What Food Are You Eating?
And Should You Care?
The statistics of diseases caused by the American diet (or Western in general) are really scary. So I will not give you numbers but understand this much: a very large percent of our population suffers from metabolic syndrome, which consists of several diseases such as: obesity, diabetes 2, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, various immune disease (yes, many!), and I even want to add some other disease here that are not considered to be “metabolic disorders” but they are: heart disease, hypertension, seizures, migraines, some types of MS, some types of Parkinson’s, depression, anxiety, IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), and many more. I will not explain the connection of disease to food here since that is a book on its own but I want to brush by you some facts of importance that participate in these diseases.
The pH of your body
Whether a diet in high pH (alkaline) or low pH (acidic) is good for us, is debatable since each of our body-type cells has a different function. As a result, each has a different ideal pH level. For example, skin is more acidic (low pH) to ward off invaders. The vagina is extremely acidic to kill of invading organism (including sperms!). The saliva is a tad acidic (6.5 – 6.8 on the pH strip where 7 is neutral) for the same reason: kill off bugs and also to help digestion. Our cerebral fluid (brain) is neutral (7) and our intracellular and blood fluids are alkaline at 7.3 or so.
There are many companies selling water alkalizing equipment or alkaline water… don’t fall for the scam! Also many companies selling Himalayan salt or unpurified Sea salt will try to convince you about the alkalinity or acidity. Scam alert! Salt becomes sodium chloride in the body. Sodium chloride, as pure salt, is pH7 (neutral) but when you break salt (sodium chloride) up into parts, the parts are not neutral: sodium is alkaline and chloride is acidic. The minerals in salt are not important for the body–particularly not when they come from lead, mercury, radioactive materials (Himalayan salt) or fish poop and dead organic materials mixed with mud for taste (Celtic and others). Why so much discussion on salt? Because it is one of the most important minerals for our body.
Most animal meats and seafood are acidic and most citrus fruits (even though they taste acidic and measure acidic in pH) and a host of other fruits, become alkaline in the body (not all so read a cool list I found online that categorizes many foods). Also many nuts (like peanuts) are acidic and others (like almond) are alkaline! So there is no “in general nuts…” They differ! Also oils: avocado oil is acidic even though avocado is alkaline (I have not yet figured that one out… must be in the processing) but some other oils may be alkaline. Raw milk is neutral but processed (even organic) moves back and forth on the chart between acidic or neutral; I suppose based on brand.
Why do you need to know this?
A highly acidic diet not only calls for an antacid time to time or every day; that is the least of your concern. The bigger concern is how it damages the body. Scientific literature on this is a bit confusing so I am not citing any until I read enough to fully understand the consequences but all are in agreement in one thing: acidic environment supports cancer cell growth. Acidic environments are very common in Western diet full of processed food, meat, fish, sugar, and most importantly: grain!
If you are a vegetarian or vegan, do not smile! You are not any better off! An alkaline environment is not protecting you from invaders and you may sacrifice your immune system! There are a host of other issues also with a vegan/vegetarian diet.
In general a balanced diet is the best (I know you heard that before). However, the balance does not come from the current USDA pyramid of balance becuase it is grain and sugar heavy and that is acidic! So evaluate your diet! Stop all sugars and sugar substitutes, reduce your grains (or stop them all, like I did) and balance your diet around a healthy pH. Eat both meats and vegetables since eating only one or only the other will get you into trouble and cause disease!
Increase your dietary intake of fats if you have medical conditions that affect the nerves–seizures, migraines, anxiety, depression, etc! Fats help the recovery of your axons. Axons carry voltage in your brain and their insulation, myelin, is dependent on fats! So have some! Eating fat will only make you fat if you also eat sugar or high carbs–so don’t!
If you decide to embark on a special diet like Ketogenic or MAD (modified Atkins diet) and are on the high fat low protein and low carbs diet, in addition to having a visit with your doctor for proper dietary guidance, please read the above website link that explains what foods cause our bodies to be acidic and which ones to be alkaline. If you need to correct any food for proper pH, you have help there.
Most importantly: do not make major dietary changes without discussing it with your doctor first. This includes stopping all sugars and reduce carbs since this can hurt you if you are a diabetic or have hypoglycemia. Not eating enough carbs to fuel your brain and body can cause a serious sugar crash that can be fatal so talk to your healthcare provider.
Special Note
Eating a healthy diet means different diet for different people so do not jump into conclusions without talking to your doctor who can evaluate what diet is good for you.
Questions are welcome as always!
Angela
Clueless Doctors & Scientists 
Today my Lady showed me this:
>>>>> 1. One cup of pure, filtered water
2. Juice of half a freshly squeezed organic lemon
3. ½ teaspoon pure sodium bicarbonate (not baking soda)
The Lemon-Soda drink easily helps your pH environment be alkaline, thus creating conditions in which it is impossible for cancer to survive. <<<<<
If I understood you well, this drink belongs in the garbage bin, and in no way will help destroy cancer cells.
Um……is there a way to fight cancer outside of the world of chemo. radiation, etc?
