Acid Alkaline Diet B.S.? or...?

[Viking Dan]

I thought I'd run this by the resident biochemist for an opinion.

http://www.price-pottenger.org/Articles/Acid_alk_bal.htm
or
http://www.naturalhealthschool.com/acid-alkaline.html

It seems plausible, but also seems not to be something one could rectify with lowcarb (although it does frown on grains and sugar---it also frowns on meat.)

The pro dairy bent is also surprising as I thought dairy could become very acidic for people who are intolerant, and my understanding is that most people are to varying degrees after infancy.

[Mitra]

I haven't read the links yet, but the Eadeses do say in Staying Power:


Meat, fish, eggs and cheese cause an acid load on the body that over decades can weaken bones.

Before you get spooked about the wisdom of low-carb dieting, recognise that all breads, pastas and cereal grains cause the same acid load that meat and hard cheese do: you won't spare your bones by going meat-free and filling up on bagels and oatmeal. The key is striving to balance the acid load with alkaline foods - fruits, green leafy veggies, colorful veggies, or alkaline waters. That's one reason why we designed our Protein Power strategy as we did - to give you a balance of acid and alkaline foods to keep your bones strong and healthy.

They go on to say that there's no need for dietary carbs per se, but that eating no carbs at all cuts out the good sources of alkaline foods as well as some of the nutrients in plant foods, and reduces the variety that makes it easier to stick to the plan.

[Viking Dan]

I haven't read the links yet, but the Eadeses do say in Staying Power:

D'oh! Now I have to buy another book.

Yeah. I did notice that at least it villifed sugar and grain to the same degree as meat. I'm inclined to wonder if I can't get around this by just taking high doses of calcium and drinking a gallon of water a day.

[laughingW]

One of my favorite articles on this topic is John Berardi's "Covering Nutritional Bases" which you can google for. The author includes recent research citations at the end.

And, putting it in practice, I can easily get slightly alkaline with enough veggies. I honestly do feel better too. It's one of the few arguments in favor of vegetables that actually got me to include more of them (yuck)

[Gaelen]

Well, LaughingW and VikingDan, I think I'll take a few servings daily of veggies (and fruits...don't forget them, either) over a daily gallon of water and high doses of calcium (the high doses of calcium won't help much unless balanced by the appropriate levels of magnesium anyway.) YMMV. ;)

[Viking Dan]

Eh. Drinking a gallon of water is not so big a deal to folks used to going to keg parties (back in the day). ;)

[Gaelen]

Eh. Drinking a gallon of water is not so big a deal to folks used to going to keg parties (back in the day). ;)

LOL, Dan...now, would that gallon of water be "great taste" or "less filling?" :p

[LisaS]

LOL - here I assumed it was the drink-for-drink hangover-prevention water he was talking about

[Viking Dan]

One of my favorite articles on this topic is John Berardi's "Covering Nutritional Bases" which you can google for. The author includes recent research citations at the end.

Found it. Yay!
http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nutrition/bases.htm


And, putting it in practice, I can easily get slightly alkaline with enough veggies.

How much is slightly though? This fellow seems to suggest just balancing (50% alkaline 50% acid.) So...going by his chart...my usual 2 quarter pound burgers would be 20ish units of acidity (or unicorns---whatever the bad side is.) So to break even would take...hm...carry the 1...divide by the gross national product...3 1/3 pounds of broccoli to break even? Or...1/3 lb of Spinach...that sounds a little better.

Except some of these links suggest 80 % alkaline to 20% acid...in which case I'd need...13 lbs. of broccoli or 1 lb. of spinach. Yow!

[gator8me]

Not sure what the percentages should be but I think I'll drink my water and eat my veggies to help stay enough alkaline. Then also to make sure I am getting enough veggies/fruit I also ingest one to two tablespoons of Miracle Greens everyday.
http://miracle-greens.com
Hope this link works right lol... I either put this in a glass of Diet V8 splash or in a protein smoothie.

[dvdmon]

To bad we can't just take a lime supplement - like the pellatized stuff I just put on my lawn today ;)

[gator8me]

YUCK! lol but yeah and then again we would miss out on all the yummy fruits and veggies out there... hehehe

[laughingW]

How much is slightly though? This fellow seems to suggest just balancing (50% alkaline 50% acid.) So...going by his chart...my usual 2 quarter pound burgers would be 20ish units of acidity (or unicorns---whatever the bad side is.) So to break even would take...hm...carry the 1...divide by the gross national product...3 1/3 pounds of broccoli to break even? Or...1/3 lb of Spinach...that sounds a little better.

Except some of these links suggest 80 % alkaline to 20% acid...in which case I'd need...13 lbs. of broccoli or 1 lb. of spinach. Yow!
Yah, good question. Luckily I'm much smaller than you so I don't need mountains of veg to balance the protein I need.

It did make me think twice about too much protein if I also had to eat matching greens though. I know, what a baby attitude, but I'm a supertaster and we have a hard time with veggies.

I've heard that 80/20 rule before and my favorite interpretation is that it means volume, not grams or calories. So it's a good one for eyeballing.

[Viking Dan]

Why couldn't it be 1 pound of blueberry cheesecake per 2 burgers? That I could handle.

[Gabriel Guzman]

I thought I'd run this by the resident biochemist for an opinion.

http://www.price-pottenger.org/Articles/Acid_alk_bal.htm
or
http://www.naturalhealthschool.com/acid-alkaline.html

It seems plausible, but also seems not to be something one could rectify with lowcarb (although it does frown on grains and sugar---it also frowns on meat.)

