A diet that is optimized for the body's precious PH balance is talking about BLOOD PH and what happens when the body has to struggle to maintain blood pH. The digestive system is its own amazing environment that makes use of acids and alkalines both. Our blood PH level is of vital importance; if the body cannot maintain a very narrow window of balance, we die in horrible ways. Heart attack, stroke, muscles spasming, mental confusion, all at once.

The blood minerals that we concern ourselves with are the electrolytes: potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodium, chloride, phosphorous, although the latter two are easy to get from the diet and rarely supplemented.

In order to maintain blood pH balance, the body needs reserves of minerals such as calcium, sodium, potassium, so it can add and subtract molecules as needed. If it doesn't have these from the diet or water, it will do things like rob the bones and teeth of hard bone calcium in order to create blood calcium lactate.

As it maintains the balance, the "used up" or waste acids are excreted in the urine. If the urine is constantly acidic, that tells us that we are not providing enough alkalines or good acids such as fruit acids which are *base once digested* (a base neutralizes acids) to offset the balance. That's where a lot of the misunderstanding about eating a PH diet is, the fact that many acids once digested are the opposite, so people think you shouldn't eat lemon or pineapple, which couldn't be more wrong.

So that, in a nutshell, is blood PH.

When it comes to digestion, food goes from acids in the stomach to alkalines in the small intestine. The food must be reduced to a paste-like material by the teeth and stomach acids so the enzymes can get at the nutrients. Most of absorption happens in the small and large intestine, and that requires enzymes. Enzymes are delicate and only work in a more alkaline environment, so the small intestine must flood the digested food mass with base to neutralize the stomach acids so the enzymes can do their good work.

So you want a stomach with plenty of acids or the entire process is compromised. You want plenty of enzymes and reserves of base and alkaline so absorption isn't compromised in the small intestine. If either are compromised, then the colon cannot properly do its work to allow absorption of the base and alkaline minerals still in the food that is turning into fecal matter. So you get a vicious cycle. Depletion because of depletion.

Acid vs. Alkaline Foods

There are charts available on the net, but again there is much confusion about which foods are acid and which foods are alkaline.

What you have to look at is whether or not they are whole foods close to their orignal state (alkaline) and whether they digest completely (alkaline). IF they are phony foods or do not digest properly, their affect on the body is acidic.

You cannot just eat purely alkaline foods (nothing but alkaline minerals) in order to get better. The body does need some compounds that are, technically, acid, to maintain proper pH balances. So don't go driving yourself crazy trying to remember which food is predominantly acid in chemical makeup. Just remember that real food is alkaline while phony, processed foods are acidic. There are only a very few exceptiosn to that rule:

Muscle meats tend to be acidic because of their digestive byproducts, so if you have a meat day follow it with a high-calcium day, or end the day with some kefir. Protein powders tend to be acidic. Peanuts are acidic.

Doshas help us to define body types and proclivities, plus they rule certain functions and organs. When we have an ailment, we have an imbalanced dosha, because each Dosha represents a force in the body. If that force is coming on too strong or too weak, we suffer.

The three doshas are Vata, Kapha and Pitta. Vata is the element of Air, and the other doshas depend on Vata because it is responsible for movement. Kapha is the element of water, Pitta is fire, or bile.

When applied to body type, a person can be predominantly one dosha, two doshas or all three, so there are more than just three body types. A person can be physically one dosha but mentally and emotionally another dosha, such as a solid Kapha body type but quick and fast Vata mind – Rodney Dangerfield.

When applied to ailments, you can have a Kapha person with a predominantly Pitta ailment, such as a hot, congested liver and toxic bile from too many heating spices, tomato sauces and deep-fried oils.

Vata people are almost always thin, unless they really overindulge. They are quick thinkers, alert, live on nerves. They tend to have nervous habits like nail biting, pencil biting, smoking, etc. Vata means air, and their proclivities and symptoms increase when it is windy. They hate too much wind or air conditioning. They have fine bones, slight builds.

Vata ailments are anything having to do with dryness and cold. Dry skin, dry hacking cough, cold extremities, chills, spastic colon, gas, bloating, flatulence, are all Vata derangements.