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Oh my… you are not having cancer are you? 😦
No that drink is not for cancer at all–if you want to increase hydration with salt and water that is fine but lemon is carbs (a.k.a. sugar) and sodium bicarbonate is antacid. Also, with cancer you actually want an acidic environment and not alkaline. Every organ has its own pH level and you don’t really want to change that. The more alkaline it is, the more comfortable it is for invading organisms. In fact, the only alkaline part of your body is your blood, with pH 7.3 I believe and that is why getting an infection in your blood is so often fatal–you cannot make your blood more acidic.
An important thing to know: most cancer cells (not all) live on sugar (glucose to be precise) so you need to cut out all fruits and veggies with significant sugar in them and all starchy veggies and fruits are for the trash–this includes potatoes, all tropical fruits, carrots, etc.
So instead, what you actually need to do is to get on the ketogenic diet. It would be best if you joined my still small “keto mild” FB group on that because we have so much literature thrown in there: https://www.facebook.com/groups/156925271342382/ since I am workign out the details of one specifically tailored for migraines. However, I can talk to you better about the details there or keep it on email or similar to keep it private.
There are now many diseases that doctors use the ketogenic diet for treatment–depending on the disease the level of ketosis is different. I am on the ketogenic diet myself at the moment too and loving it.
Send me a note via email when you have the time and let’s chat about the details!
xox
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I wish we had one for the US… to much political correctness here to even say Christmas. So Merry Christmas my friend! Hope you had a wonderful Eve! ❤
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” Not eating enough carbs to fuel your brain and body can cause a serious sugar crash……..” I was taught that sugar crashes were caused by consuming large quantities of carbs.
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I wrote that part specifically for diabetics and hypoglycemics. Small quantities of carbs eaten improperly (just carbs and nothing else) can cause crash as well. But a body that lives off of sugar alone and extra insulin is pumped in for diabetes, if not enough carbs are eaten, that can cause a very serious condition. If you eat carbs with fiber and protein and salt, you will not crash. Only the protein, salt and fiber must match the amount of carbs. I found it much easier to simply not eat much carbs at all but that requires a change-over to ketogenic (20-30 grams of carbs a day but 80% of the diet is fat) of MAD (more carbs here to 1 : 1 : 1 ratio of carbs, fat, and protein). This requires the quitting of all grains–it is not possible to eat 50 grams of carbs a day or less and eat grains.. 2 slices of bread pass the garbs amount. So if you quit all sugar and all grains and reduce those fruits and veggies that are high carbs and eat only low carbs foods but increase your fat, you are super well and never hungry. And since you are not using carbs much and hence no insulin much, no crash, no hunger, no diabetes. Doing this diet I can go over 80% of my day without any food and I am full of energy without ever touching sugar or grains. Example: this morning I had glass of whole milk with 100% unsweetened cocoa powder (just a tad) and then a half a glass of heavy whipping cream with a dash of salt and a dash of 100% unsweetened cocoa powder and half a cup of espresso freshly brewed on that. An hour later I went for a little over 1 mile hills-hike. I got back, just drank water and salt and I was totally fine till 5 pm without any food. At 5 pm I ate a half an avocado with lime juice and 2 hours later I had dinner followed by a small cup of cherries with unsweetened heavy whipped cream. Now I am heading off to bed so I just had a glass of milk with a quarter cup of heavy cream. Awesome day, full of strength, no fatigue, working all day. 1:38 am now and off to bed. 🙂 Loving life on low carbs.. I mean really low carbs. I am between 30-50 grams a day but eat about 70-100 grams of fat now I think and protein is about 30-40 grams. I call this sort of a combo of ketogenic and MAD… Mad-Keto diet for migraineurs. Works perfectly! gnight! 😀 And Merry Christmas!!!
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Thx for the info. Again I learned something from you.
As you know, me and my lady already sent a lot of sugar to the garbage bin, and increased our salt and water intake. All that allegedly good low-fat stuff is not allowed anymore in our house either. Artificial sweeteners? No way!
Whenever there’s a chance, I share your insights/lectures with other people, including members of the medical community. The latter ones often find the info hard to believe, but then, when in the right mood, I start asking questions about their mainstream routines till they collapse. I get a kick out of seeing them struggle, and to defend their fairy tales, till there’s no way out anymore 😀
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lol, take a video next time.. lol.. I would love to see some of those faces. There are some amazingly misleading research findings out there. I wrote a journal paper on one of them–wonder if any journal will accept it. I sort of mention what it is about a few blogs back on salt increasing BP. The misuse of statistics does no good for anyone.
The other day I had a doctor growl at someone I know about increased salt saying it increases BP… but the person was educated and said “yeah.. all 2 points of it since I am healthy”.. the doctor looked with total blanked out face like someone just hit her on the head. Because salt does increase BP lol.. between 2 to 5 points!!! GASP!!! The variation that is considered normal is between 100 and 140 systolic, that is 40 points. So an increase of between 1 to 5 points is what exactly? So stupid it is beyond belief! I am hoping my commentary (very short note on this stupidity) will be accepted and published. I sure would like to post that on every medical office door entrance where doctors enter! Duh!!! Stupid, stupid, stupid… I would hit my head in the wall but I don’t want to hurt myself in the name of stupid research passing under reviewers who are equally void of any statistics understanding. Grrrrrrrrrrr
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In november I sent Daniel Levitin’s TED video to a doctor. Never got a response, hehe.
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Surprised? 😉
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Totally!
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heh…
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