The pro dairy bent is also surprising as I thought dairy could become very acidic for people who are intolerant, and my understanding is that most people are to varying degrees after infancy.


I'm having a dejavu here... in the past there was a lot of discussion about this very same subject.

I think Mitra just answered that very nicely. However, if you want my opinion, well, it's evident that the information in both websites says the same thing. The problem I see is that they seem to be taking foods in isolation. As noted before, meat and dairy are net acid producers but so are cereals. On the other hand, non-cereal plant foods are more net basic producers.

The imbalance comes when the diet provides more of one kind. An all-meat or an all-plant based diet is likely to cause problem in the end. Having said that, we now have to include those populations that still subsist on a diet based entirely on animal-derived products, like the so called 'non-westernized' Inuit, which still exist. How do we reconcile that with the fact that without a 'counterbalance' effect of non-cereal plants there could be an excess consumption of net acid producing foods?

The key seems to be in the fat. In 2002 Anthony Sebastian and co-workers published a fascinating study (at least to me) on the estimation of the net acid load of the diet of ancestral preagricultural Homo sapiens and their hominid ancestors (Am J Clin Nutr 2002;76:1308–16). They used and analysis called 'retroprojection' to literally go back in time to find out what was likely to be the animal-to-plant ratio of foods and what was likely to be the net endogenous acid production (NEAP) back then and compared it to the traditional American diet. They even estimated NEAP for different ratios of animal-to-plant food.

They also discussed previous estimations that suggested a ratio protein-to-plant food of 35% animal food and 65% plant food, which in their words:


Sebastian et al, 2002

If the animal foods in the Paleolithic diet were lean, as expected for wild game flesh, diets with animal-to-plant energy ratios >35%:65% would have been intolerable because total protein intakes would have exceeded the body’s ability to prevent serious toxicity from nitrogenous metabolites.


Incidentally, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who lived amont Inuit and adopted their diet described a malady known by the Inuit as rabbit malaise. This problem would occur in the early spring when very lean rabbits were the only available game, when people might be tempted to eat too much protein in the absence of an alternative source of dietary fat. The symptoms were reported to occur within a week, and included headache and lassitude.

Sebastian and co-workers submit that diets with animal-to-plant energy ratios as high (or as low) as 65%:35%, however, have been tolerated by many historically observed hunter-gatherer societies, presumably because the animal foods consumed had a lower protein-to-fat ratio (ie, higher fat density) than lean meat. Thus, it would seem that even in diets that are based mainly on animal products, which doesn't necessarily mean 'all-protein', if there is enough fat coming with that protein, there isn't enough toxicity to shift the NEAT all the way to a chronic net acidic producing diet.

Since we're not Inuit, and hopefully have learned a thing or two about balance, we can recognize that Protein Power (sorry... I had to bring the discussion into this perspective), provides enough non-cereal plant food to counteract the net acidic load produced by meat and dairy. The 'frown' on meat quickly disappear when the right perspective is broght in.

Interestingly enough, the analisys of Sebastian and co-workers does point out when things started to change towards a more chronic net acidic load production, and according to their estimations, the historical shift from negative to positive NEAP was accounted for by the displacement of high-bicarbonate-yielding plant foods in the ancestral diet by cereal grains and energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods in the contemporary diet—neither of which are net base-producing.


Sebastian et al, 2002

This overriding reduction in bicarbonate production is due to the displacement of base-rich plant-food groups (roots, tubers, leafy green vegetables, vegetable fruit, and fruit) by cereal grains and EDNP foods (eg, refined sugars and separated fats), neither of which food group is net base-producing; therefore, neither of which could contribute to counterbalancing the acid produced from net acid-producing animal food groups in the contemporary diet (meat, cheese, milk and yogurt, and eggs).

[Viking Dan]

I'm having a dejavu here... in the past there was a lot of discussion about this very same subject.

Is there an archive of the old posts (or a FAQ) I should be looking at? I don't want to beat dead horses or waste your time.

[Gabriel Guzman]

Is there an archive of the old posts (or a FAQ) I should be looking at? I don't want to beat dead horses or waste your time.

You're not waisting my time (or any others) and I didn't mean it in that way. It was just interesting that the same discussion came up again, which probably means that the 'protein diets are bad because they will cause you a chronic acidic load' may be another one of those misconceptions that surround nutritional plans like this.

Unfortunately, much of the very valuable material was lost after the old board was messed up by a low-life hacker.

[Viking Dan]

The high protein=kidney problems thing I've seen in all the criticisms, but this acid/alkaline thing was a new twist for me. It seems its possible to incorporate into a low carb plan, so we'll see how that goes.

Thanks.

[deirdra]

Grains are highly acidic, but the anti-LCers never suggest cutting back on them because "whole grains are part of a healthy diet". My system was probably more acidic when I was a vegetarian who ate tons of grains and 2-3 servings of vegetables a day. Now I balance out my adequate protein intake with 6-9 servings of veggies/day.

[hawk]

Ruth turned me on to this thread. Do you think what I was experiencing by eating low fat lo carb and working out was similar to this rabbit malaise? I had a headache and a tiredness that made me wonder if my whole body was out of balance somehow. My doctor wanted to put me through a whole load of tests, but I took the advise here and began to eat more fat. Not a problem now.