The alkalizing foods seem to monopolize a good part of the informative articles that embrace the fashion of natural therapies and counter-information, forgetting or even discrediting the opinion of the official medicine.
Alkalinising foods: alternative medicine and counter information
Nowadays, counter-information paladins catalyze the interest of millions of disoriented and frightened individuals from the problems of today's society, to whom they attribute the faults of their condition: just as it is very simple to blame the system for failures and personal failures, even on the health front it is convenient to point the finger at others.
As far as alkalizing foods are concerned, the finger is also pointed at milk and dairy products, recommended for the prevention of osteoporosis, but it may aggravate the disorder by favoring the loss of calcium from the bones. Also in this case the official medicine would affirm the opposite only and exclusively to protect the profit of the milk and dairy industry. In short, the world is drifting due to the famous disease of profit, from which the counter-information champions would be so immune as to immolate themselves to protect the rights of the weakest.
Alkalinising foods: what they are and why they are recommended
Most people confuse acidic and alkalizing foods with the concept of food pH. Thus, according to this erroneous view, the juice of lemons would be a particularly acidic food, when in reality it is one of the most well-known alkalizing foods, so much so that it is even advised in therapy to alkalinize the urine and prevent - in predisposed subjects - the formation of stones renal urate, calcium oxalate and cystine.
The alkalinity or acidity of a food is attributed not according to the pH of the food itself, but to that of the solution in which its ashes are dispersed, therefore based on the pH of the inorganic residues, not metabolized by the organism. Thus, to take the example of the lemon, the organic acids that determine the acidity of this food are metabolized by the body, while the inorganic basic residues are excreted unchanged with the urine, basifying them.
According to this rule, plants in general are alkalizing foods, while those of animal origin are acidifying. The consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables should therefore be encouraged, and the consumption of cereals, dairy products, meat, sugars, alcohol, eggs, coffee and mushrooms should be discouraged.
Regarding the potential benefits, advocates of the alkaline diet argue that a diet based on the consumption of 70-80% of alkalizing foods prevents many of the well-being diseases that afflict the population - obesity, allergies, osteoporosis, some forms of cancer - ensuring greater energy and vitality.
All these benefits are not scientifically proven; furthermore, under normal circumstances, the alkaline diet has not proved to be able to produce a significant variation in blood pH levels (although rather constant and subject to numerous control mechanisms, particularly effective and independent of diet, first of all breathing ).
Alkaline diet: what's good?
Beyond the rather "fanciful" theories (because without solid scientific basis) on which it was built, the alkaline diet must at least be recognized for promoting the consumption of fresh vegetables, often lacking in Western nutrition compared to what is recommended by nutritionists, and to discourage that - often excessive - of meat, sausages, cured meats, simple sugars and alcohol. Going through the list of alkalizing and alkaline foods reported in this site in English, we understand how such a food model can actually promote the health of the organism, with obvious and immediate benefits in the transition from a typically Western to the so-called alkalizing diet. These benefits, however, cannot be attributed to the concept of acid and alkaline, but to the extraordinary mine of friendly substances contained in fresh vegetables, together with a reduced intake of saturated fats, sugars, sodium chloride and alcohol. Reading between the lines, this list seems largely acceptable and consistent with the international guidelines of the new food pyramid; unfortunately it limits the consumption of very important foods in human nutrition, such as fish and lean dairy products, only because they are considered acidifying. We then proceed with the blinders chasing an abstract concept (that of alkalizing and acidifying) instead of forming a solid food culture, which helps to make the most correct nutritional choices by critically addressing the new food fashions.
