Over the past few years, there seems to be increased awareness about the dangers of acidity & the effect of blood pH level (measure of your body’s acidity) on overall health. From inflammation to fatigue, acne, pain, excess weight gain, and serious health issues including diabetes & heart disease, an acid environment in the body is bad news.
To maintain optimal health, our blood pH should be around 7.35 & 7.45. A pH value less than 7 is said to be acidic, whereas a pH value greater than 7 are is considered basic or alkaline. A prolonged acidic diet and poor lifestyle choices lead to incremental changes to our blood. Increased consumption of processed foods, junk food, caffeine, excessive amounts of sugar, animal-based products & salt continue to increase acidity in our bodies. Eventually, an overly acidic body provides a perfect breeding ground for bacteria and disease.
As disease cannot flourish in an alkaline environment, achieving an alkaline blood environment is ideal. Although drastic measures like adding alkalizing drops to your water, grudgingly turning vegan, cutting out entire food groups and so forth can certainly help maintain the acid-alkaline balance, it doesn’t need to be so life-altering. Making slight changes to your eating habits and daily routine can be some of the most effective & sustainable ways to alkalize your body. Some of my personal favorites include:
- Starting my day with hot water & lemon: I started doing this about 3 years ago, so it’s safe to say that it is a habit that has stuck Along with flushing out toxins, adding lemon to warm water has a positive effect on pH levels. Although lemons contain citric acid, they actually become alkaline in the body once metabolized. This is primarily due to their content of minerals like potassium, magnesium and sodium, which have alkalizing effects on the body.
- Reducing my intake of dairy: While eating organic dairy can be a great source of nutrients including protein, calcium and vitamin D, unfortunately it does create acidity in the body.
- Exercising regularly as physical activity helps move acidic waste products so your body can better eliminate them.
- Eating plenty of fresh vegetables which are alkaline-forming, especially leafy greens which are high in minerals including magnesium, manganese, calcium & vitamins A, K, C, E and B vitamins.
- Pairing my meats/poultry with fresh vegetables: As much as I enjoy quinoa, tofu and all that other vegan jazz, I do love me a good piece of meat. Although meat is highly acidic, adding alkaline foods can help counter some of the effects due to the reasons listed above.
- Sleeping for at least 7 hours daily: Simply put, stress produces acid & poor sleeping habits only increase levels of stress in the body.
- Watching my sugar intake: From sweets, to chocolate, refined grains, processed foods & fruit juices, consuming sugar creates a highly acidic environment. While I am the last person to completely eliminate sugar from my diet (errr, hello my nightly dose of dark chocolate), I do make a conscious effort to read labels & to balance my sugar intake with the rest of what I consume during the day.
I can continue listing various other ways to alkalize the body but for the sake of conciseness, I won’t. If anything, please use this as a reminder that reducing acidity in your body will do you a world of good without actually shaking up your world completely.
How do you keep your body alkaline?
I’m sorry… what were you saying? I kind of got distracted by that epic looking cupcake 😛 I think that you covered most of the important points, but I’d also add watching your coffee intake and cutting out sodas and carbonated drinks. Too much coffee can definitely wreak havoc on our systems, and sodas (even diet ones!) basically eat away our insides. When I heard that you can use diet Coke to clean a bathtub, I couldn’t help but wonder what it does to someone’s stomach 😯
I’m right there with you when it comes to diet sodas. I’d rather people drink the real deal occasionally than some chemical concoction on the regular. It’s scary how bad it is for you.
I also read that so long as I eat some veggies alongside my cheese, I should be fine. 🙂
Great info.
It makes me cringe to think back to the amount of Diet Coke I used to drink- gross stuff!
Gah that’s so disgusting about Diet Coke!! And I’m with you about coffee- I love the stuff but I am consciously trying to cut my intake to 1-2 times a day!
