Understanding More About Body Chemistry

by Scotland Willis

  

Balance is something we strive for in our life.  We see it in how we try to manage work and our 

personal life; balance between consumption and preserving the environment; balancing disruptions and getting tasks done; and in our personal health versus stress.  The list is extensive.  By and large balance is a very difficult goal to achieve; this assertion could be made anywhere in the world.

So here is something to consider about balance you may not have thought of; 1) the most important balance in our body is pH balance; while that may sound simple, achieving it is like trying to balance yourself on a tightrope (ok perhaps not that difficult but it might seem that way) but certainly as challenging to achieve balance in other areas of our life; 2) alkaline and acids make up these two very important chemical that represent this balance, which also influence many other activities that occur in our body.

A bit more understanding migh make you more conscious about your eating decisions and thereby resulting in a happier healthier you.

So why is this make up so important?  Let's not   focus on things like kidney, liver and blood disease, to avoid talking about this from a medical perspective- though they are legitimately related to the matter at hand.  Rather I would like to share important factors to understand which will make the importance of acids and alkaline a little easier to digest.

 Most foods (especially processed foods) have high levels of sugar or high fructose.  The result is that most of our diet is made up of sugary acids that means that we have a alkaline deficit much more often than not in our body, across the majority of our U.S. population.  Alkaline foods mean more green foods and raw veggies (which don't appeal to most peoples taste buds the way sugary sweets do).  It's time to change that.

Keep this in mind increasing your alkaline intake will result in more energy, healthier bone structure and a wide range of health benefits including lower blood sugar levels, less chances of heart disease and the other major threats to human health.  For children it can mean improved neurological performance.

Understanding the Scale

The pH scale reflect whether the pH in your body is acidic or alkaline.  The scale ranges from 1 to 14.  A pH of 7 is considered neutral; above 7 is considered alkaline below 7 is considered acidic.  Seven then is the ideal balance for humans.  Because we have a diet that is so heavily influenced by sugars, achieving the balance (i.e., consuming more raw or alkaline foods) is a real challenge.

Less important to understand but good to know is this:  a pH of 4 is ten times more acidic than a pH of 5 and 100 times (10 times 10) more acidic than a pH of 6. The same holds true for pH values above 7, each of which is ten times more alkaline—another way to say basic—than the next lower whole value. For example, a pH of 10 is ten times more alkaline than a pH of 9 (epa).  Sounds impressive but the simlicity if each level of increase refelcts an acidic increase of ten times that.  The same would be true for alkaline, except most people don't have alkaline saturated diets. 

People and Plant Benefits

And here is something else you probably did not know; your plants require a similar pH balance to that of humans. Depending on what region of the world your food is from will also influence whether that food requires more alkaline or acid in its uptake.  Beets for example do best in a alkaline environment(pH) around 7-8; while grass  are slightly acidic or close to neutral between 6.5 to 7.  Basically plant life also thrives in close to this balance of 7.  

All of this makes sense if you consider a couple of different points: 1) we consume a lot of plant life (or we should)  so we should attempt to maintain a similar balance 2) we are evolved from single cellular organism that thrived on plant life (if you subscribe to the scientific theory) as such, our biological system  should have similar requirements.

 Maintaining a better pH balance means a better quality of life.  Eating more alkaline and raw vegetables, fewer sugary and processed foods (which includes milk) will reduce the negative affects of an acidic body.  

If you are a gardner, seek to balance your soil as well (there are devices to monitor this).  I use to have a 100 gallon ( 378 liters)  salt water aquarium at one point; maintaining the pH balance was critical to the fish survival, so it is no surprise the level of importance pH has on the body for me.

From healthy bones to healthy blood, pH affects everything about you and your bodily function.

Please work harder to stay healthy by balancing what you eat and likely adding more alkaline type food to your diet, while consuming less sugary and processed foods.

