Let Food Be Thy Medicine, Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.)

• The Sectrets of Longevity and Vibrant Health
• The Science Behind Living Foods
• Gourmet Live Food Recipes by Top Chefs
• Acid and Alkaline Balancing
• How to Regulate Your Body Temperature With Food!

Acid-Alkaline Balancing

Maintaining the human body’s pH is extremely important. The pH of the human bloodstream is approximately 7.4. If the pH of the bloodstream increases or decreases by just a small amount, we will die. Lucky for us we store calcium, magnesium and other minerals in our bones that are used to buffer the acidity of our bloodstream. Our diet should be composed of about 80% alkaline-forming foods and 20% acid-forming foods. The standard American diet (SAD) is reversed at about 80% acid-forming and 20% alkaline-forming. The acid condition in the body that the SAD diet causes pulls calcium out of our bones to buffer the acidity of the bloodstream and can lead to osteopenia or osteoporosis. As has been proven frequently, the answer is not more calcium, but rather proper diet.

One thing that determines if a food is acid- or alkaline-forming is the mineral content or ash that is left over after the food has been digested. The following common minerals are alkaline-forming to the tissues in our body: calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium and sodium. Some acid-forming minerals are chlorine, phosphorus and sulfur.