CLEAN EATING #8 Alkaline forming food VS. acidic forming food
For the first couple of days in my clean eating program, I have been using berries in my smoothies because the berries in the States, Korea and Canada are awfully sweet. Trust me when I say that the strawberries in Singapore are absolutely sour and it hurts drinking them while you have gazillion ulcers in your mouth due to braces. In this entry however, the focus is not on the berries but other essential ingredients.
As you know, in our modern world today, most food that we end up eating turns out to be very acidic forming food. It is practically in all the food that we consume, including our staple food such as refined grains. Other examples of acidic forming foods are MSG (put in most Asian meals), carbonated drinks (everytime I head out with a group of people, at least one person would be ordering diet coke), vegetable oils (used to cook most food), sugar (in practically all desserts and desserts seem to be a need instead of a want these days. Me included but am cutting down a lot on it!) and processed meats. It is best to eliminate acidic forming food in the body but if you cannot do so, the recommendation would be to consume 75% alkalizing food and not more than 25% of neutral and acidifying food. This will prevent the body’s balance from being too acidic and make it slightly alkaline. These are some of the reasons why having too much acidic forming food in the body is not good:
- - People become overweight as the body produces fat cells to store the acids away from vital organs.
- - In an acidic environment, it is easy for yeast and fungus to feed on our nutrients and reduce the absorption of what we eat by 50% and people turn out to be underweight as well.
- - It causes osteoporosis as the body takes calcium from the bones, teeth and tissues to keep the body healthy in an acidic body state.
- - The biological terrain’s oxygen level will drop when when the cells in the body are in an acidic environment and this causes us to be fatigue and more susceptible to infections.
As many diseases thrive in an acidic environment, both flax seeds and pomegranate seeds are alkaline-forming food that can help to aid in weight loss, increase energy levels and prevent diseases. Almond milk or soy milk can be used to replace dairy milk for it’s alkaline-forming properties too. Incorporate unsweetened Greek Yogurt into your diet instead of the highly sweetened and flavored regular yogurt that is available everywhere. Chia seeds and blueberries are moderate to low alkalizing forming foods. Although steel cut oats, granola and weetabitx are wholegrains that are acidic forming foods, it is fine to consume it with the other ingredients as long as it does not exceed the 75% alkaline to 25% acidic ratio. It is important to always eat in moderation. One of my uncle is so into alkaline products that he changed his entire filter system to alkaline water and ordered lots of alkaline supplements. As for me, I prefer things to be natural and not rely on pills to get my nutrients. Pills and supplements can cause your creatinine to be high, mind you.
So much talk about alkaline and acidic forming foods so let us get down to business. The first few pictures of the entry are pictures that show the ingredients used for my smoothie for day 6 of my clean eating program that happened late last month. My recipe is as follows:
- Smoothie:
- - 3/4 cups of greek yogurt (alkaline forming food)
- - 1/3 cup of steel cut oats (acidic forming food)
- - 1 teaspoon of chia seeds (alkaline forming food)
- - 2 tablespoons of almond milk (alkaline forming food)
- In between the smoothie layers:
- - flax seeds (alkaline forming food)
- - frozen blueberries (alkaline forming food)
- - granolas (acidic forming food)
- - weetabitx (acidic forming food)
- Toppings:
- - pomegranate seeds (alkaline forming food)
Hope this helps you to choose your food wisely to create a slightly alkaline level in your body! More entries regarding nutrition will be coming up soon!