Alkaline foods: flax seed or oil, brown rice, millet, soaked almonds, tomato slices, fresh avocado, natural vegetable soups or pressed vegetable juices (not canned likely to have sugar) and beets. For a comprehensive list email me

Alkaline foods: flax seed or oil, brown rice, millet, soaked almonds, tomato slices, fresh avocado, natural vegetable soups or pressed vegetable juices (not canned likely to have sugar) and beets.  For a comprehensive list email me

Everyone should know Balance

by Scotland Willis

Balance

Balance is something we strive for in our life.  We see it in how we try to manage work and our 

personal life; balance between consumption and preserving the environment; balancing disruptions and getting tasks done; and in our personal health versus stress.  The list is extensive.  By and large balance is a very difficult goal to achieve; this assertion could be made anywhere in the world.

So here is something to consider about balance you may not have thought of; 1) the most important balance in our body is pH balance; while that may sound simple, achieving it is like trying to balance yourself on a tightrope (ok perhaps not that difficult but it might seem that way) but certainly as challenging to achieve balance in other areas of our life; 2) alkaline and acids make up these two very important chemical that represent this balance, which also influence many other activities that occur in our body.

A bit more understanding migh make you more conscious about your eating decisions and thereby resulting in a happier healthier you.

So why is this make up so important?  Let's not   focus on things like kidney, liver and blood disease, to avoid talking about thsi from a medical perspective- though they are legitimately related to the matter at hand.  Rather I would like to share important factors to understand which will make the importance of acids and alkaline a little easier to digest.

 Most foods (especially processed foods) have high levels of sugar or high fructose.  The result is that most of our diet is made up of sugary acids that means that we have a alkaline deficit much more often than not in our body, across the majority of our U.S. population.  Alkaline foods mean more green foods and raw veggies (which don't appeal to most peoples taste buds the way sugary sweets do).  It's time to change that.

Keep this in mind increasing your alkaline intake will result in more energy, healthier bone structure and a wide range of health benefits including lower blood sugar levels, less chances of heart disease and the other major threats to human health.  For children it can mean improved neurological performance.

Understanding the Scale

The pH scale reflect whether the pH in your body is acidic or alkaline.  The scale ranges from 1 to 14.  A pH of 7 is considered neutral; above 7 is considered alkaline below 7 is considered acidic.  Seven then is the ideal balance for humans.  Because we have a diet that is so heavily influenced by sugars, achieving the balance (i.e., consuming more raw or alkaline foods) is a real challenge.

Less important to understand but good to know is this:  a pH of 4 is ten times more acidic than a pH of 5 and 100 times (10 times 10) more acidic than a pH of 6. The same holds true for pH values above 7, each of which is ten times more alkaline—another way to say basic—than the next lower whole value. For example, a pH of 10 is ten times more alkaline than a pH of 9 (epa).  Sounds impressive but the simlicity if each level of increase refelcts an acidic increase of ten times that.  The same would be true for alkaline, except most people don't have alkaline saturated diets. 

People and Plant Benefits

And here is something else you probably did not know; your plants require a similar pH balance to that of humans. Depending on what region of the world your food is from will also influence whether that food requires more alkaline or acid in its uptake.  Beets for example do best in a alkaline environment(pH) around 7-8; while grass  are slightly acidic or close to neutral between 6.5 to 7.  Basically plant life also thrives in close to this balance of 7.  

All of this makes sense if you consider a couple of different points: 1) we consume a lot of plant life (or we should)  so we should attempt to maintain a similar balance 2) we are evolved from single cellular organism that thrived on plant life (if you subscribe to the scientific theory) as such, our biological system  should have similar requirements.

 Maintaining a better pH balance means a better quality of life.  Eating more alkaline and raw vegetables, fewer sugary and processed foods (which includes milk) will reduce the negative affects of an acidic body.  

If you are a gardner, seek to balance your soil as well (there are devices to monitor this).  I use to have a 100 gallon ( 378 liters)  salt water aquarium at one point; maintaining the pH balance was critical to the fish survival, so it is no surprise the level of importance pH has on the body for me.

From healthy bones to healthy blood, pH affects everything about you and your bodily function.

Please work harder to stay healthy by balancing what you eat and likely adding more alkaline type food to your diet, while consuming less sugary and processed foods.

