January 2 , 2004
NUTRITION NEWS FOCUS
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Today's Topic: The Acid Foods Myth

Many people believe eating foods that "make the body (or the blood)
acid" is bad for our health.  Well folks, this is very simple.  Eating
any food does not make your blood or your body more or less acid.
This is complete nonsense.

You can eat acidic foods like citrus fruits, vinegar, and chemicals in
food that you need such as ascorbic acid or folic acid and the level
of acid in your bloodstream is completely unaffected.  Your stomach
produces strong acid to aid in digestion of your food, but the
pancreas neutralizes this just after it leaves the stomach.  There are
foods that create acid or alkaline ash, but this affects the pH of
urine only.

HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Both your bloodstream and
all your organs are buffered to maintain the pH level (the standard
measure of acidity) within very close limits.  Any deviation from this
narrow range results in severe, life-threatening illness.  You would
need to eat an entire bottle of antacids at once to decrease the
acidity of your body.  There is very little you can do to increase the
acidity because your body responds very rapidly so the pH of your
blood does not vary as a result of eating.