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Alkaline Foods And Acid Foods Are Both Important For pH Balance

14th September, 2011 - Posted by health news - No Comments

Alkaline foods and acid foods have lately been playing a major role in the discussion of human nutrition. Still, many people are foggy about how to handle yet an additional overwhelming health concern. It can be tempting to just avoid thinking about the matter rather than sorting through all the information available, but it doesn’t need to be that difficult.

When thinking about a healthy ratio of alkaline foods and acid foods, there are a couple of essential questions that need to be answered: What are the primary differences between acid foods and alkaline foods? How do you appropriately balance the two? These questions are important due to the fact that our diets have an effect on every other part of our bodies—from energy to illness and mental capacity.

First, it is generally good to obtain a resource you can depend on and simply refer to the food in question. It is useful to get a chart or make your own that you can keep on hand in the kitchen. Then, as you cook, you can look up items and determine if they are alkaline foods or acid foods.

Keep in mind that simply testing an item with litmus paper is not the way to measure how it actually affects the body. Alkaline foods do not necessarily begin that way. Rather, they are categorized by the ash they leave behind in the bloodstream after being metabolized. A terrific example of this is lemons. When a lemon is cut open, it appears to be acidic. After it is digested, however, a lemon actually helps generate an alkaline environment in the body.

Usually, fruits and vegetables are the healthiest options for alkaline foods, although they will inevitably settle all along the pH balance scale from acid to alkaline. On the other hand, beef, pork, and even fish are very nearly always going to be acid foods. Clearly, much of the Western world obtains protein and other important nutrients from meat, so simply doing away with all acid foods is not necessarily a realistic choice. Many acid foods are, in fact, basic for our overall fitness.

As with just about any food-related area of interest, the fundamental key to proper nutrition is balance. Choosing a healthy balance of alkaline foods to acid foods is what will keep the body in its ultimate functioning state. Human blood very nearly always registers between 7.35 and 7.45 on the pH scale. That means it is slightly alkaline, since 7 is said to be neutral.

To manage a healthy pH balance throughout the body, it is a good idea to stick to a diet that includes the proper balance of alkaline foods and acid foods. A good guideline is to make certain that 75-80% of the foods and drinks you choose are known to be alkaline foods or drinks. Because a good number of processed foods, as well as meats and grains, are ordinarily acidic, this means making sure you get a sufficient quantity of alkaline foods each day.

It is also useful to bear in mind that coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, stress, and even pollution add to the acid formation in the body. Balancing more alkaline foods and fewer acid foods in the diet can help to counter these unfortunate realities of life today.

As manager of an online health food store, author Cliff Everett Smith created the FREE Alkaline Food Test for visitors to understand how their choices impact the body. Visit http://www.BestHealthFoodStore.net to take the test and investigate the alkaline foods recommended for healthy pH balance.