Alkaline foods: flax seed or oil, brown rice, millet, soaked almonds, tomato slices, fresh avocado, natural vegetable soups or pressed vegetable juices (not canned likely to have sugar) and beets. For a comprehensive list email me

Alkaline foods: flax seed or oil, brown rice, millet, soaked almonds, tomato slices, fresh avocado, natural vegetable soups or pressed vegetable juices (not canned likely to have sugar) and beets.  For a comprehensive list email me

Exploring truth and avoiding cancer

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the importance of alkaline in ones diet because of the deficiency from our over consumption of various processed food products and sugar.  I offered a list of foods to anyone who emailed me.

I want to continue to remind people that I am not doctor; that being said I will proceed. 

There is a necessary ph balance that helps food products grow; I suggested that because we are heavily dependent on foods grown rather than processed, our nutrient requirements would not be so different.  In humans the healthy ph balance is about 7.4.  Further I stated that our excessive intake of sugar more particularly sucrose and fructose are especially harmful to our physiology.  Because of our dietary habits, most people in the U.S. (and likely other developed nations as well), maintain a population of people with highly acidic imbalances (a deficit of alkalinity).  I challenge everyone who reads (and please share it with everyone you know within your network) this article to calculate how much sugar intake you ingest each day or week.  

Further our passion for chocolaty sweets, caffeine and like products add an additional burden to our body.  Utter disregard for the correct pH balance is in part our demise.

Additional curiosities arose for me as I was looking to increase my alkaline intake to balance out the sugars in my own diet.  Not only did I discover the health detriment of caffeine, sugars, sweets, etc; I also began to think about my semester at Tufts in health risks affects in civil engineering forcing me to ponder some of the following topics that helped me link more of what I am concerned about:

1) Cancer does not do well in oxygen rich environments.  When cells fail to thrive they seek environments where they can (oxygen poor environments provide such an environment for cancer)

2) Oxygen cannot adhere to blood cells as well if the ionic charge is highly acidic 

3) Alkaline enrichment can help offset the consequences of an acidic diet (i.e., sugar)

4)  Soy can contribute to or foster environments that cancerous cells require

5) Your pancreas uses an enzyme known as trypsin necessary for protein digestion; soy irritates pancreatic activity (causing stress) reduces the oxygenation counteracting (or acting as an inhibitor) for metabolizes of protein

If you have been told  about as an old remedy or tried, baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) to help reduce acid- it works, but not just for an upset stomach.  Even the NIH (National Institute of Health) indicates that it reduces blood acids (here).  Still be mindful of your use.  Too much of anything is not a good thing.  Nonetheless, it has really powerful benefits.

We should question why soy is being emphasized as a health product, when we should be getting advised about the importance of moderation of it as well as coffee, chocolate, processed foods (including dairy); and most importantly what is going in to school lunches especially in primary and secondary schools.  I would advise people to look at what a "balanced diet" is.  Lastly I would consider what large pharmaceutical companies stand to lose by being fully transparent and what they stand to gain by people consuming high acid producing foods.   It could mean a significant reduction in the prevalence of cancer which would all but decimate the pharmaceutical and medical industry.   The point here is only to consider the possibilities not attack the pharmaceutical companies- I don't support that approach

Look into the data for yourself, do your home work- do not rely on one source, including me.   Below are some key words that might help you understand more about this content in my article:

Red blood cells; oxygen; trypsin; alkaline; acidity; ph balance; gout; oncogenes; sodium bicarbonate; oxygen exchange. 

My recommendation:

Grow your own food whenever possible and learn to enjoy healthy foods more.  Stop going to the grocery store to buy quick packaged food so often and invest in yourself and your health.  These are just brief thoughts to help you think critically about your health.  Exercise that infuses your body with higher levels of oxygen is important as well; also do not over look the importance of breathing clean air (i.e., take a hike in the mountains once in a while).

If you are interested in more information I have articles and medical references that you may find helpful and informative.  Though I don't consider myself a naturalist, the research I have is both medical and naturalist in nature.

Be well,

Scotland

Ps   If you would like a chart of alkaline and acidic foods you may email me or leave a comment.

 http://greenelements.typepad.com/blog/2011/04/amazing-ph-balance-earth-and-people.html