The Acid Alkaline Balance Diet

An Innovative Program That Detoxifies Your Body's Acidic Waste to Prevent Disease and Restore Overall Health

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Contents

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

HOW ACIDIC WASTES CAUSE DISEASE

Detoxification is even more important to longevity than good nutrition. Frenchphysiologist Alexia Carrell kept pieces of chicken heart tissue alive in asolution containing the same mineral levels found in chicken blood plasma fortwenty-eight years. The cells in the tissue stopped dividing and died out onlywhen he stopped changing the solution, although he continued to place mineralsin the solution in the same amount. The chicken heart cells, despite beingprovided with the necessary nutrients, could not carry on their metabolicactivities because the fluid in which they were placed had become filled withacid wastes.

The environment of the human body cannot be so easily purified as the test-tubeenvironment of Carrell's chicken heart tissue. The body's detoxifyingorgans—liver, lymph, immune system, kidneys, and lungs—were notdesigned to neutralize synthetic chemicals and heavy metal contaminants thathave found their way into the body in recent years.

The hydrogenation of edible oils leaves behind traces of aluminum and nickel,and food additives contain remnants of such toxic heavy metals as cadmium, lead,mercury, and chromium. Mercury from dental amalgams and in canned tuna fish, theformaldehyde and mercury in vaccines, and the lead from car exhaust are just afew of the multitudes of toxins that have found their way into the body.

The chemist Ray Peat, Ph.D., writes, "Heavy metals accumulate in the body at afaster rate as the body ages, and have an affinity for the bones. Lead, inparticular, replaces bone calcium. And heavy metals can trigger the onset ofbone cancer by replacing the blood-making machinery in the bones. Some materialssuch as chelators and EDTA (a mild acid used in chelation) move metals from thebones to the brain where they are more destructive."

Fortunately there are ways we can help the body reduce its store of heavy metalsand synthetic chemicals. A juice made with vegetables high in alkaline mineralssuch as celery and parsley can neutralize heavy metals in the lungs. Lemon juicein water before breakfast is an effective detoxifier of heavy metals in general.With its heavy concentration of negatively charged ions, the lemon in the waterbonds with positively charged metal molecules and neutralizes them. Onceneutralized, the body has no problem eliminating them.

Mineral supplements are also helpful in reducing heavy metals. Calcium, iron,and copper lower lead levels; vitamin C, zinc, and selenium remove mercury fromthe body; and zinc, copper, and iron reduce cadmium levels.

The body has another means of eliminating some of the potent acids that leachout of pesticides, heavy metals, and food debris and settle in the blood. Butthis system does not eliminate them. It just gets them out of harm's way. Whenthe body's slightly alkaline blood pH is threatened by the acidity of theseforeign intruders, the body binds them with calcium, an alkaline mineral, anddeposits them as far away as possible from the circulating blood.

As we age, the wastes in our bodies accumulate in such great quantities that thebody is unable to dispose of them, so they calcify. By the time most peoplereach the age of fifty, they have acquired a few enlarged knuckles, calciumspurs in the heel, and calcified deposits on the vertebrae and in muscle tissue.These calcium deposits can be painful but are not life-threatening.

Acidity and Cardiovascular Disease

Acidic wastes are not always rendered less harmful by being safely entombed incalcium deposits. When the body's acidic load becomes too large, some acidparticles remain in the blood. They trigger the onset of cardiovascular diseaseby making scratches and bumps on the inside walls of arteries. These injuriesare "bandaged" over with cholesterol, triglycerides, calcium, and other wastes.Of course, the higher the cholesterol and triglyceride levels, the thicker the"bandage" and the narrower the arteries.

A high cholesterol level is not the underlying cause of hardening of thearteries. Cholesterol and other thick, sticky substances cannot adhere to vesselwalls that are smooth. Only after the arterial vessel walls become pitted andscratched by acid particles are fatty plaques able to stick to them.

