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.