Kapha people are the solid types. They tend to be what we call “large boned.” They are easy-going, placid, steadfast, good at planning and saving money. Kapha means water, and they do tend to get the water and mucous type complaints: sinus and ear infection, asthma, bronchitis. They gain weight easily and lose it slowly. They enjoy fasting for the lightness of being it gives them.

Kapha ailments are anything having to do with phlegm and the ear/nose/throat, stomach and upper respiratory area. Bronchitis, asthma, sinus infection are all Kapha imbalances.

Pitta people are the fiery types. Pitta means fire or bile. They have the strongest digestion and metabolisms. They can go out into the coldest weather without a sweater or scarf and shake their heads at people who bundle up. Their symptoms are increased in hot weather, which makes them perspire more, which they are already prone to do, and lose their temper and get irritable. They tend to have medium builds.

Pitta ailments have to do with certain kinds of acne and hives, pancreas, spleen, small intestine. Problems with absorbing nutrients, food intolerances, diarrhea, are typical Pitta issues.

Ayurvedic medicine has categories for foods and their actions on the body. We went over hot and cold awhile back, this takes that further. And indeed, there is more than hot or cold in that category, which is the Quality of the food. Hot foods are literally hot but can also be a food that increases transit times. Cold means actually cold like ice cream, and the coldness can cause either constipation or diarrhea depending on the Dosha. There's also heavy, light, dry, and oily.

• Heavy increases Kapha, but it's good for Vata and Pitta.
• Light increases Vata, so it's good for Kapha but bad for Vata and Pitta.
• Dry (white potatoes) increases Vata, but Kapha is wet (mucous) so it's good for Kapha.
• Oily (actual oils and meats, dairy) balances Vata and Pitta but not Kapha.
• Cold increases Vata and Kapha, decreases Pitta
• Hot decreases Vata and Kapha, but increases Pitta

The next category is taste, how a food tastes. The taste can be that tasted at the outset by the tongue or post-digestive - they don't have to be the same, they can change, which gets confusing! By knowing just the tongue taste is still enough knowledge to help you decide which is better intervention for you and your symptoms. Aloe vera, for instance, starts out bitter but its action is astringent.

By the way, "Food" means anything eaten, including herbs and spices too. So learning the taste of a spice or herb will give you a good idea as to its action on the body and whether it is good for your Dosha or Dosha type imbalance, so you can start making better choices about which herbs and super-foods to take.

The six tastes tell you how a food will affect the power of digestion and body overall. For instance, "Pungent" foods are hot, so they fire up agni and are good for cleansing the intestines and body of toxins/ami/undigested food particles that end up lining your arteries and cause heart attacks or lining your joints and causing arthritis or inhabiting your muscles and causing fibromyalgia.

Each Dosha (body type and dosha-disturbance) is further defined by how taste affects it. Some tastes increase a dosha, thus, overdosing on the foods with that taste will create an imbalance. So if you're a Vata and eat things that increase Vata, you will have aggravated Vata symptoms of being too thin, weak, cold, fatigued, poor appetite, flatulence, constipation. If you're Kapha and eat tastes that increase Kapha you'll have a flare-up of Kapha type symptoms, such as asthma, ear infections, sinus infections, weight gain, depression, overally heaviness, coldness.

To bring these symptoms back into balance, simply accent foods with the taste that DEcreases that Dosha. Kapha is cold, so anything hot and pungent will decrease it. If there's a mucous condition, astringent would be called for.

Salty is a tad heating, helps maintain healthy metabolism, pH balance, improves appetite.

Sweet as in sweets and carbs in general, are slightly cooling and are body builders, so they increase Kapha, weight overall, and in excess build toxins and promote obesity. Done right, sweetness decreases excessive Vata and Pitta in the body.

Sour taste is found in found in fermented food and acidic fruit. It increases Kapha and Pitta and decreases Vatta. It is a heating taste, which counter thirst, helps maintaining acidity and improves appetite and digestion. In excess, in increases acidity.

Bitter tastes were always assumed to be poison when first encountered by herbal healers. They would carefully take a tiny bit and note reactions. Many bitter compounds are lethal at high enough doses, but wonderful curatives in smaller. Bitter foods are usually guilty of having an acidic anti-nutrient, such as spinach which has oxalic acid that binds calcium, so their good qualities (high in minerals) are often offset just a bit. Bitter decreases Pitta and Kapha and increases Vata. It is a cooling and drying taste, which tones the organs and increases appetite and is detoxifying. Eating bitter foods like bitter salad greens is an excellent way to keep from overeating. It's very difficult to eat too much bitter! Bitter herbs are detoxing to the body.

