Improve Your PH Balance
Proponents of alkaline diets sometimes talk as though eating alkaline is the only step to good health. It’s true that our bodies know intuitively where balance lies, and they can maintain balance on their own if provided what they need through healthy diet and nutritional supplements.
But it’s important to understand that you can’t simply load up on alkalizing foods and supplements and presume they’ll offset any amount of acid you consume or create.
To restore pH balance, you must address other sources of metabolic acidity as well, because in most situations, no amount of alkalizing can balance a toxically acidic environment. And to cap it off, detoxification takes place more slowly in an overly acidic environment.
Restoring Your pH Balance
Here are some ideas on how to restore pH balance to your diet, support healthy digestion, keep blood pH levels on track, and protect your bones and kidneys, too.
- Take a high-quality daily multivitamin like the one we offer through our Personal Program. This will offset any nutritional gaps and insure that your body has the reserves it needs. Your supplement should contain essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and magnesium in their most bioavailable, alkalizing forms. In addition, I recommend an essential fatty acid supplement and a top-quality probiotic, to help the body absorb the minerals that are all-important to your bones.
- Fill your plate with fresh vegetables, particularly the dark green leafy kind. Add fresh lemon or lime juice to foods and beverages as a highly alkalizing flavor accent. Enjoy plenty of fruit, especially fruit with a low glycemic index. (Women in perimenopause and menopause, particularly, benefit more from fruits that are lower in sugars, to avoid concerns about insulin resistance.) Again, foods that are fresh, organic, and deeply pigmented or brightly colored are the kinds that benefit you the most!
- Choose root vegetables, too, as excellent sources of alkalizing mineral compounds. Eating foods such as slow-roasted sweet potatoes, onions, and leeks, which are also high in inulin, can optimize your body’s ability to fully absorb the calcium present in your food and thereby decrease your risk for osteoporosis. Inulin is a type of prebiotic — it is believed to serve as a welcoming “fuel” for friendly gut flora, paving the way for beneficial bacteria to thrive further down into the colon, where it lowers the pH and improves the solubility and absorption of calcium by the body.
- Consider boosting your diet with “green foods” or “green drinks,” which contain the pigment chlorophyll in abundance. The plant world’s equivalent of the hemoglobin in our blood, we can thank chlorophyll as the original source of all our food (except perhaps fungi!). It works in the body as a strong detoxifier and immunity–building agent. Foods that contain high levels of chlorophyll include the algae Spirulina and Chlorella and the juice of wheat grass and other sprouted grains. These foods offer high levels of other micronutrients as well.
- Eat plenty of vegetable protein, watch your red meat intake, and keep your servings of the acidifying animal proteins down to four ounces per meal.
- Avoid refined carbohydrates whenever you can, including sugar, and when you include grains, be sure to emphasize the “whole” in whole grains. Eliminate all processed foods, particularly those that contain partially hydrogenated oils (trans fats).