Nuts do this to you because they upset the acid–alkaline balance in your body. They cause an acidic state. Explanation for acid–alkaline balance from Jon Barron's Lessons from the Miracle Doctors (1999, 2008). <snip>
BALANCING PH
Our bodies function in a very narrow range of acid/alkaline balance (pH). Our blood in particular is very sensitive to these changes. Ideally, blood pH should be slightly alkaline at about 7.45. If it varies by even as little as a few tenths of a point, severe illness and death may result. Unfortunately, most of the food we eat is highly acid-forming in the body (meat, dairy, sodas, alcohol, cooked grains). In the end, it becomes too much for our bodies to handle. If we don’t correct the problem by “alkalinizing” the body, disease, sickness, and death are the inevitable result. In effect, alkalinizing the body means that you are removing, or detoxing, the acid imbalance that you have created.
Your body has a number of different pH levels that it has to maintain. Your saliva is slightly alkaline, the stomach is strongly acidic during digestion, the intestines are strongly alkaline, and your urine is slightly acidic (to control bacteria). But the most crucial pH level is your blood. Again, if your blood pH deviates even few tenths of a point from its normal pH of 7.45, severe illness or even death is likely. Considering the importance of pH to the body, it’s well worth discussing a little further how it affects the body and how we can help maintain the proper pH levels in our own bodies.
The importance of pH really boils down to two things:
1. Enzymes. Enzymes control every metabolic function in our bodies, and they are integral to our immune system. They function optimally at a specific pH and will become inactive if the pH deviates beyond very narrow limits or a particular enzyme.
WHAT IS PH?
Representing hydrogen ion concentration, pH is the measurement of the acid/alkaline balance of anything.
• On the pH scale, water is neutral and rates a 7.0.
• Acids (such as hydrochloric acid and citric acid) are rated as numbers less than 7.0. The further away from 7.0 the number is, the stronger the acid. Cow’s milk at 6.5 is slightly acidic, soft drinks at 3.0 are strongly acidic, and stomach acid at 1.5 is highly acidic.
• Alkaline substances include everything that rates above 7.0 on the pH scale. Again, the further away from 7.0, the more alkaline the substance. Blood at 7.45 is slightly alkaline; pancreatic juice in your intestines is strongly alkaline at 8.8; and baking soda at 12.0 is highly alkaline.
2. Oxygen. Every cell in our body requires oxygen for life and to maintain optimum health. To put it simply, the more acid the blood, the less oxygen is available for use by the cells. Without going into a discussion of the chemistry involved, just understand that it’s the same mechanism involved when acid rain “kills” a lake. The fish literally suffocate to death because the acid in the lake “binds up” all of the available oxygen. It’s not that the oxygen has gone anywhere, it’s just no longer available. Conversely, if you raise the pH of the lake, oxygen is now available and the lake comes back to life. Incidentally, it’s worth noting that cancer is related to an acid environment (lack of oxygen)—the higher the pH (the more oxygen present in the cells of the body), the harder it is for cancer to thrive.
The bottom line is that a balanced pH is vital. An extended pH imbalance of any kind threatens our well-being—threatens, in fact, our very lives. Managing the pH balance of all of our bodily fluids, tissues, and organs is so important that our bodies have developed a system to monitor and balance acid-alkaline levels in every cell and biosystem.
What Affects pH in Our Bodies
To better understand the system our bodies have developed for maintaining pH balance, we need to take a look at what affects pH (usually making us more acidic) and how our bodies respond to that change.
• Acid-Forming Foods: When they are metabolized, carbohydrates, proteins, and fats produce various acids in our bodies. That means that all meats, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy, cooked grains, and refined sugars are acid forming in the body. Probably at the top of the list of acid-forming foods in the human diet are colas. Not only are they high in refined sugar, which is highly acid forming in and of itself, but most cola contains a large amount of phosphoric acid, not to mention carbon dioxide (an end-product of the acid neutralization process).
• Alkaline-Forming Foods: For the most part, only fresh fruits and vegetables and superfoods such as chlorella, spirulina, barley grass, and wheatgrass are alkaline forming and help your body maintain a proper pH. It should be noted that even though citrus fruits are highly acidic, your body treats them as alkaline so that they are, in fact, highly effective alkalinizers.
When proteins are metabolized in the body, they produce sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid; carbohydrates and fats produce acetic acid and lactic acid. Since these acids are poisonous to the body, they must be eliminated. Unfortunately, they can’t be eliminated as acids through the kidneys or large intestine as they would damage these organs. The way the body handles them is to neutralize them by converting them into acid salts by combining them with the minerals sodium, calcium, potassium, and magnesium. Of these, calcium is the most important.
Now, here’s the key: your body uses a priority system if there are not enough available minerals to neutralize all of the acids present. Blood is at the top of the heap—your body will steal minerals from anywhere and everywhere before it will let your blood become too acidic. Remember, even a slight deviation in blood pH results in death.
Saliva is at the bottom of the heap. Saliva is the first place your body steals minerals from to balance the blood. That’s why pH testing of saliva provides an early warning system for when you are becoming too acidic. At optimum health, your saliva will have a pH of 7.45, the same as your blood. At a pH of 6.5–7.0, you’ll find yourself frequently succumbing to colds and sickness. At 5.5 and lower, you can pretty much count on the fact that major disease has already taken hold. Virtually, all cancer patients test strongly acidic on a saliva pH test.
Unfortunately, your saliva doesn’t contain a big reserve of minerals, so you soon run out. After extracting what it can from urine and soft tissues (creating a rich environment for the spread of cancer), your body turns to its great mineral bank—your bones. So, if your diet is too acid-forming (too much meat, dairy, simple carbohydrates, phosphoric acid, and sugars), your body will fairly quickly begin to leach calcium from your bones to balance the low pH and avoid death. In effect, your body says osteoporosis is preferable to death.
