So one of the other popular diet topics these days is about food PH, those having an alkaline PH deemed healthy, and easily digestible, whereas those with an acid PH are considered unhealthy, robbing minerals, tough on digestion, and should be limited or avoided. Of course, the main things that are 'healthy' are vegetables, raw food, PUFA oils, berries and the 'unhealthy' are meat, eggs, cheese, grains, chocolate, coffee, soda, sugar, some fruit juices. A lot of websites flip back and forth on a lot of the foods, such as with fruit, nuts, legumes and dairy. I was just wondering what people thought about this, and maybe some experience. To me personally, it doesn't have bearing and doesn't make sense.
Considering the stomach acid PH is more acidic than any of those foods, even alcohol, wouldn't it not matter anyways the PH of the food entering the stomach? And actually...the more alkaline it is, would it not then require the body more effort to then bring the PH way down to normal gastric levels? (to activate pepsin and other stomach enzymes). Soda was always thought of as being a digestive aid and stomach calmer in the past, a tonic, hence the name Pepsi (likened to pepsin, the stomach digestive enzyme). Also...everytime you eat, and throughout the day, your stomach releases its juices into the intestines...so you are pretty much introducing highly acidic fluids, more acidic than any food you would eat, into your intestines everyday, throughout the day, even if you ate nothing but herbs and vegetables.
Just wondering if anyone else has any experience or insights into this...I know that when I was eating a lot of raw food and fiberous foods, my digestion got weaker and weaker. But at the same time, meat seems to weaken my digestion or make it sluggish if I eat too much also...I handle cheese, soda, coffee, cream, sugar, broths...things like that the best, small amounts of the more acidic fruit juices...to me it seems like it doesn't really matter how acid or alkaline the food is, but rather how simple, digestible, lack of insolubles, and/or predigested or broken down it is that makes the difference, and that we should simply try to put as little stress on the stomach as possible. Does this view fit in with a Peat perspective? (Maybe I'm totally wrong and have such a weak digestion that those are the only foods I can handle)
Considering the stomach acid PH is more acidic than any of those foods, even alcohol, wouldn't it not matter anyways the PH of the food entering the stomach? And actually...the more alkaline it is, would it not then require the body more effort to then bring the PH way down to normal gastric levels? (to activate pepsin and other stomach enzymes). Soda was always thought of as being a digestive aid and stomach calmer in the past, a tonic, hence the name Pepsi (likened to pepsin, the stomach digestive enzyme). Also...everytime you eat, and throughout the day, your stomach releases its juices into the intestines...so you are pretty much introducing highly acidic fluids, more acidic than any food you would eat, into your intestines everyday, throughout the day, even if you ate nothing but herbs and vegetables.
Just wondering if anyone else has any experience or insights into this...I know that when I was eating a lot of raw food and fiberous foods, my digestion got weaker and weaker. But at the same time, meat seems to weaken my digestion or make it sluggish if I eat too much also...I handle cheese, soda, coffee, cream, sugar, broths...things like that the best, small amounts of the more acidic fruit juices...to me it seems like it doesn't really matter how acid or alkaline the food is, but rather how simple, digestible, lack of insolubles, and/or predigested or broken down it is that makes the difference, and that we should simply try to put as little stress on the stomach as possible. Does this view fit in with a Peat perspective? (Maybe I'm totally wrong and have such a weak digestion that those are the only foods I can handle)