Your Body’s pH: What It Is & Why It Matters

When the body is highly acidic, your oxygen content goes down, and dis-ease can fester. Your body is made to heal itself. Immediately, as you begin to restore the body’s pH balance, it replaces old tissues, repairs past damage, and rapidly cleanses and detoxifies. Soon you’ll be astonished at how great you feel!

With its abundance of organic, garden-fresh greens, fruits, vegetables and sprouts, the summer season is the easiest time to shift our eating habits. By restoring the pH balance in our body, all your body’s systems can repair and rebuild themselves—truly a balancing act.

Most of us have at least heard of pH balance and I thought I had most books on the subject until I laid eyes on: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the pH Balance Diet. This book is unique with its meal plans and recipes, along with the science of pH balance. It is written by Maria Blanco, CFH, a certified family herbalist and holistic nutrition consultant specializing in: food allergies, family and childhood nutrition, diabetes prevention, and weight-loss management education.

Balance exists in all things, and the body’s pH is no exception. The least you need to know is that the pH of the body’s various tissues is normally held within very tight bounds. However, because today’s Standard American Diet (SAD) is too acidic, it tends to throw that balance off. When these levels cannot be consistently maintained, the resulting toxicity gives way to chronic illness and dis-ease. By eating foods rich in alkalizing minerals, your body will restock its reserves and always have plenty on hand to maintain homeostasis (the proper pH balance). When the body’s tissues and secretions don’t fall within their normal pH ranges, the processes they are responsible for are performed less efficiently—or not at all!

Your body is made to heal itself. Immediately, as you begin to restore this balance, the body rapidly cleanses and detoxifies, replacing old tissues and repairing past damage. Soon you’ll be astonished at how great you feel.

In addition to the body’s lower elimination organs, the kidneys, lungs and skin work mightily to expel excessive acids and maintain a slightly alkaline balance. When these organs cannot keep up with the demand for acid elimination, the body draws upon its mineral alkaline reserves, including calcium from the bones. This is the cause of osteoporosis and its precursor, osteopenia, symptoms of which are rotting teeth, brittle nails, psoriasis, etc.

In chemistry, pH (potential of hydrogen) is a measure of how acidic or alkaline a substance is on a scale of 0 (most acidic) to 14 (most alkaline), with 7 being neutral.

To get technical, the pH scale is logarithmic, so a pH value of 4 is ten times more acidic than a pH of 5, while a pH of 9 is ten times more alkaline than a pH of 8. The pH of pure water is normally 7—right in the middle. Lemons are most alkalizing for the body, while vinegar, whiskey, sugar and drugs are among the most acid-forming.

Irish writer and hobby chemist Robert Boyle first referred to substances as either acids or alkalis during the 17th century. Nearly 200 years later, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius hypothesized that water could dissolve chemical compounds into individual ions. In the late 19th century, Danish scientist Sorren Sorensen studied the effect of ion concentration on proteins and discovered that the relative concentration of hydrogen ions was important. To give meaning to the measurement, he created the pH scale. To this day, the pH scale is still one of the most basic tools of chemistry, nutrition and other sciences.

No other people in history have eaten so many acid-forming foods—processed, non-fresh, non-plant. This applies to our pets, too. Most modern dis-eases (mental and emotional, as well as physical) can be linked back to too much acidity in the body.

As early as 1931, Dr. Otto Warburg published research that showed cancer begins in cells suffering from the lack of oxygen, due to weakened cellular respiration. These oxygen-starved cells begin a kind of fermentation, which increases their acidity. Inflammation (i.e., arthritis and pain) are also known to be caused by an excess of acid waste in the joints, muscles and body.

Bottom line? 

Your body needs the basics in life. Absorbing sunlight, breathing fresh air, drinking pure water, and daily movement—all help to balance your pH. As always, eating a diet that’s rich in fresh fruits and vegetables, especially the greens, will ensure your body’s ability to stay in pH balance. 

A great place to start is to move from 50/50, then 60/40, then eventually 70/30 in terms of eating more alkalizing foods. Note in the illustration that the stomach fluids are the most acidic in the body, which protects you by killing all harmful incoming pathogens, parasites, etc. And take heart—with your very next balanced meal, your body will go to work to create homeostasis and remove excess acids.