While I originally started to avoid this
subject like the plague, I felt the need to at a minimum address it
because there are so many widely differing view points on what this
actually means, what to do about it and how this really affects your
overall health.
I was very happy to find that the Chief Science
Officer at Univera LifeSciences, Steven Cherniske, had published a
very informative article, “The Acid Alkaline Mystery Solved”, on
this very subject. For any of you that have read any of Stephen
Cherniske’s work, you will not be surprised to see that it comes
complete with all the references that you could hope for and the
straight hard facts on this very confusing subject. As a result of
this finding I am not going to attempt to do the subject justice, by
trying to recreate an article of equal caliber. Verses re-inventing
the wheel I am going to simply hit some of the high points for those
of you who would prefer the cliff notes version. For those that
would like to read all of the details I will leave that to Stephen
and his article, “The Acid Alkaline Mystery Solved”.
First of all what is an Acid or for that matter an
Alkaline substance? These substances are measured on a pH scale with
water being neutral at 7.0. With values less than 7.0 being acid and
the lower the pH value the stronger the acid. As you may have
guessed alkaline (or base) substances have a value greater than 7.0
up to a maximum of 14. By now you may be wondering where our bodies
should fall on this scale. First of all when we speak of an
acid/alkaline balance in the body we are talking about the pH
balance of our blood and tissues that should remain in a fairly
narrow range of about 7.4 – slightly alkaline.
The real heart of the matter here is the
byproducts of the digestion of foods that we consume and absorb. The
biggest contributors to the fact that ACIDOSIS is at an all time
high are the facts that most Americans are consuming beef and/or
poultry multiple times per day, Americans are now consuming more
soft drinks than water, consumption of coffee (caffeinated &
decaffeinated) and lastly the processing of many of our foods have
removed all of the alkaline forming minerals. When thinking about
the foods that we consume you can not take the natural state of a
food as the prime indicator of how that food will interact with our
bodies. As an example, most fruits when consumed will result in an
alkaline ash residue once digested even though naturally they maybe
very high in acid in their natural state, even oranges.
The primary acid forming foods in your diet
contain the minerals, sulfur, phosphorus and iron. Typically you
will find these minerals in proteins, such as meat, fish, poultry,
eggs, grains, most nuts and soft drinks (due to the high phosphate
levels).The minerals potassium, calcium, magnesium and sodium form
alkaline reactions in the body and are found primarily in fruits and
vegetables, and so these foods are classified as alkaline forming
foods. As many of you are aware the consumption of alkaline-forming
vegetables and fruit is at an all-time low. This has resulted in an
increase of acidosis which accelerates catabolic damage and impairs
our bodies anabolic repair processes. One of the best examples is
the fact that it has been known for a long time that diets high in
protein greatly increase the risk of osteoporosis. While there are
many theories on this subject it appears that the body is simply
taking from one part of the body to help support other systems that
have been depleted due to the body staying in such a high state of
acidosis.
In an attempt to help us make this shift in our
diet Univera LifeSciences has created MetaGreens™. MetaGreens™ is
extraordinary mix of land and sea vegetables, all of which are rich
in alkaline minerals. I take great comfort in knowing that these
greens are pesticide-free, grown on high-nutrient soil that has
never been chemically fertilized. Additionally, Univera LifeSciences
takes great care to ensure that the vegetables are harvested at the
peak of their nutrient value and then these ingredients are
processed by low-temperature dehydration to retain all the raw food
goodness and manufactured in small batches to maximize freshness.
While the words “stomach acid” have a negative
connotations for many of you it is because you have been brain
washed over the years by the non-stop advertisements about how
excess stomach acid is causing all of your discomforts. While I
would be able to spend days address this issue I will pass. For
those of you that want to read a very well presented explanation of
why our stomach acids are in fact a good thing please read Stephen
Cherniske’s article. For myself I continue to rely on Univera
LifeSciences Aloe Gold product to help keep my digestive track in
order and functioning properly. For those of you that have not tried
Aloe Gold take a moment to ask anyone that have used the product and
I am very certain you will hear fantastic praises about how it has
helped them with numerous digestive track disorders.
I hope that you have found this latest entry to be
of interest and most of informative. While I have barely scratched
the surface here I hope that I have helped to clear up some of the
confusion associated with the Acid Alkaline debate. For those of you
that are hungry for more on this I can not recommend highly enough
that you read Stephen Cherniske’s article the Acid Alkaline Mystery
Solved.
