Give me a ‘pee’ for pH

Posted March 9, 2011

Any clever Wellness Warrior knows that in order to be healthy your body needs to achieve a delicate balance called your ‘pH balance‘. This is the determination of whether your body is acidic or alkaline. If you are too acidic, you are making yourself vulnerable to all sorts of trouble. Cancer and other diseases thrive in an acidic environment. On the other hand, if you are too alkaline, this can cause dramas also. What you want is to sit at a slightly alkaline level. This is around 7.365 – 7.4 on the pH scale.

It is a whole lot easier to be too acidic than it is to be too alkaline. Acidity is caused by eating crap food, drinking alcohol, taking drugs (pharmaceutical and recreational), lack of sleep, not getting enough exercise and constantly being stressed out. Alkalinity is achieved by eating a diet that is high in clean, organic, plant-based whole foods and maintaining a calm and peaceful inner environment. Now do you see why most of us are leaning towards the acidic side? Unless you’re a Wellness Warrior, of course. I hate to brag, but my pH is ridiculously alkaline – maybe a little too much. My pH paper is bright purple after I pee on it. This is a good thing for me because according to my medical doctors, I’m supposed to have cancer. And as we know, a body with cancer in it should be acidic.

To break it down even further for you, here is a list of the most common acidic foods and the most common alkaline foods. Plus, if you scroll down you will be greeted with an explanation on how to test your pH balance at home.

The acid/alkaline division

Alkaline foods
Green veggies.
Green superfoods – chlorella, spirulina, barley grass powder, marine phytoplankton, wild blue-green algae, wheatgrass.
Lemons, limes and grapefruits – they are acidic prior to being consumed, but have an alkalising affect on the body.
Root vegetables – potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips etc.
Avocados.
Almonds, Brazil nuts, sesame seeds, flaxseeds.
Grains such as quinoa, wild rice, millet, buckwheat, amaranth.
Raw tomatoes.
Sprouts.
Seaweed.
Raw apple cider vinegar.
Lentils and other beans.
Herbal teas – green tea, white tea, dandelion tea.

Acidic foods
Alcohol.
Animal protein: all meat (including chicken and fish), eggs, dairy.
Drugs, cigarettes and heavy metals.
Pesticides, herbicides (including those sprayed on foods).
Preservatives, additives, chemicals.
All processed foods – anything in a bottle, box, jar or packet.
Table salt.
Artificial sweeteners.
Coffee (including decaf), black tea.
Refined grains, wheat and oats (brown rice and oats are mildly acidic while white rice, white bread and white pasta are highly acidic).
Soy sauce.
Processed soy products.
Some legumes like chickpeas, black beans, and soy beans are slightly acidic.
Yeast and vinegar.

How to test your pH level:
There are three ways you can test your pH level – blood, saliva or urine. Because testing yourself at home is the easiest way to go about this, it’s best to dip your pH paper in your pee. To determine your accurate pH, test yourself several times a day for about a week. At the end of the week, analyse all of your results and find your average. This is your body’s pH level.

Follow these instructions:

• Pee on the piece of pH paper you have bought from the chemist
• Wait about 20 seconds and compare the colour of the paper with the colour of the scale on the pH paper dispenser. You want it to fall somewhere between 6.8 and 7.5.
• The best times to test your pH is on your second pee of the day (your first may give an inaccurate reading due to metabolic processes from the night before), before meals or at least one or two hours after eating.

My number one tip for maintaining alkalinity is to get stuck into green juices and smoothies. It’s like delivering a big shot of enzymes, oxygen and vitamins straight into your blood stream!

Have you tested your pH lately? What did your pee tell you?

Positive affirmation for the day: I will do one thing each day that contributes to my greatest, wildest, most amazing goals in life.

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