When we metabolize food, the process contributes to the pH in the body. To survive, our bodies require an alkaline pH. Hippocrates was a great Greek physician who some recognize as the father of medicine. He practiced the 80/20 principle, professing that a diet comprised of 80% alkalizing foods and 20% acidifying foods supports good health. He also increased the proportion of alkalizing foods in times of health crises. The premise is that most viruses, bacteria, molds, fungus and yeast require an acidic environment and cannot survive in blood – or breast tissue – that is alkaline.
Foods That Support an Alkaline pH
Foods that tend to support an alkaline pH include many vegetables and fruits, particularly those that are acidic to the mouth, like lemons and limes, as well as almonds, avocados, cucumbers, buckwheat and millet flours, and more. Acidifying foods include all meats, which require a substantial amount of hydrochloric acid in the stomach to be digested, along with most dairy products, alcohol, commercial coffees, soft drinks, flours, and sugars.
The Standard American Diet (SAD) is acidifying… especially fast foods, often made up of processed packaged foods, white flours, sugars, sodas and meats, and junk foods, coffee, alcohol, and dairy.
In order for the blood to neutralize the acidifying effects of such foods, it acquires alkalizing minerals and calcium from the body. Afterwards, these minerals do not return to the tissues or bone… they have been consumed. So this process leaches minerals from the body and can contribute to osteoporosis, which takes more lives than uterine, ovarian, and breast cancers… combined.
An alkalizing diet is perhaps the most important dietary concept.
Go for 80% or greater alkaline content in (weekly) diet. See page 42 of Better Breast Health – for Life!™ for its alkaline/acidic food chart, or click here for one from Essence of Life.
Support Bone Density & Bone Growth
To support bone density and bone growth:
eat an alkalizing diet (acidifying foods, i.e. white flours, sugars, sodas, most meats, leach minerals from the body, i.e. teeth, bone)
eat a broad spectrum of leafy greens to get a broad spectrum of food-based minerals
supplement with a high quality, bio-available, food-based and perhaps liquid and/or ionic form, of multi-minerals with minerals in the right ratio/proportion to calcium (35 minerals/co-factors are necessary to assimilate calcium to the bone, i.e. vanadium, phosphorous, potassium, vit. D, K2, etc.)
perform weight-bearing exercise, i.e. isometrics, weight lifting, to grow/maintain muscle mass. Muscles cannot grow without bone growth… Grow your muscles, and you grow your bone.