Alkaline Foods For Arthritis

The concept of alkaline foods for arthritis is popular among many alternative practitioners. Although it's not part of Oriental medicine, this may be helpful for your arthritis.

But here's my disclaimer...

The Chinese Dietary Principles that I recommend for my patients (and discuss elsewhere on this site) are based on experience over hundreds of years, showing that people who follow that diet generally have good health, and when people stray from it, their health often suffers.

Other, more recent dietary theories are often more complex, difficult to follow and certainly less proven. And as the saying goes, "If it ain't broke..."

Anyway, the Chinese Dietary Principles do promote a way of eating that would fall into the guidelines of the acid/alkaline diet. But conversely, remember this... just because a food keeps your blood in the "proper" pH level, doesn't mean that it can't adversely affect other substances and/or functions of your body.

That's a common tendency in modern thinking - to consider the effect of a food or drug on one aspect of our body (or mind) without considering, or more to the point - understanding - its effect on all body functions. And that's where the strength of Chinese dietary principles lies, due to its centuries of experience - it truly is "whole-istic". Having said that...

...here's the theory and some of the alkaline foods for arthritis you can apply to your diet:

• The pH produced by our diet should approximate the pH level of our blood (7.36)
• If it doesn't, it negatively affects the pH of our blood
• An improper pH balance will lead to a host of diseases, including arthritis
• All foods and drinks have an alkaline or acidifying effect on the body
• We should eat approximately 75-80% alkaline food and 20-25% acid food.
• Common alkaline foods include:
• Vegetables
• Nuts
• Grains
• Seeds
• Certain fruits (lemon, lime, coconut and grapefruit)
• Common acid-forming foods include:
• Processed food
• Dairy
• Sugar
• Meat
• Caffeine
• Alcohol
• Refined foods
• Saturated fats

It's obvious by the above summary that the alkaline foods are obviously the most health-promoting, and that most of the acid foods are well-known to be health-destroying.

For hundreds of years, Chinese Dietary Principles have promoted a diet that emphasizes those alkaline foods along with small amounts of meat, similar to the proportions described here. But remember...

...some of those acidic foods are always damaging to your heatlh, even if they stay within that 20 - 25% proportion.

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