Choosing alkaline foods, moderating your protein intake, helps you follow a healthier alkaline diet. We give you a table of alkaline and acidic foods to guide you.
Knowing which foods are more alkaline or more acidic, from the point of view of how they affect the pH of the urine, can help us to follow an alkaline diet. But first, some general guidelines on how to alkalize the diet can be of great help to start an alkaline diet.
HOW TO DO AN ALKALINE DIET
That a diet is alkaline does not depend only on choosing specific foods. Not only are there other factors that influence the acidification of the diet, but it will be much easier to orient yourself if you follow some general diet and lifestyle tips:
- Fruits and vegetables: the most alkaline foods
In general, it is important to eat more ripe fruit, vegetables, and tubers. Vegetable soups with potato are ideal.
You can also take homemade juices of citrus, celery, apple, pear, carrot, grape, wheat sprout, cherry … rich in potassium. Figs, ripe lemons, onions and alfalfa are also advisable.
- Avoid an acidifying diet
It is important to eat less protein and fat in general, as well as pasteurized dairy, refined cereals, preserves, pastries, chocolate, soft drinks, alcohol and coffee. If dairy is taken, it should be reduced to a maximum of four per week. You also have to reduce the salt and leave the white sugar.
Avocados and vegetable oils are in a neutral zone.
- When it comes to cooking
You have to take the nuts without roasting or salting.
It is also better to use gentle cooking such as steam.
In addition, it is advisable to alternate the olive oil with other cold pressed ones and opt for cider vinegar and whole sugar.
- Lifestyle
Facilitate purification, since acidic waste is eliminated through the skin, lungs and intestine.
Taking deep breaths and avoiding overexertion in exercise are some of the recommendations.
- Water and infusions to alkalize
In this sense, it is advisable to drink one or two liters of water a day. A large part of the bottled waters in Spain are natural minerals, many of them bicarbonated sodium or mixed waters, which alkalize the pH of the urine.
Herbal teas such as green tea, horsetail, and dandelion are also indicated.
- Supplementation
Mineral salts that help alkalize urine have traditionally been sold in pharmacies: Epson salts (magnesium sulfate), Enno fruit salt with bicarbonates and citrates, or alkalizing preparations such as the one used in Mayr’s cure , which is take a teaspoon dissolved in a quarter of a liter of water, twice a day.
ALKALINE FOODS: TABLE WITH THE ACID LOAD OF THE MOST COMMON
To find out how acidic or alkaline food is, its acid load in urine is calculated. This allows you to choose those that less acidify.
The acid load of food in the urine is expressed by what is known as the potential renal acid load or PRAL, for its acronym in English, and is calculated from its content of 5 nutrients that alter the body’s pH: proteins, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium. Thus, we find:
- Acidifying foods: Foods with positive values exert an acidifying effect, the higher the higher they are.
- Alkaline foods: Alkalizing foods obtain negative values.
Below you will find the acid load of some of the most common foods in the diet:
VEGETABLES AND GREENS
- Spinach: –14.0
- Celery: –5.2
- Carrot: –4.9
- Zucchini: –4.6
- Potato: –4.0
- Lettuce: –2.5
- Eggplant: –3.4
- Tomato: –3.1
- Onion: –1.5
- Broccoli: –1.2
FRUITS AND NUTS
- Raisin: –21.0
- Dried fig: –18.1
- Black grape: –6.5
- Banana: –5.5
- Apricot: –4.8
- Cherry: –3.6
- Orange: –2.7
- Lemon: –2.6
- Apple: –2.2
- Almond: +4.3
- Walnut: +6.8
- Peanut: +8.3
CEREALS AND DERIVATIVES
- Whole wheat bread: +1.8
- White bread: +3.7
- Rye bread: +4.1
- White rice: +4.6
- Corn flakes: +6.0
- Spaghetti: +6.5
VEGETABLES
- Green beans: –3.1
- Lentils: +3.5
FATS AND OILS
- Olive oil: 0
- Sunflower oil: 0
- Butter: +0.6
DRINKS
- Orange juice: –2.9
- Lemon juice: –2.4
- Red wine: –2.4
- Coffee: –1.4
- Green tea: –0.3
- Coca-Cola: +0.4
- Beer: +0.9
SUGARS AND SWEETS
- White sugar: 0
- Whole sugar: –1.2
- Honey: –0.3
- Bitter chocolate: +0.4
- Milk chocolate: +2.4
MEATS
- Pork, lean: +6.7
- Chicken: +8.7
- Veal, fillet: +9.0
- Lamb: +9.9
FISH AND SHELLFISH
- Cod: +7.1
- Salmon: +9.4
- Sardine in oil: +13.5
- Mussel: +15.3
- Prawn: +15.5
DAIRY AND EGGS
- Skimmed milk: +0.7
- Whole milk: +7
- Yogurt: +1.5
- Egg: +8.2
- Fresh cheese: +11.1
- Manchego cheese: +28.7
- Parmesan cheese: +34.2
HOW TO KNOW IF YOU HAVE ACIDIC PH IN THE URINE
One option is to measure the urine for 24 hours, mixing it well, and another to measure fasting and after meals. Then a pH measuring paper is inserted into the collected urine and the result is read.
The pH measurement paper comes in the form of strips. It is sold in any pharmacy, it is cheap and gives the reading in decimals. You just have to be careful to keep it well.
There are instruments that allow to measure the pH and that are called potentiometers (or pH meter); they are very expensive and give up to thousandths. But to measure the pH of the urine it is not necessary to fine tune that much. An adequate urine pH ranges from 6.3 to 7.2; lower is considered acidic and higher, alkaline.
