Balance Your Body’s Ph

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Simple changes to your diet can reduce the effect of acid-forming foods.

Visualize how your ideal body, your human home, would feel. Visualize the sensations within your body when it’s healthy, whole, and functioning perfectly. Got an image? Good.

Chances are, this body feels more akin to a cool mountain stream than a steamy swamp, right? Well, the bodily environments we’re creating from our food and lifestyle choices are becoming increasingly toxic and far removed from what nature intended.

We’re creating acidic environments—the perfect setting for disease—and although our bodies often work overtime to compensate for our poor choices, we’re tiring our systems and jeopardizing our health by continuing to fuel ourselves with the wrong foods. If we continue to walk toward the swamp, instead of toward the stream, eventually our bodies will, too.

Understanding Ph

Ph stands for potential of hydrogen, and the Ph scale ranges from 1–14 (1 being the most acidic, 7 is neutral, and 14 is most alkaline). A blood Ph of 7.3–7.5 is generally considered the ideal human range, while our stomachs are much more acidic—around 2.5–3.0—allowing for proper digestion of foods.

The Standard American Diet (SAD) is packed with processed foods, sugar, meat, coffee, and alcohol—all of which are highly acidic—and lacks enough fresh fruits and vegetables to aid the body in neutralizing the acid formed.

In addition to the acidic foods we eat, we ingest toxic acid-forming chemicals through polluted air, household cleaners, and mass-produced personal care products.

Studies indicate lower Ph levels (more acidic) may lead to heart disease, obesity, Type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, muscle deterioration, fatigue, and possibly even cancer. Higher Ph levels (more alkaline) are linked to better brain function and bone health, and reduce one’s risk for hypertension, stroke, and memory problems.

By making a few simple changes to your everyday routine, and favoring certain foods over others, you can help balance your body’s PH and reduce the amount of acid present in your system. If you’re already facing health problems associated with a highly acidic body, you could reverse many of the symptoms by switching to an alkaline diet.

Wake up with lemon

Lemons are a great way to alkalize the body, and have a myriad of other health benefits including detoxing the liver and kidneys. Drinking warm water with the juice of half a lemon, or with a drop or two of food-grade lemon essential oil, upon waking will help neutralize the acid created in your system while you slept and kickstart your body’s own disease-fighting processes.

Alkalizing foods to include in your diet

Dark, leafy greens. Kale, spinach, collard greens, beet greens.
Vegetables. Avocado, cucumber, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, sprouts, radish, onion, eggplant.
Fruits. Lemon, lime, blueberries, mango, papaya, melon (especially watermelon), grapes, banana.
Proteins. Almonds, chestnuts, tempeh, lentils.
Superfoods. Chlorella, spirulina, seaweed, sea vegetables.
Alkaline water.

Acid-forming foods to avoid

Processed foods. Anything processed will have added sugars and refined carbohydrates that contribute to the amount of acid in your system.
Animal products. Beef, pork, chicken, fish, cow’s milk and cheese, ice cream, most yogurt.
Fried foods.
Alcohol. Wine, beer, spirits.
Caffeinated beverages. Coffee, tea, soft drinks.
Artificial and natural sugars. Corn syrup, sugar, xylitol.

Challenge

As soon as you wake up, before eating or drinking anything, drink a tall glass of warm water with the juice of half a lemon. Then throughout the day, instead of reaching for that afternoon coffee or sugary sweet, have another glass of warm lemon water or cool down with a tall glass of cucumber or watermelon-infused water.

You’ll feel cleaner, more energized, and refreshed! And, you’ll be on the path to a balanced body and greater health. And that feels great, doesn’t it?

Bonus Recipe: Detox and Alkalize Morning Smoothie

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