Alkaline Diet

Alkalizing your body is a simple way to start becoming healthier and giving your body the nutrients it needs to make you feel energetic and motivated throughout the day. It is easy to alkalize and the benefits are worth many times the effort it involves.

The alkaline acid diet is straight forward. All it suggests is increasing the amount of fruit and vegetables consumed in your diet. This is because these are alkaline foods that help improve the pH balance of the body.

Steps to alkalize the body are wide ranging. One area that is easy to work on is snacking. Rather than eating chocolate and having a can of soda if we just replace one of these snacks a day with a glass of water and a piece or two of fruit we are actually doubling up on the alkalizing effect. Firstly, by not eating and drinking the acid forming chocolate and carbonated drink and secondly by consuming alkalizing fruit and pH neutral water we are helping our body by giving it nutrition and an alkalizing boost.

Another option that we can implement is to slowly increase the amount of vegetables we have at meal times. Concentrating on vegetables that you like to eat and find easy to prepare might be a good way to start. A big part of the appeal of acid foods is their convenience and it has to be said, many of them do taste good. However we all know that smoking is bad for the health. The same is true for nutrient vacant foods. Sodas taste nice but they have no real nutritional benefit for us and further then can have a detrimental effect on our teeth, bones and weight. The high levels of sugars can also be problematic for people concerned about their weight as well as cause issues regarding diabetes. So moving away from these acid forming drinks and simply having water instead can be great for our alkalinity and health. The following post further details the harmful effects acid foods have on our bodies.

Some vegetables I like to eat include grilled eggplant which I often include in my meal at breakfast. I also often steam up broccoli and carrots which usually lasts for a few days and can be re-heated and included with almost any meal.

Perhaps the easiest way to get an alkalizing kick is to drink fresh fruit and vegetable juices. Rather than eating, when we juice we extract all the liquid and leave the fiber. This means it is possible to have the juice from six oranges (which makes about a pint) whereas actually eating six oranges would be much more of an ordeal.

Taking better care of our bodies is important for everyone, not just those interested in weight loss. Unless we have to loose weight for medical reasons, I believe that a feeling of well being and happiness with ourselves is more important than the number of kilograms we weigh. The alkaline acid diet, with its focus on consuming plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables has this as a core aim. Simply gradually reducing the percentage of acidic foodstuffs in our diet and trying to consume a bit more fresh produce can have an amazing effect on the way we feel. Why not give alkalizing a try?

Foods that are highly alkalizing are fruits and vegetables. These foodstuffs produce a negative PRAL (Potential Renal Acid Load) rating when the nutritional content is analyzed. For people interested in the alkaline acid diet and optimum pH balance of the body it is worth noting that within this group of alkali producing food, some produce has a more beneficial effect on the body than others. For example, according to the study by Remer and Manz, rasins are one of the most highly alkalizing fruits and spinach is a high alkaline vegetable, both being great for health. We must remember that it is not the amount of acid contained in fresh fruit that determines the acid alkaline balance but rather the pH of the ash after we have burned the food in our bodies.

What I was interested to discover was further details regarding high alkaline foods. There were two parts to this question regarding their health benefits. Firstly what are the highest alkaline fruits and vegetables that we can include in our diets? And secondly what is it about the nutritional content of these foodstuffs that cause them to have a strong base (alkali) forming effect? Knowing what these foods are may be useful in combatting the effects of acid foods.

Using the data from the study Potential renal acid load of foods and its influence on urine pH. the highest alkaline forming fruit, out of those measured, was raisins with a PRAL value of -21.0 while for vegetables the highest was spinach at -14.0. The negative values indicate alkaline forming foods while a positive value would indicate an acid forming potential. The formula that I will be using as the basis for the comparison of the alkaline properties of the fruit and vegetables I mention in this article follows:

For the sake of comparison I shall include the relevant nutritional information for apples, oranges and raisins to see if there are marked differences in any of the nutrients.

Raisins PRAL = 0.49*3.07 (protein) + 0.037*101 (phosphorus) – 0.021*749 (potassium) – 0.026*32 (magnesium) – 0.013*50 (calcium) = -11.9697

Apples PRAL = 0.49*0.26 + 0.037*11 – 0.021*107 – 0.026*5 – 0.013*6 = -1.9206

Oranges PRAL = 0.49*0.70 + 0.037*12 – 0.021*169 – 0.026*10 – 0.013*43 = -3.8897

The nutritional data for these fruits was taken from the United States Department of Agriculture site (see references). This is a great site regardless of what diet you are interested in. It contains details of the nutritional content of a wide variety of foodstuffs. The site makes it possible to determine the PRAL values for any alkaline acidic foods we are interested in. Using the PRAL Calculator that my brother wrote for me, you can check the Potential Renal Acid Load of any food you want. As can be seen from the figures above, even though raisins have higher levels of protein they also have much more potassium. This seems to be what accounts for the large negative value and therefore the highly alkalising effect they are reported as having. So a simple option to consider for those wanting to combat the effects of an acidic forming diet would be to eat more fruits in general but in particular, raisins.

One of the main goals for people interested in the alkaline acid diet who want health is to alkalize by eating healthy quantities of acid and alkaline ash foods. We must also remember that incorporating exercise into our lifestyle is an essential part to becoming healthier overall. Being aware of the high alkaline foods such as those discussed in this article offer ways to get an extra alkali kick.

References: USDA National Nutrient Database

Thomas Remer, Triantafillia Dimitriou and Friedrich Manz Dietary potential renal acid load and renal net acid excretion in healthy, free-living children and adolescents American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 77, No. 5, 1255-1260, May 2003