LISA ROBBINS: Of all the questions I receive about health, this is the most common. People are starting to catch on that balanced pH is one of the key principles to maintaining optimum health.

What is pH anyway?

The literal meaning of pH is the potential of hydrogen.


The potential of hydrogen to do what?

Hydrogen has the potential to react with other atoms by yielding or sharing its only electron. This forms a weak ionic bond, connecting the hydrogen atom to the atom receiving the electron. This bond is easily broken in solution, when mixed with another substance, like water or blood.

Any substance that yields hydrogen ions in solution is called an acid. The more hydrogen ions yielded, the stronger the acid. The stronger the acid, the more effective it is at breaking down substances. This is the essence of a free radical ~ a substance that produces unstable ions without one or more unpaired electrons. These highly reactive atoms are deeply involved in degenerative diseases such as cancer, arthritis, osteoporosis, fibromyalgia and arterial disease.

Substances that accept or react with hydrogen ions are called bases. The more hydrogen ions accepted, the stronger the base, or the more alkaline.

Our body uses bases to sop up acids and quell the damage they cause. These bases come from the alkaline minerals we take in with food or when necessary, pulled from the stores in our muscles, bones, teeth and organs. The pH of our blood lies between 7.35 and 7.45, which makes it a weak basic solution. Our body prefers alkalinity. Acids make us sick and tired. They cause damage and inflammation to our tissues and cells and precipitate the release of essential minerals from our bones. They provide a fertile environment for yeasts and promote disease in our body.

What causes over acidity to result?

Mild chronic acidosis often results from over consumption of acid producing foods such as refined carbohydrates, damaged fats, sweets, alcohol, coffee, soda, meats and dairy products.

Fruits and vegetables with natural acids do not result in making our body and tissues more acidic. These acids, such as ascorbic acid or Vitamin C are used in many different processes throughout our body, leaving alkaline minerals behind for absorption and utilization. Although lemon juice has a pH of only 2.0, making it a strong acid, it produces alkalinity through its mineral store, and the ascorbic acid is used elsewhere in the body, rather than producing acid residue and waste like damaged fat molecules, denatured proteins or psychotropic drugs.

What are the symptoms of over-acidic bodily fluids?

Your body has natural buffer systems that strive to keep your pH level in the safe range. A constant intake of acid producing foods causes these natural systems to become overworked and buffering substances begin to run out. Now your body begins to breakdown your muscles for alkalizing glutamine and starts to heist alkalizing minerals like calcium, magnesium and potassium from your bones, teeth and organs.

When acid levels rise, fermentation takes place, causing oxygen levels within cells to decrease. Improper fat metabolism clogs cell membranes which also has an effect on the amount of oxygen within each cell, by causing cell wall permeability issues. This means nutrients can neither enter nor exit cells properly.

Mild chronic acidosis manifests in symptoms such as inflammation, dry skin, bleeding gums, brittle nails, thinning hair, irritability, fatigue, energy loss, joint pain and weakness, decreased immunity, yeast infections, kidney stones, gall bladder and liver congestion and arterial damage. (Brown and Trivieri, 2006)

How do you know if your pH is out of balance?

Pay attention to symptoms from your body. These are messages from the realm of Optimum Health. If you do not feeel your normal self and suffer from one or more of the symptoms above, test your pH to be sure, but it will not hurt to add more alkaline foods anyway!

Once you become familiar with how poor you feel when your pH is on the acid side, and how lively and energetic you feel when your pH is more alkaline, you will come to know your pH without testing. For more information on how to test your pH, go to How To Test My Own pH

Action Steps

In The Acid Alkaline Food Guide , the authors recommend an eating plan with 20% to 40% acid producing dairy, meat, fish and poultry and 60 to 80% base producing fruits, vegetables, seeds, herbs and spices, with an emphasis on extremely alkalizing green leafy vegetables and root crops like burdock, radishes, turnips, carrots and parsnips. (Brown and Trivieri, 2006)

To download the pH scale cut and paste this URL to your browser. http://www.thegoodwitch.ca/7865241983784634563/pHScale.jpg
Print it out and tape it to your refrigerator. Make it larger on a photocopier if necessary. Focus on the foods on the right side of the scale. These are the foods that will sop up acids in your body with their rich reservoir of alkaline minerals. They will give you energy, oxygen and nutrients. Then you...as well as each one of your trillions of cells, will start to feel better as you become cleansed, nourished and protected.

When making changes to your diet, the most important thing is to focus on what you are putting in your body and how you feeel ~ before you eliminate or change anything!

Oct 31, 2010 - 5:11 PM

a m heitzner -

I like this too.