What Exactly Is The Alkaline Diet?

You've probably heard of the Alkaline Diet by now - mainly because celebrities can't stop banging on about it. Fans who hail its praise include Kate Hudson, Victoria Beckham, Gwyneth Paltrow and Elle Macpherson. But what exactly is it and is it worth the hassle? Here's all you need to know.

Alkaline Diet Basics

The alkaline diet (aka the alkaline ash diet, the alkaline acid diet or the anti-cancer diet) works by manipulating the pH (power of hydrogen = acidity or alkalinity) levels in your body by what you feed it. When you eat, the body quite literally “burns” the food leaving behind an ash-like residue, which is either acidic, alkaline, or neutral. The Alkaline Diet claims that acidic ash is not good for you and can make you susceptible to illness and disease, but alkaline ash has protective properties. Neutral ash doesn’t do anything.

Some nerdy pH stats:

The pH scale is 0-14; 0 is completely acidic (dead) and 14 is completely alkaline (dead). In fact, any human below 6.8 or above 7.8 pH is pretty much dead.

Neutral pH: 7.0 Acidic pH: 7.0 or under Alkaline pH: 7.0 or over

Blood in a healthy body should have a slightly alkaline pH (ideally 7.4). Below or above this range is unhealthy. It’s good to get your pH levels checked by a doc every once in a while but you don’t need to go overboard like Elle Macpherson who apparently carries around a pH balance urine tester kit to check that she’s in an alkaline state at all times (“I believe that most ailments come from having an acidic body.”)

Alkaline Diet Foods List

The hardest part is figuring out what you’re allowed to eat on the Alkaline Diet and what you’re not. Here’s a starter guide.

Alkaline Foods

Food components that leave an alkaline ash are calcium, magnesium, and potassium foods, such as:

Acid Foods

Food components that leave an acidic ash are protein, phosphate and sulphur, like:

Neutral Foods

Neutral pH foods are natural fats, starches and sugars, e.g.:

Alkaline Diet Shopping List

You can find complete alkaline/acid food lists here and here or download and print this free Alkaline Food chart and you’ll be ready for a trip to the supermarket.

Alkaline Diet Myth

There are a lot of people who are trying to debunk the myth that the Alkaline Ash Diet can prevent serious illnesses because apparently, food can’t alter your blood pH level, only your urine pH level, rendering the whole theory useless. They also claim that some level of acidity is necessary and there is no need to cut out all acidic foods. Also, as in the case of vegans, if you’re cutting out dairy, meat and eggs, you need to make sure you’re getting your protein from somewhere in order to be healthy.

Another related myth is that foods containing acid are “acidic” but food's acid or alkaline forming tendency in the body isn’t related to the actual pH of the food. For example, although you’d think that citrus fruits would have an acidifying effect on the body, the opposite is true as their citric acid actually has an alkalinising effect. That’s just how it is. Accept it already.

Alkaline Diet and Cancer

The pretty big claim about this diet is that the Alkaline-Acid Diet can prevent cancer because “cancer cannot live in an alkaline body”. Although there hasn’t been sufficient proof linking the two, there have been a few studies which found that an alkaline environment may make certain chemotherapy drugs more effective or less toxic, and eating more alkaline foods is generally recommended for patients going through chemo.

Alkaline Diet Benefits

Despite the lack of evidence to support the claims that the Alkaline Diet can prevent major illnesses, there are a lot of other benefits to the diet. Followers of this diet believe that it could help prevent:

They also believe that it can help:

Alkaline Diet Pros and Cons

There’s a lot to take in with this diet. So we break it down into some important pros and cons.

Pros

Cons

Alkaline Diet Recipes

Cooking for an Alkaline Diet can be tricky at first so here are a few sites with LOADS of Alkaline/Acid Diet recipes to get you started: -

Alkaline Sisters

Live Energized

Balance pH Diet

AAD (Acid Alkaline Diet)

Good old Pinterest

Starting an Alkaline Diet Information

If you’re digging this whole pH diet thing and think it could work for you, here’s where you can get more info.

Alkaline Diet Book

Here are a few books chock-full with all the Alkaline Diet info, recipes and planning you need.

Alkaline Diet Youtube

If you’d rather get your info via YouTube vids, we’ve got you covered.

Acidic Foods vs Alkaline Foods

The Alkaline Diet Medical Course

Transitioning Your Diet to Alkaline Foods

Alkaline Diet: In Conclusion

Although there hasn’t been sufficient evidence to prove that the Alkaline Diet is the best way to live or that it can cure cancer etc., etc., it has been proven that increasing the volume of alkaline foods you ingest is a healthy thing to do, with the best diet being to eat 60-80% alkaline-forming foods and 20-40% acid-forming foods.

So you don’t have to cut out alcohol completely. You can stop crying now.

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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.