Acid-Alkaline Diet - Another Misleading Weight-Loss Theory?

The acid-alkaline diet is a variation of the food-combining diet (read our article “Food Combination Diet - Will It Help You Lose Weight?”). In this popular diet, all products are divided into two basic groups - alkaline-forming and acid-forming. The goal of dieters is to eat roughly 80 percent alkaline-forming foods and only about 20 percent acid-forming foods.

Followers of this diet keep tabs on the type of products they eat and combine alkaline-forming and acid-forming foods accordingly. As most alkaline-forming ingredients are raw fruits and vegetables, this diet has all shortcomings of vegetarian and raw food diets.

This diet theory states that every type of food has its effect on the pH value of our blood and other tissues. Such products as breads, cereals, grains, nuts, meats, fish, poultry and eggs (acid-forming foods) supposedly make our blood too acidic and therefore are discouraged from the menu. On the other hand, alkaline-forming products, such as fruit, veggies, legumes (except for acidic lentils), and milk, are encouraged in the diet, because they keep our tissues alkaline and promote health and weight loss.

The acid-alkaline diet is largely based on an erroneous assumption that our healthy primitive ancestors subsided on a mostly vegetarian diet. Advocates of the acid-alkaline diet believe that people have evolved by eating fruits and vegetables. Nothing, actually, can be further from the truth, since, anatomically and physiologically, Human Sapiens, our species, belongs to a carnivore type that became an omnivore out of necessity only a few thousand years ago, with the onset of agriculture. Before that, primitive humans had mostly subsided on animal fat and meat complemented by a few wild seasonal berries, veggies, and fruits, which had actually made the very evolution of our highly developed brain and nervous system possible. Despite this well-developed scientific knowledge, the acid-alkaline diet theory states that eating meats and other “acid-forming” foods causes chemical and metabolic imbalances and the health problems associated with them, including obesity.

Another argument against the validity of this diet is that our normal, slightly alkaline condition of the blood and other tissues, is maintained not by the type of foods we eat but by the action of the kidney and lungs regulating the balance between the amount of carbon dioxide and bicarbonate ions inside the body. Acidosis, therefore, can be caused by impaired kidney function, lung diseases, dehydration, ingestion of steroids or diuretics, or diabetic conditions. Many people who are overweight but have a perfectly normal blood pH levels, follow alkalizing diet without any need to do so. Yes, they will lose some weight, but this sort of weight loss will be achieved largely at the account of lean muscle tissues and their overall health. Lack of protein and other necessary nutrients will eventually rob the body from essential body-building blocks, fat-soluble vitamins, and other important health-promoting agents. An imbalance diet composed mostly of “alkaline-forming” fruits and veggies, while could be useful in the short term as a weight loss fast, can lead to serious deficiencies in the long run.

As the last argument against the acid-alkaline diet, we can mentions that the Inuit in Northern Canada or the Masai in Kenya, still living on a diet almost exclusively composed of “acid-forming” high-protein foods, show no signs of acidosis and maintain lean and strong bodies well into their old age. On the other hand, the epidemic rates of obesity observed currently in all industrialized countries, have skyrocketed since “alkaline-forming” carbohydrate-rich foods became predominant in our everyday menu.

Wayne Hammel

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