It’s not enough for a diet to simply help you lose weight anymore; the newer kinds of diets which are becoming popular today are claiming all kinds of miraculous effects. Most have some celebrity or other spouting their benefits but in terms of you and your day to day life, what are these diets likely to do?
One of the newest dietary fads is called the Alkaline Diet which, as the name suggests, involves eating largely alkaline foods to help the body maintain a PH level of between 7.35 and 7.45. The claim is that as well as helping you shed those pesky pounds it can ease the symptoms of arthritis, diabetes and cancer. I would strongly advise you to take anything which claims to be able to cure cancer with the largest grain of salt you can find.
The idea behind the diet is that, as our blood is slightly alkaline our diets should reflect that. Back when we were hunting and gathering our diets had very few acid producing foods in them, things like grains, fish, meats, poultry and dairy were rarely if ever eaten. Acidic foods are claimed to cause the loss of essential minerals from our bodies, making people more prone to illness and weight gain. The ideal goal of a user of the Alkaline Diet would be the consumption of 70% alkaline foods and just 30% acidic foods.
Experts say that the body is more than capable of maintaining its own PH balance and diet has little or no impact on this. There is evidence which suggests that the Alkaline Diet might help prevent things like kidney stones and arthritis but there’s no evidence which shows that an acidic diet is in any way responsible for these conditions in the first place. Lastly, you have to test your urine to determine your internal PH levels which is more than a little strange for a diet!
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