Narrowed arteries are dangerous for two reasons. Fatty plaques are more likelyto become detached from vessel walls and trigger the formation of blood clots,which travel through the bloodstream to the brain and cause strokes. They alsoraise blood pressure, increasing the likelihood of heart attacks and strokes.

That the injury of arterial walls by acid particles is the major cause of highblood pressure is strongly indicated by the clinical studies of Dr. KanchoKuninaha, who successfully lowered the blood pressure of many of his patientswith alkaline water. Normalized blood pressure readings indicated that thearteries had opened up, and the alkaline particles in the water had removed thefatty plaques and acidic wastes from the arterial walls.

Acidity, Autoimmune Disorders, and Food Allergies

The groundwork is laid for autoimmune disease when the immune cells decide aparticular food is an unfriendly microbe. To "protect" the body from this"enemy," the immune cells not only trigger the production of histamines but alsomaneuver an enzyme into making a leak in the intestines. Those food moleculesthe immune cells have designated as hostile, not knowing what the immune systemis up to, slip through these leaks. Once in the general circulation they becomesitting ducks for the immune cells. The latter, however, in the process ofdisposing of the food allergens, become inflamed and mutate. In their new guisethe immune cells attack the body's own protoplasm. Proof that it is not uncommonfor the immune system to be transformed from a "Dr. Jekyll" to a "Mr. Hyde" isthe fact that there are now sixty-three clinically proven autoimmune disorders,including celiac disease, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, type 1diabetes, and Crohn's disease.

To prevent autoimmune disease, avoid eating foods that you know you are allergicto. If you are not sure what these foods are, test yourself (see the Pulse Testin Chapter 2). Also, keep in mind that any symptoms, no matter howremoved they seem from those caused by food allergies, may nevertheless be dueto them. The most common reactions caused by histamines are rashes, eczema,swelling, insomnia, headaches, drowsiness, dizziness, arthritic pain, andsleeplessness.

Acidity and Cancer

While the health of the cardiovascular system is threatened most by injuriesinflicted by acid particles in arteries, the other organs of the body—theliver, pancreas, lungs, and so on—are more likely to degenerate whenacidic wastes accumulate in the nearby capillaries that feed them. Acid wastesthicken the blood, and the coagulated blood cannot carry the quantity ofnutrients and oxygen the organs need to function efficiently.

When we refer to the malfunction of organs, we really mean the abnormal functionof the millions of cells that make up each organ. These cells depend on, amongother things, oxygen to manufacture energy and amino acids for the synthesis ofprotein and the division of old cells into new ones. When the cell is deprivedof these substances, it either dies or adapts to the new oxygen-deprivedenvironment by becoming malignant. The cancer cell can live in such anenvironment for two reasons. First, it obtains its energy from fermentation, aprocess that is carried on without oxygen. Second, multiplying continually, itgrabs the nutrients designated for the body's normal cells. The latter, deprivedof their sustenance, are either gobbled up by the rapidly multiplying cancercells or they stop dividing and die.

Clearly, the prevention of cancer should begin with removing from the bodyacidic wastes that turn normal cells into cancerous ones. If an individual isbeing treated for cancer, the removal of acidic wastes generated by chemotherapycould prevent a recurrence.

My friend Maureen and I were having lunch together for the first time in threeyears. I was struck by how healthy and youthful she looked at the age of sixty-five. I asked her to what she attributed her survival from breast cancer surgerysome fifteen years before, even though she had been told after the mastectomy ofher left breast that her cancer had spread to her lymph glands. She answered,"During the five years I was on tamoxifen, I never took an antinausea pill.Instead, I let myself throw up whenever I needed to." In doing this, Maureen haddeprived her cancer cells of the acidic environment in which they thrive.

