While I’d heard about it for years, I became very closely acquainted with the concept of an acidifying diet this past summer while I was going through detox process. As I researched and read about it, I found out a few interesting things.
- Our bodies needs to maintain a balance between acid and base (alkaline) or we will die.
- Many (most?) acidic foods (like citrus fruits) actually have an alkalizing effect within the body.
- We, of course, have mechanisms in place to alkalize or acidify our bodies, whichever is necessary to maintain balance.
- The Standard American Diet is highly acidifying.
Fact number 4 above is the reason the detox I did focused a lot on alkalizing the body — most of us swing too far toward acidic, because if the foods we eat.
What are these acidifying foods?
- Meats
- Sugary beverages (including fruit juices) and diet sodas
- Grains
- Pastries
- Alcohol
- Milk and cheese
- Regular and decaf coffee and black tea
Look familiar? Yeah.
How about some alkalizing foods?
- Vegetables, especially greens
- Legumes, especially soy beans
- Fruits, especially citrus
- Herbal and green teas
There are levels within each group. For example, beef is more acidifying than chicken, and kale is more alkalizing than a tomato, but you get the idea, right?
All those burgers, tacos, and steaks we eat, all that soda and beer we drink, the coffee we wake up with, well, those all serve to acidify our bodies.
Theres’ nothing wrong with consuming those acidifying foods, at least not in the context of this discussion of the body’s acid-alkaline state. I mean, I said it above: The body needs a balance, and being overly alkaline is just as dangerous as being overly acidic.
However, as we look at the list of acidifying foods, we can easily tell that the Standard American Diet is high is those, and relatively low in the alkalizing foods. We tend to prefer meat to veggies, pasta to legumes, coffee and black tea to herbal tea, and I think most of us will admit that we just don’t eat enough fruit.
I could give you a list of symptoms of an overly acidic body from the book  The Acid-Alkaline Diet, but, really, the list is quite extensive and it would also apply to many other ailments…. Okay, if you insist, here are a few:
- Lack of energy
- Feeling of depressions
- Frequent infections
- Sensitivity to high-pitched noises
- Easily stressed
- Headaches
- Swelling of the eyes
- Loose teeth
- Mouth sores
- Excess stomach acid
- Dry skin
- Skin gets irritated in sweaty areas
- Hives
- Leg cramps
What can we do about our acidifying diets? The answer is pretty simple: We need to substitute some of our acidifying foods for alkalizing ones.
Here some things you can do:
- Limit coffee consumption, substituting green or herbal teas
- Add lemon or lime juice to your water, although, keep in mind that while those juices are alkalizing agents inside the body, they are acidic in nature, and you probably don’t want acid washing over your teeth all the time, so do this once or twice a day only, or discuss it with your dentist
- Eat more vegetables
- Keep greens — kale, spinach — in your fridge and add them to whatever you eat. I buy the containers of cleaned organic baby kale and spinach and add them to just about everything, including sandwiches, pasta dishes, soups, salads
- Drink less alcohol
- Eat more fruits, especially avocados, although watch out for the high fat content of avocados
- Use meat more as a garnish and for flavoring, rather than making it the main focus of a meal
- Leave off the cheese
As with any change in your diet, it’s much easier to do this incrementally. Try it out for a few days a week, see if you feel any better. If you do feel better, alkalize more and more often. Hopefully, the feeling of well-being can keep you on track.
For me the changes were profound — softer, moister skin overall, especially around my heels and cuticles, and whiter eyes that don’t burn nearly as much as they used to. I should mention that my diet became more alkaline automatically as I switched to a plant-based diet, so there are more factors in play than a focus on alkalizing my body.
That’s the way it is with nutrition and the body, though. There are no silver bullets. With so many variables, both outside and inside our bodies, it’s not possible to say, for example, “Eat more avocados, and you’ll be okay,” or “Eat less meat, and you’ll be healthier.” We are all different, so the only thing to do is try things out, see what works.
If you eat a Standard American Diet, though, it’s safe to say your diet is too acidifying. If you don’t feel 100% all the time, alkalizing your diet may be just the thing you need. Give it a shot!