I really appreciate that you included the fact that balancing our pH levels doesn’t need to be so jarring as completely overhauling our diets. It’s overwhelming to feel that we need to change everything in order to achieve or maintain health – starting at a reasonable place certainly makes the most sense :).
Definitely- too much too soon is a recipe for disaster!
That cupcake looks amazing!!!! I was supposed to go to the Hummingbird Bakery yesterday but my plans fell threw – now I’m dying to go.
My massage therapist is always telling me my diet is too acidic, as he can feel it in my muscles. Oh boo.
Oh wow that’s crazy that your massage therapist can know that just by touching you!! Did he/she share any light on how to reduce the acidity?
Same things you said about diet! I like wine and dairy too much though, haha
Haha…that makes 2 of us ;)!
So you are saying I should stop fantasizing about chasing THAT cupcake down with a double shot of espresso to make up for the 4 hrs of sleep I got??? darn!!!
🙂
Just kidding – I am good with my veggie intake, but I have been so bad with my sleep habits! I used to start my mornings with 2 cups of water – but I got lackadaisical about that habit.. so needed to see your warm water and lemon habit to jump start mine again!
Consider this a remind to get your hot water & lemon in…even if a double espresso is more tempting ;)!
Oh sleep….I definitely need to work on that one! I also drink hot water for breakfast, my tummy doesn’t like the lemon though. And tons of water throuhgout the day!
I know I am very lonely with this one, but I never drink coffee, nor any kind of caffeine. Besides that I don’t like it, my already high energy gets all boosted and I am close to be a hyper freak. No one wants that 🙂
Hahah I’d love to see you high on caffeine 😀
What a fantastic post, not enough people know about this kind of nutrition/body balance!! Thank you for sharing. Also, I want five of those cupcakes holy wow.
Thanks so much Brittany! And drool more because that wasn’t a cupcake…it was a cupcake CAKE!
Great post! My doctor has me doing apple cider vinegar with water and I’ve noticed a huge improvement in my digestion.
Thanks Megan! Glad to hear that apple cider vinegar is working for you 🙂
This is so interesting!! Your post has spurred a curiosity in me that i now want to do more research on alkaline levels. The part about disease having no place to flourish when the body is at the right ph levels is amazing to me.
The healing power of food continues to amaze me…now someone get me some greens 😉
I haven’t heard too much on alkaline levels in health, huge thumbs up for a great informative post! I think part of me had an inkling; why else would I stick to one mug of my beloved coffee a day 😉 !?
Hope you savour that cup of coffee- I sure do 😀
I’ve read a bit about this in the past and always made a mental note to explore it further. Thanks for this! It’s a much more reasonable approached to a balance system than some of these crazy cleanse things I see.
Just the word ‘cleanse’ makes me weary!
To be honest, I’ve never really thought about pH balance! It’s interesting though and I guess as a vegetarian I try to balance out carbs protein and fat but I haven’t thought about pH balance!
Am sure your dietary choices are benefitting your pH levels more than you realise 🙂
Great article K. I am going to forward this to all my friends. My brother-in-law died of cancer, but it was very sudden. I believe diet plays a huge part in cancer prevention, but only up to a certain point. We can only do our best and hope for the best. Great article!!!
Thanks so much Nisha and so sorry to hear about your BIL! Cancer is terrible 🙁
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This is so cool… I eat wayyyy too many acidic foods. I mean I eat a ton of greens, but I also eat a ton of dairy, nuts, fish, etc. I should cut back and see what happens!
It can’t hurt to see if cutting back suits you better 🙂
Ever since reading Paleo Diet for Athletes, I’ve been trying to keep my body as alkaline as possible but it’s hard to tell where on the pH scale my body lies as I can’t tell by “feeling” it. I can say that I don’t eat a lot of leafy greens or fruits but I also don’t eat dairy or carbonated drinks either.
Where did you get this post idea from?
Acidity seems to be a hot topic lately which spurred this post 🙂