Acidity and Alcoholism

On the surface, there does not seem to be a connection between cancer andalcoholism—yet the purging of acidic wastes is effective in both cases. Inhis book A Monk Swimming: A Memoir, Malachy McCourt wrote that at theage of seventy-two, after a lifetime of nightly intoxication, he was stillhealthy thanks to the fact that he "knelt down in the bathroom" after he camehome from his nightly binges. By throwing up the acids generated in hisdigestive tract by the alcohol, McCourt spared his liver the damage it wouldhave sustained from acid aldehyde, the highly toxic by-product of alcohol.

CHAPTER 2

RIDDING YOUR BODY OF ACIDIC WASTES

Twenty-five years ago, my husband and I spent a week on the island of Nevis,known to its inhabitants as "the pearl of the Caribbean." It was at that timeentirely unspoiled. Hiking along a coastal road that circled the island, we cameacross a village woman said to be 106 years old. She sat in front of the opendoor of her hut; before her was a grill. A bubbling sound came from a big fryingpan placed on top of it in which she was boiling soft-shell crabs. These crabsand the other seafood she ate daily came directly from the ocean no more thanfifty yards from her hut. The rest of her food supplies were even closer athand. As we looked around at the sloping sides of the valley in which her hutwas situated, we noticed rows of squash and other vegetables wedged betweentangles of tropical foliage.

The key to her longevity, we suspected, was that she lived her life inaccordance with the cycles of nature. The nutrient loss in the foods she ate wasminimal, since the fish and plants were alive only minutes before she preparedand ate them. She got her seafood from the fishermen just returned from theirearly-morning fishing expeditions, as they tied their boats to the dock. Byraising vegetables in her own "backyard," she satisfied two basic tenets of goodhealth: she ate food that was locally grown and what was in season. Since thetropical weather enabled her to grow her vegetable garden all year long, shenever had to resort to canned or frozen food, thus avoiding the chemicalpreservatives and nutrient loss characteristic of processed food.

The chance encounter with this ancient but vigorous lady and her organicallygrown garden in the midst of natural surroundings illustrates the benefits tohealth achieved by following one's traditional diet and of eating foods pluckedfresh from earth and sea. It also points up the contrast to our own lives, whichhave been damaged by modern agriculture and food preservation methods, as wellas a scientific theory that doesn't take into account the detrimental effects ofprocessing and chemical additives in assessing the nutritional value of food.

Acidic and Alkaline Foods—Achieving a Balance

Dr. R. A. Wiley, a physicist, described in his book Bio Balance sixdiets for individuals with mental disorders. Wiley assigned these diets to thesubjects in his study according to their acid-alkaline blood pH. There areseveral reasons why this diet can't work.

First, there is a difference of opinion as to which foods are acid forming andwhich alkaline forming. For example, bananas, avocados, asparagus, artichokes,and spinach are considered by Zen Buddhists to be acid producing, while Westernscientists believe them to be alkaline because, when burned, they leave behindmore alkaline mineral ashes than acidic ones.

Furthermore, many acid-forming vegetables that nutritionists involved inbalancing pH tell us to eat less of are nevertheless very effective ineliminating acidic waste. The juice of carrots and beets, with their highpercentage of acid-forming minerals—sulfur andphosphorus—effectively clean out the acidic wastes from the liver,kidneys, and bladder. The juice of cabbage, high in acid-forming chlorine andsulfur, cleanses the acid wastes adhering to the mucous membranes of the stomachand intestinal tract. An excellent remedy for gum disease and infections ingeneral is the highly acidic vitamin C.

Alkaline minerals are also effective cleansers. Potassium, calcium, sodium, andmagnesium in dandelions, endive, and lettuce reduce hyperacidity in all theorgans. Indeed, acid and alkaline minerals act together to cleanse the body,just as a combined solution of vinegar (acid) and bicarbonate of soda (alkaline)makes an excellent household cleaner.

The Difference Between Acidic Waste and Acidic Foods

Acidic waste and acidic foods have opposite effects on the body. Acid waste isdestructive—it eats up oxygen and inflames tissue. Sour-tasting (acidic)foods, on the other hand, supply the body with the acid it needs to digestprotein.

