Acid diet, alkaline diet

“When a person truly desires health, it is necessary first to ask them whether they are willing to eliminate the causes of their illness. Only then is it possible to heal them.”

(Hippocrates, 460 BC).

We often look for the causes of an illness as if it could be a single, isolated episode within an otherwise healthy individual. Every organ, every tissue, every part of us is connected to the whole, to the person we are. In reality there is not even a separation between body and psyche, between the emotional and the mental: we are a single entity in relationship with our surroundings and with the Universe.

As Dr Robert Young, one of the leading experts on alkaline pH, says: there is only one disease, and it is called “acidosis”.

All the other 40,000 names given to the supposed diseases we suffer from are merely the body’s creative solutions for keeping acid concentrated in certain areas of the body, as far away from the blood as possible. If all this acid reached the blood, we could die within a few hours.

The acid that our body assimilates becomes fertile ground for every kind of disease. Tumour cells could not develop if they did not find acidic ground in which to take root and proliferate.

Fatigue, ageing, excess weight, headaches, dermatitis, menstrual disorders, infertility, impotence, osteoporosis, bronchitis: all the illnesses for which we keep looking for different causes in reality share a single basis, bodily acidity.

The first tool for combating acidosis is certainly diet. Drinking plenty of water, eating fresh fruit and vegetables (organically grown where possible), and reducing or eliminating animal products, tobacco, fizzy drinks and alcohol would create an alkaline physical environment, regenerate our blood and give new oxygen to our cells.

As well as paying attention to diet, we must remember that ‘food’ is not just what we eat: we also feed on images, information and thoughts. To avoid becoming acidic, it is important to nurture joyful, positive and kind thoughts; in this way our blood and our cells will carry positive (and therefore alkaline, harmonious) messages to body and psyche, helping us to stay healthy.