Alkaline Diet

To move away from an acid diet and improve pH balance it is necessary to know which foods are acid foods. A scientific paper by Remer and Manz published in 1995 provides details of foods and food groups and how they affect pH balance. Reading their report is an excellent way to find out about acid diet foods.

They discovered that in general the most acidifying effects come from cheeses with higher protein content. Followed by meat and meat products, cheeses with lower protein content, fish, flour, noodles and pasta then grain products. Foods that have an alkalising effect are vegetables as well as fruits and fruit juices.

The alkaline acid diet is not specifically a weight loss diet, although it can be used as part of a weight loss plan. This diet is much more about overall well being and improving health.

acid drinks

A study published in 2007 of 88 different research papers concluded that the avaiable science strongly supports a reduction in our soft drink consumption. They leave an acid ash that our bodies have to find a way to deal with. The authors reported clear associations between increased caloritic intake and body weight with levels of soft drink consumption. Higher soft drink consumption was further associated with lower levels of milk, calcium and intake of other nutrients. Soft drink consumption also increases your risk of a variety of medical concerns, e.g. obesity and diabetes. Their work clearly supports alkalizing our diets and moving away from the acidifying effects of fizzy drink consumption.

The paper also noted that there appears to be a difference in the reported significance of soft drinks in the diet depending on who finances the study. Industry funded studies suggest less adverse health effects. However, adverse all the same. So an array of studies appear to agree that they are indeed acid foods although to what extent is where there is disagreement.

acid foods can cause bone loss

I had often heard that drinking colas and other carbonated drinks was bad for your bones. However other than the high sugar content having a potential negative effect on teeth, thought this was nothing more than an old wives’ tale. Then when I continued researching the topic found out that it does appear that these kinds of drinks, if their effect is not negated, do have an adverse effect upon our bones due to the nature of their acidic ash.

A separate study points out that carbonated soft drinks have a strongly acidifying effect on our bodies. Drinks containing phosphoric acid, used for acidifying and flavoring, often have a very low pH of around 3. Our bodies cannot simply get rid of this excess acid without it first being diluted. This is where it can effect our bones negatively. If we do not consume enough alkaline foods to balance the acidifying effect of carbonated soft drinks, we neutralize the acid from the acidic diet food (or drink) by using calcium salts which comes from our bones!

This shows the damage that we can do to our own bodies by consuming an acid diet. But it also demonstrates that eating some acid foods is not necessarily bad. We simply have to make sure that we eat enough alkaline foods to balance our acid intake and keep us healthy.

While some may disagree with the science regarding the alkaline acid diet, the main ideas behind the diet are simple: as a proportion of our total food intake, increase the amount of fruit and vegetables we eat while at the same time aiming to reduce the amount of low quality acid diet foods we consume. What are poor acid foods? These are foodstuffs that have poor nutritional value. The worst kind being high in calories and low or completely lacking in any beneficial nutritional content. Eating acidic foods is not necessarily the problem. Not eating enough alkaline foods and eating bad acid foods may have a more detrimental effect upon our health.

References: Uriel S. Barzel and Linda K. Massey Excess Dietary Protein Can Adversely Affect Bone – The Journal of Nutrition Vol. 128 No. 6 June 1998, pp. 1051-1053

Remer T., Manz F. Potential renal acid load of foods and its influence on urine pH – J. Am. Diet. Assoc. 1995; 95:791-797

Lenny R. Vartanian, PhD, Marlene B. Schwartz, PhD and Kelly D. Brownell, PhD Effects of Soft Drink Consumption on Nutrition and Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis – American Journal of Public Health April 2007, Vol 97, No. 4 pp667-675