How To Eat More Alkaline Foods

Heartburn, indigestion, upset stomachs, colds, fatigue, and other unpleasant symptoms are pretty common for someone in today’s society.

What if I told you didn’t have to reach for the cabinet and down some “relief medicine” in order to feel better?

Perhaps one of the best and most natural ways you can help yourself is by taking a look at what you eat and rethinking your diet. You see, the pH balances within our body influences whether our bodies host a disease or help fight off a disease.

Now, before you run off and roll your eyes thinking “pH? Sounds like one of those boring terms we learned in chemistry class back in high school,” consider this: when you eat more alkaline foods, you could reap numerous health benefits!

Some suggestions of how an alkaline diet may improve your health are listed in the study The Alkaline Diet: Is There Evidence That An Alkaline pH Diet Benefits Health?:

• An alkaline diet full of fruits and vegetables may improve bone health, prevent muscle degeneration, and lessen the risk of other disease such as hypertension and strokes.

• The possible increase in growth hormone with an alkaline diet may improve health markers like cardiovascular health, memory, and cognition.

• An alkaline diet may increase intracellular magnesium which is important for maintaining bone strength.

Including alkaline-based foods in your diet may be one of the most beneficial things you can do for your health.

Now, let’s see exactly what alkaline means, how it helps maintain the body’s pH for maximum health, and what alkaline-based foods you can include in your everyday diet! 

What Does “Alkaline” Mean?

Let’s first start with the pH scale.

A pH number measures from 0 to 14 how acidic or alkaline a substance is. Anything above 7 is alkaline, anything below 7 is acidic, and 7 is neutral.

Our tissues and organs maintain a certain pH, slightly above neutral, to help the body perform its proper functions. The way food is metabolized can perhaps have an affect on the pH of the bloodstream and thus create an acidic or alkaline environment dependent upon the food digested.

It’s been shown that the most prominent alkaline foods are fruits and vegetables. In fact, even the fruits you think of as acidic like oranges, lemons, and limes contain high amounts of citric acid, and become alkaline-based when they are digested.

Related: 11 Incredible Uses For Lemon

Will Eating A High Alkaline-Based Diet Help Fight Off Disease?

The scientific research is limited on real evidence that a diet higher in alkaline foods helps cure or prevent diseases but many nutritionists preach the benefits of this concept, and we are not one to argue against higher consumption of fruits and vegetables.

As the authors and film makers behind Food Matters state, the premises of an alkaline diet is to not change your body’s pH but rather help it maintain its ideal pH.

Essentially, an alkaline-based diet promotes consumption of natural-occurring plants (non-processed, found in produce aisle). In addition, the high amount of nutrients included in a plant-based diet is undeniable.

The best way to get these nutrients, vitamins, and minerals is to consume real fruits and vegetables. Plus, fruits and vegetables have a high water content so they help with hydration.

Unfortunately, it can be argued that most Americans are not consuming enough fruits and veggies or other plant-based substances. We are a society that relies on processed foods which are mostly acidic.

So we encourage you to add more plant-based foods into your diet and take note of how your stomach feels, what your energy levels are like, and how full you feel afterwards! 

Related: 12 Healthy Grocery List Must-Haves

Are There Other Potential Benefits Of An Alkaline-Based Diet?

It has been shown that an alkaline-based diet can help prevent degeneration in bones. This is because alkaline-based foods are metabolized to bicarbonate and bicarbonate has been shown to lower the rate of bone breakdown and calcium excretion (calcium leaving the body).

As we age, our bones tend to more rapidly break down and any preventive measures we can take from slowing down the rate of bone breakdown should be considered such as an alkaline-based diet.

You can find out more about the study here.

What Foods Are Alkaline?

Here is a list of our favorite alkaline foods although there are many others:

• Lemon
• Asparagus
• Peppers
• Kale
• Watermelon
• Melon
• Avocados
• Grapes
• Collard Greens
• Cauliflower
• Sweet Potatoes
• Artichokes
• Green Tea
• Bananas
• Blueberries
• Kiwi
• Figs
• Eggplant
• Limes
• Cucumbers

Pin this list so you can refer back to it as you work to incorporate more alkaline-based foods in your diet.

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