Proof that acidic food staples do not threaten the blood's pH factor or causedegenerative disease are the several populations that have what the "experts"claim are predominantly acidic diets. Yet they are known for their longevity.One example is the macrobiotic diet developed by Dr. Sagen Ishizuka in thelatter half of the nineteenth century to cure his kidney disease, which Westernmedicine had failed to do. Although it is based on the concept of balancingopposites—yin (acid) and yang (alkaline)—the dietary staple of themacrobiotic diet is brown rice, which contains a high level of acid-formingphosphorus.

Dr. Weston Price, an American dentist, traveled during the 1930s in Africa, theoutback of Australia, and the Arctic to study the relationship between diet andhealth in the tribes in these regions, which still followed the traditionaldiets of their forefathers. He found that many of the tribes who followed agrain-based diet, which is high in acid-forming phosphorous, were in robusthealth, free of cardiovascular disease and cancer.

It seems that a diet high in alkaline minerals is not necessary either for themaintenance of health or for a normal 7.4 alkaline pH blood plasma. Normalizingacid-alkaline blood pH by eating more foods higher in alkaline-forming mineralsthan acidic ones should not be the basis for working out a diet for two morereasons: First, clusters of acidic, toxic wastes in various parts of the bodydon't necessarily raise blood acid levels. It is doubtful that balancing theblood pH through diet would make any inroads into concentrations of acidicwastes located far from major blood supplies. Second, the amount of enzymes,bile, hydrochloric acid, and other metabolites the body manufactures for thebreakdown of nutrients is not determined by the blood pH but by the particularfood flavors and protein that sustained the individual's ancestors for thousandsof years.

A Young Girl Benefits from Following Her Ancestral Diet

Dawanta was born with sickle-cell anemia. When I met her she was seventeen yearsold and getting four pints of blood every month. Her sickle-cell gene was aninheritance from her ancestors who lived in the equatorial region of Africa.Ironically, the sickle-cell gene in Africa is beneficial because it preventsmalaria—rampant along the equator because of the infection-carryingmosquitoes that proliferate in this swampy region. Despite the prevalence of thesickle-cell gene in Africans living near the equator, it was rare that anyonecame down with the disease. What prevented the gene's expression was the dietarystaple of the Africans: the cassava root.

Being aware of these facts, I recommended to Dawanta's grandmother that she makecassava for Dawanta once a day, and to make it according to the traditionalAfrican recipe. (Peel the barklike skin, grate it raw, and cook it in a littlewater until the mucilage is released and the cassava achieves a glueliketexture.) After one month on the cassava, Dawanta was able to stretch the timebetween blood transfusions from one month to two months and to cut down on herblood transfusions from four pints to two. Given the healing effect of cassavaon Dawanta's sickle-shaped red blood cells even though she was already in herteens, imagine what cassava could have done for her had it been a regular partof her diet from the time she was a baby.

Dawanta's story points up the advantage to health of continuing the dietarytraditions of one's ancestors, particularly of their dietary staple. If yourancestors were primarily meat eaters you should make meat the staple of yourdiet. If your ancestors had a diet heavy in fish, you should eat fish two orthree times a week. On the other hand, individuals of Asian descent benefit fromfollowing the grain-eating traditions of their cultures. The fact is thatnutrients not part of a person's cultural heritage are incompatible with thatindividual's biochemistry. Solomon Katz of the University of Pennsylvania hasproven in his research that people's genetic makeup is shaped by their foodpractices. A case in point are those U.S. immigrants from India who havereplaced their grain diet with meat. They have experienced a sharp increase inheart disease.

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(Continues...)Excerpted from The Acid Alkaline Balance Diet by Felicia Drury Kliment. Copyright © 2010 by Felicia Drury Kliment. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc..
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