On Sat, 7 Oct 2000, Dori Zook wrote:

> All great points, Andy, but the one above is one of the big ones, if not the
> biggest.  I've posted it before, but Cordain gives a good example.  It would
> take 54 gallons of urine to excrete the acidic residue of a two litre bottle
> of Coke.  That ain't gonna happen, so first magnesium, then calcium comes
> into play.  Two top acid producers?  Bread and hard cheeses.  Westerners
> (except us, of course) eat bread every day and most people eat hard cheese
> with happy thoughts of strong bones in thier uninformed minds.

I'd like to see the data on this.  As a general thing, proteins,
which are of course acidic, supposedly cause an acid residue.
The is precisely why some people argue for a low-protein diet to
prevent or treat osteoporosis. (see
otpt.ups.edu/Culture-Osteoporosis.htm for example) Fats are
another, since they are also composed of acids.  So it makes
sense that hard cheese would cause acidic residues, since it is
all protein and fat.  But pemmican is also all protein and fat,
in a comparable ratio, so it ought to cause a comparable need for
mineral buffering.  If that isn't so, I'd like to understand why
not.  It's also far from clear why bread should be so high on the
list.

This is not disputing the claim about Coke, of course.

Todd Moody
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