Alkaline Food = Energy Food

A healthy person is one who is full of energy, full of life force within, bubbly and lively without. Conversely, a sickly person is one who has depleted much of the body's energy, often feeling lethargic and even depressed!

The latter phenomena is often the result of an acid alkaline imbalance, due to over acidity in the blood and tissues of the body. An over acidic body is often due to an accumulation of toxic waste materials in the body. This will cause the energy level to be sapped to detoxify the body, depriving the body of the much needed energy which could otherwise be channelled for fruitful work and living!

We are brought up to believe that eating a high proportion of carbohydrates daily as stipulated by the 'food pyramid' will do us just fine, health-wise. However, strict compliance of the 'food pyramid' will result in an over acidic body. Because it takes as much as twenty times of bases (alkaline substances) to neutralise a given amount of acid, it is advisable to consume 70-80 percent of alkaline intake (ballpark estimate) and the balance 20-30 percent of acidic food in order to maintain a balance pH in our blood and tissues.

Common acidic foods will include all animal products like meat and diary (fresh and processed), eggs, simple carbohydrates like refined white rice, flour and sugar, alcohol, coffee, chocolates and carbonated drinks. Alkaline foods will include all vegetables (raw and lightly cooked), avocado, tomato, citrus fruits, raw nuts (almond, Brazilian) and sprouted seeds (sunflower, alfafa).

A distinction between acidic and alkaline food is important because basically, alkaline foods are 'live foods' while acidic foods are 'dead foods'. The former gives life energy while the latter is devoid of life energy. Moreover, acidic foods also leach the body of calcium and other vital minerals to the extent that such reserves have to be drawn from the bones that the body needs to help buffer the deficiencies.

Heavy marketing through commercials would have us believe that milk and other diary products like cheese will do us good, adding calcium to out bones to avoid or delay the onslaught of osteoporosis.. However, the truth is most of the calcium in the milk cannot be absorbed into our body because most people will not produce the enzyme lactase - once passed infant stage -to digest the protein lactose found in the milk. Besides, milk is acidic and tend to form mucus in the linings of our intestines to trap yeast and harmful bacteria!

Life foods are like 'depositing money' into one's savings account to store up the energy level in times of need. 'Dead foods' are like 'withdrawing money' from one's savings account, depleting the energy reserves unnecessarily, supposedly kept for emergency or pressing times of need.

As our body is about 70 percent water, we need to consume about two to three litres of pure alkaline water daily. As distilled water has a neutral pH of 7.0, an alkaline pH of 7.3 to 7.4 for drinking is ideal for a normal healthy person. Beverages like coffee, milk and carbonated drinks are highly acidic and should only be drank sparingly. A cup of coffee with full cream and sugar is some 1,000 times more acidic than distilled water, while a can of fuzzy carbonated drink with pH of 3.0 is up to 10,000 times more acidic than distilled water! Should we not be alarmed when our kids start popping up the can of cola on a regular basis?