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Having a balanced ph is essential optimal health. Unfortunately, today's lifestyle, diet, and stress often leaves us unbalanced and our ph too acidic. Our body's natural ph is around 7.4. If you have your body's ph tested, you may discover that your body's ph is off. Since the ph is measured on a scale of 1 (most acidic) to 14 (most alkaline), even being off by a couple of points will affect your well being. The best way to achieve a balanced ph is to learn how to eat an alkaline diet.

Although eating an alkaline diet is not hard, following an alkaline diet requires lifestyle adjustments for the majority of people. With coffee, tea, refined flours, and sugars being acidic, it is easy to see how the ph becomes unbalanced with a Standard American Diet. Going on an alkaline diet means giving up--or greatly reducing--fast food, snack foods, and some meats.

Eating an alkaline diet does not mean that you are eating exclusively alkaline foods. Instead, you aim for approximately 70-80% alkaline food to 30-20% acid food. Base your exact percentage on how unbalanced your ph is, how you feel eating different percentages, and what you feel comfortable with.

Almost all vegetables are alkaline food. If you want to know how to eat an alkaline diet, keep in mind that vegetables are going to be a major part of your diet. Several fruits, spices, herbs, and some nuts are also alkaline. Grains, meats, oils, alcohol, beans, sweeteners, condiments, and drugs such as tobacco and aspirin are acid foods.

One simple way to cut acid food in your diet is to replace condiments with herbs and spices. Use chili pepper, curry, cinnamon, ginger, or tamari to add flavor to your foods instead of relying on a heavy amount of margarine or ketchup.

When you do eat acid food, try to choose foods that are mildly acid instead of extremely acid. These foods include potatoes, whole grain pastas, rice, beans, seeds, and nuts. Try to avoid foods that are extremely acidic such as pork, white flour, sugar, coffee, carbonated soft drinks, and fish.
 

ALKALIZING VEGETABLES Alfalfa Barley Grass Beets Beet Greens Broccoli Cabbage Carrot Cauliflower Celery Chard Greens Chlorella Collard Greens Cucumber Dandelions Dulce Edible Flowers Eggplant Fermented Veggies Garlic Green Beans Green Peas Kale Kohlrabi Lettuce Mushrooms Mustard Greens Nightshade Veggies Onions Parsnips (high glycemic) Peas Peppers Pumpkin Radishes Rutabaga Sea Veggies Spinach, green Spirulina Sprouts Sweet Potatoes Tomatoes Watercress Wheat Grass Wild Greens ALKALIZING ORIENTAL VEGETABLES Maitake Daikon Dandelion Root Shitake Kombu Reishi Nori Umeboshi Wakame ALKALIZING FRUITS Apple Apricot Avocado Banana (high glycemic) Berries Blackberries Cantaloupe Cherries, sour Coconut, fresh Currants Dates, dried Figs, dried Grapes Grapefruit* Honeydew Melon Lemon* Lime* Muskmelons Nectarine* Orange* Peach Pear Pineapple Raisins Raspberries Rhubarb Strawberries Tangerine* Tomato Tropical Fruits Umeboshi Plums Watermelon *Although it might seem that citrus fruits would have an acidifying effect on the body, the citric acid they contain actually has an alkalinizing effect in the system. ALKALIZING PROTEIN Almonds Chestnuts Hemp Protein Millet Tempeh (fermented) Tofu (fermented) ALKALIZING SWEETENERS Stevia ALKALIZING SPICES & SEASONINGS Cinnamon Curry Ginger Mustard Chili Pepper Sea Salt Miso Tamari All Herbs ALKALIZING OTHER Apple Cider Vinegar Bee Pollen Lecithin Granules Molasses, blackstrap Probiotic Cultures Soured Dairy Products Green Juices Veggie Juices Fresh Fruit Juice Mineral Water Alkaline Antioxidant Water ALKALIZING MINERALS Cesium: pH 14 Potassium: pH 14 Sodium: pH 14 Calcium: pH 12 Magnesium: pH 9

ACIDIFYING VEGETABLES Corn Lentils Olives Winter Squash ACIDIFYING FRUITS Blueberries Canned or Glazed Fruits Cranberries Currants Plums** Prunes** ACIDIFYING GRAINS, GRAIN PRODUCTS Amaranth Barley Bran, wheat Bran, oat Corn Cornstarch Hemp Seed Flour Kamut Oats (rolled) Oatmeal Quinoa Rice (all) Rice Cakes Rye Spelt Wheat Wheat Germ Noodles Macaroni Spaghetti Bread Crackers, soda Flour, white Flour, wheat ACIDIFYING BEANS & LEGUMES Black Beans Chick Peas Green Peas Kidney Beans Lentils Pinto Beans Red Beans Soy Beans Soy Milk White Beans Rice Milk Almond Milk ACIDIFYING DAIRY Butter Cheese Cheese, Processed Ice Cream Ice Milk ACIDIFYING NUTS & BUTTERS Cashews Legumes Peanuts Peanut Butter Pecans Tahini Walnuts ACIDIFYING ANIMAL PROTEIN Bacon Beef Carp Clams Cod Corned Beef Fish Haddock Lamb Lobster Mussels Organ Meats Oyster Pike Pork Rabbit Salmon Sardines Sausage Scallops Shrimp Scallops Shellfish Tuna Turkey Veal Venison ACIDIFYING FATS & OILS Avacado Oil Butter Canola Oil Corn Oil Hemp Seed Oil Flax Oil Lard Olive Oil Safflower Oil Sesame Oil Sunflower Oil ACIDIFYING SWEETENERS Carob Sugar Corn Syrup ACIDIFYING ALCOHOL Beer Spirits Hard Liquor Wine ACIDIFYING OTHER FOODS Catsup Cocoa Coffee Vinegar Mustard Pepper Soft Drinks ACIDIFYING DRUGS & CHEMICALS Aspirin Chemicals Drugs, Medicinal Drugs, Psychedelic Pesticides Herbicides Tobacco ACIDIFYING JUNK FOOD Coca-Cola: pH 2 Beer: pH 2.5 Coffee: pH 4 ** These foods leave an alkaline ash but have an acidifying effect on the body.

 

 
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