The definition of Astringent is: drug that causes contraction of body tissues and canals; [adj] tending to draw together or constrict soft organic tissue. So if you had hemorrhoids, where fluids and tissues are ballooning out, you'd want something to draw them back together. Thus drinking and applying aloe vera is a good remedy for hemorrhoids. Apples, pears and cabbage are considered astringent, which is why they are safer to eat fruits while battling candida. Overdosing on astringents would in time deplete the vitality of the tissues.

Once you know our Dosha, make a chart of what increases it and decreases it. That way you can properly categorize every food you eat and also adjust the foods you eat to balance them. For isntance, potatoes are dry, but add lots of butter and they're balanced by the oil, making them more appropriate for Vata but perhaps aggravating Pitta. Do the same for symptoms - when making a list of your symptoms, categorize them as to which Dosha they are. If you're not sure, check a book on Ayurveda (Dr. Vasant Lad's is easy reading) or Google it. Or refer to these pages:

http://www.ayurbalance.com/explore_articlesixtastes.htm

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=diet&dbid=12

http://www.naturalhealthweb.com/articles/mouze1.html

http://www.holistic-online.com/ayurveda/ayv-taste-concept.htm

and please do share good pages when you find them. :)

Lots of "gurus" out there are trying to make money off their really bad science. They'll try to tell you that vinegars are bad because they're acids (their pH may be on the acid side, but they are often potassium chloride which is alkaline to the body) and other such nonsense that only goes to prove that they never took organic chemistry, biology or chemistry of nutrition, and their papers are not peer-reviewed by other scientists. Don't listen to them, they'll drive you crazy and won't make you feel any better than before, unless of course they encourage you to give up junk foods.

We have more microbes in our body than we have actual body cells. We are totally dependent on microbes, it's a symbiotic relationship most of the time. Certain microbes are totally bad for us, and thus are called parasites because they have no benefit, only detriments. But the friendlies, as I call them, give us tons of benefits.

Gut flora (microbes in the small and large intestine) play a lot of different roles. They're our first defense against the baddies and environmental toxins. Indeed, some microbes are being cultured and developed to clean up toxic waste dumps. They generate life-giving enzymes and vitamins, keep things clean, and they both digest a lot of what we eat, and a lot of the toxic by-products of digestion - so that we don't have to.

Our friendlies are killed off by sugar, chlorinated tap water, overeating, many food additives, and the baddies. Our diets used to contain tons of pasteurized foods so we were constantly replacing them, but then Pasteur came along, made us hate and fear all bacteria indiscriminantly, and now everything is pasteurized so we no longer get the friendlies regularly in our diets. And fermented foods went out of fashion, and once out of fashion, only education will bring it back.

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Electrolytes are the blood minerals that make up the pH balance of the blood and the electrical potential of the body. Without electrolytes, the body is like a car without a battery - it just cannot get started.

Electrolytes for the most part are NOT stored, apart from salt and calcium, and you don't want to use your stores of bone for blood calcium as that can lead to osteoperosis and kidney stones. So electrolytes MUST come from the diet. They are shed through sweat and urine and used in digestion and elimination.

Bouts of fatigue and brain fog can often be attributed to a lack of electrolytes, as can muscle spasms, light headedness and depression.

Salt, calcium, potassium and magnesium are the electrolytes we need the most. Salt is stored and managed by the liver, so we don't need a lot, we just need enough. Organic salts from zucchini and celery are best, seafood next best, Celtic Sea salt is great, kosher salt is fine. Chromium and Sulfur are also electrolytes. A lack of chromium will lead to intense hypoglycemia.

A combination of Emergen-C, Cal-Mag Fizz and the Cleansing Drink or Rehyrdating Drink is a good way to get electrolytes. I have yet to find a supplement that has nothing but all of the electrolytes in proper proportions.

If you can handle the taste, you can make up an oral rehydration solution:

One quart of water
2 tablespoon of table sugar
1 tablespoon of grade B maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon of Epsom salts or take magnesium supplement
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
sip slowly throughout the day


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