I strongly suggest that you look closely at your own diet and see where a change might be beneficial. We all can use more energy and vitality. We all would like to feel good as we age. We all would like to eliminate chronic disease. This could be one of the ways for you to do them all.
Thank you for reading.