To support any one state, it often helps to eat food from around the same zone. For example, for physical activity, eat more fruit, greens, tubers, stalks, fish, fowl. To curb an excess, consuming foods from the opposite zone is at times helpful: the hyperactivity from sugar can be counterbalanced or eliminated by eating grains, beans, salty foods, animal protein. Please remember that this whole classification, though useful, must be taken only as a broad generalization. It’ s a sort of relativity theory: different foods are more or less expansive or contractive than others. In order to maintain balance, we need both kinds; neither is better or more desirable than the other. It is important to keep that in mind. ACID AND ALKALINE Although nutrition books frequently refer to“ acid” and“ alkaline,” the concept of acidity and alkalinity remains one of the most incompletely understood in nutritional science. Understanding it, however, is crucial to knowing how to keep ourselves balanced. First, some basic facts. Acidity and alkalinity are properties exhibited most clearly in fluids. They are opposites, in the sense that we have defined earlier: necessary and complementary to each other, two faces of a coin, neither one being“ better” or“ worse” than the other. The main characteristic of acids is that they contain a large proportion of hydrogen ions( H +), which have a positive electric charge. Hydrogen atoms normally have one proton in their nucleus and one electron spinning around it; as with all elements, the number of protons and the number of electrons are usually equal. When the number of electrons is either larger or smaller, the atom is called an ion.
These hydrogen ions are“ hungry” atoms, always looking to replace their missing electron. When the proportion of these H + in a given fluid is large enough, the fluid will become acid and corrosive: It will“ eat” the electrons of other substances. Alkalis, or bases, contain a large proportion of hydroxyl ions( OH –). As opposed to the hungry H + ion, the OH – ion carries an extra electron and looks to donate it. Thus, when an OH – meets an H +, they bond, neutralizing each other by forming H 2 O( water) and a salt. For example: HC 1( hydrochloric acid) + NaHCO 3( sodium bicarbonate) becomes → NaC 1( salt) + H 2 O( water) + CO 2( carbon dioxide). To find out the level of acidity or alkalinity in a fluid or tissue, we usually focus only on the concentration of H – present. This figure is given by the famous“ pH,” which means“ one Part of Hydrogen ion per 10n.” This is what that means: