Hiya Gorgeous,
You may have heard about pH or the acid-alkaline balance in your wellness travels. I was oblivious to this concept when I began my health and wellness journey. But my overall well-being changed when I started to connect the dots between pH balance, inflammation, and what I was eating and drinking.
What the Heck is pH?
Remember high school science class? Well, if you don’t, here’s a little refresher course: The body maintains a delicate acid-alkaline balance. Everything from healthy cells to cancer cells to soil quality and ocean life is affected by pH.
The term pH stands for “potential hydrogen” which is the measure of hydrogen ions in a particular solution (don’t worry if you’re not science-savvy, I’ll make this easy to understand!). In our case, that “solution” refers to our body’s fluids and tissues.
The pH scale ranges from 0 to 14 and is meant to measure how acidic or alkaline a substance is. Seven is neutral. Below 7 becomes increasingly acidic, above 7 increasingly alkaline.
What Do Balanced pH Levels Look Like?
As with most health-related barometers, a healthy pH balance is everything. Proper pH balance varies throughout your body for many reasons. For example, your bowels, skin and vagina should be slightly acidic–this helps keep unfriendly bacteria away. Saliva is more alkaline, while your urine is normally more acidic, especially in the morning.
In addition, your body regularly deals with naturally occurring acids that are the by-products of respiration, metabolism, cellular breakdown and exercise. So clearly the goal is not to think of acid as “bad” and alkaline as “good.” Again, the body’s pH levels are a delicate balance.
By far the most important measurement is your blood. For optimal cellular health, your blood pH level must be slightly alkaline with a pH between 7.365 and 7.45. Our bodies are programmed to maintain this range no matter what, since even the slightest dip or rise in pH can have seriously dangerous consequences.
Can the Human Body Restore pH Balance on its Own?
Now here’s the possible problem: The Standard American Diet (SAD) is rife with acidic substances and foods—meat, dairy, highly processed food products and refined sugar. Environmental toxins can be acidic, too, and sadly, those are pretty dang hard to avoid.
Some research claims our bodies can self-correct in the presence of such acidic materials with no negative health impact—but other peer-reviewed studies suggest our bods have to work harder to neutralize the acidic load, resulting in a gradual decline in health.
The jury’s still out and further research is needed, but we do know that high acid diets are associated with gout, kidney stones, and other health conditions, so it seems likely there’s something to the whole pH and food connection. To that I say, why not tip the scales in the alkaline direction?
How to Measure pH Balance
You may be tempted to start testing your pH like a mad woman to make sure you’re on track, but it’s really not necessary. I tested my tinkle a lot when I first learned about pH, but these days I’m comfortable skipping the strips, knowing that I’m doing what I can to contribute to my pH balance with the three diet and lifestyle practices below.
But if you’re still curious, you can test your urine at home with litmus paper strips (available online for about $10). Keep in mind that the pH of urine always varies, depending on what you eat and when, and that you should test your second urine of the day for the best snapshot of what’s going on inside.
Testing your urine can show you how well your body is excreting acids and assimilating minerals. For optimum sparkle, the normal pH level in your urine should fall in the 6.8 to 7.5 pH range.
What Causes a pH Imbalance?
Think about the acidic standard American diet (SAD). Most folks are shovelin’ in the acid multiple times per day with tons of sugar, processed foods, factory-farmed animal products, etc. One of the biggest pitfalls of the SAD is the toll it takes on the body, especially the digestive system, liver, and kidneys. What else can wreak havoc on pH levels?
Stress
Constant stress leads to the secretion of stress hormones, which can lead to chronic inflammation and an acidic environment.
Shallow Breathing
When you’re stressed, do you breathe quickly? Rapid and shallow breathing—taking in oxygen too quickly—can lead to acidity.
Toxins
Exposure to environmental toxins (heavy metals, pollutants, hormones, chemicals in food and plastics, beauty products, unclean tap water, etc.) can wreak havoc on your pH balance.
Infections
Infections also lead to an acidic environment which impacts your immune system, increasing the likelihood of continued illness. Secondly, over-the-counter medications can alter your microbiome and allow bad bacteria to thrive, which can negatively impact pH levels.
Medical conditions
If you have a medical condition (like diabetes) it may lead to a higher pH level. If you have a diagnosed medical condition, check with your doctor to help determine your next steps.
Symptoms of a pH Imbalance
These are just a few of the symptoms you might exhibit as acid levels (or alkaline levels) increase.
- Inflammation
- Allergies
- Arthritis
- Skin problems
- Constipation
- Bowel issues
- Stress
- ketoacidosis
- Vaginal infections
Vaginal pH Balance
Good bacteria work to keep your vaginal pH balanced. For example, Lactobacilli bacteria live in the vagina and secrete lactic acid (which is what makes your vagina acidic). When vaginal pH levels are out of whack, it can lead to numerous infections:
- Bacterial vaginosis (BV)
- Yeast infections
- Atrophic vaginitis
- Urinary tract infections
Unbalanced vaginal pH levels can allow harmful bacteria to kill good bacteria, leading to these common infections. Vaginal health is important to your overall health, and restoring ph balance should positively impact your lady parts, too!
Think you have a vaginal imbalance?
- Vaginal discharge that is a cottage cheese consistency could be a yeast infection
- A foul-smelling vaginal discharge that isn’t clear or off-white might indicate bacterial vaginosis
- If you’re experiencing burning or see blood in your pee, you might have a UTI.
Women’s health is important to me (obviously!) and a healthy vagina is important to overall wellness. See your doc if you’re experiencing any uncomfortable symptoms and they may prescribe something to help balance your ph levels.
ALKALINE VS. ACIDIC FOODS
How do we know if a food is alkaline or acidic, and by how much? The most common method is to incinerate a sample of the food and analyze the mineral content of the ash. Not something you can do with a chemistry set from Toys “R” Us.
At any rate, if the ash is high in alkaline minerals, the food will probably have an alkalizing effect. That’s the theory, anyway. Because lab results and experts often disagree, the many books and websites that give alkaline and acidic food charts also disagree. Usually, the disagreement is minor. In some cases, though, it’s much bigger.
Whether a food is mildly alkalizing or mildly acidifying doesn’t matter very much. There are definitely shades of gray. What’s far more important is to understand what’s highly acidic and thus also inflammatory to make better choices. I’ve added some resources to help you do just that.
We can potentially tilt the pH scale in the alkaline direction with a diet filled with mineral-rich plant foods. By eating a more alkaline diet (leafy greens, wheatgrass, veggies, sprouts, avocados, green juices and smoothies) as opposed to an acidic diet (high in animal products, processed carbs, refined sugar, energy drinks, etc), we flood our bodies with alkalinity, vitamins and other nutrients. Healthy food creates healthy cells. Conversely, junk goes in and junk comes out.
What Causes an Alkaline Imbalance?
Look at your plate, peek in your glass. What direction are you moving in? On the pH scale, Soda = 2. Coffee = 4. Cucumber = 7. Get the picture? Burgers, fries, diet sodas, muffins, and candy bars will lead to excess acid. Green drinks, salads, and sprouts are alkaline foods. Your goal is to make more energy deposits than withdrawals. Do you have to be perfect? NO.
And it’s not even possible to eat a 100 percent alkaline diet and maintain good health anyway. Foods like beans, grains and nuts are overall quite healthy and essential to a plant-powered diet—yet they also have a slightly higher acidic pH level.
It’s the highly acidic foods we need to be careful about (but no one’s saying don’t have cake on your birthday. Please do.). Again, your goal is to fill your well more than you deplete it. Our bodies forgive the detours and exploration, as long as they don’t take place 24-7.
Top 3 Ways To Restore and Support Your Body’s pH Balance
What can you do to balance your body’s pH level? Here are a few natural remedies to try:
Start Your Day with a Tall Glass of Lemon Water and Stay Hydrated
While lemons are acidic in their natural form, lemon water is alkaline-forming in the body. Drench your cells in alkalinity each morning with two cups of warm water with ¼ fresh-squeezed lemon. Yes, there are fancy (and expensive) water ionizers or bottled alkaline water out there, but you can also alkalize your water by simply adding lemon.
You might want to double-check the pH level of water that you drink. Distilled water can skew acidic, which means it absorbs carbon dioxide, making your body even more acidic. You’ll want to lean more toward alkaline water.
Eat More Raw Foods and Drink Green Juices and Smoothies
Organic green juice, green juice, green juice and green smoothies! The staples of a healthy diet are key: leafy greens, wheatgrass, veggies, sprouts, certain fresh fruits, nuts and seeds, certain grains and seaweeds flood our bodies with vitamins, minerals, chlorophyll and phytonutrients—and create an alkaline environment.
Unhealthy cells (like cancer cells) or viruses, bacteria and other nasty microorganisms hate oxygen. They prefer an acidic diet high in animal products, processed and refined foods, and synthetic chemicals.
Exercise, Manage Stress, Sleep Better and Avoid Nasty Chemicals
It’s not just diet that affects your pH. Lack of exercise and an overage of anger, drugs, cigarettes and stress can create inflammation and high acidity levels in the body. Stress isn’t a laughing matter or a badge of courage. The work-hard, play-hard, deal-with-it-later approach is a big pH no-no.
Emotional stress releases acid-forming hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline that flood your system and muck up your soil. Whether it’s through more yoga, cat naps, meditation, deep breathing exercises, strolls in the woods, or stress management counseling, reducing the negativity in your day-to-day is a powerful way to improve your cellular health.
Consider Taking a Probiotic Supplement
A healthy diet full of high-fiber foods should keep your system’s levels of probiotics balanced. You can consider adding in more fermented foods (kombucha, miso, pickles, etc.) or taking a probiotic supplement.
More Resources About Balancing pH Levels
Ready for some further reading? Here are some great resources you can check out:
- The Ultimate pH Solution by Michelle Schoffro-Cook
- The Acid-Alkaline Diet for Optimum Health by Christopher Vasey
- Crazy Sexy Diet by moi
Just to name a few! You can also find many charts online.
Peace & peppy pH,
I am very healthy and decided to take on the lemon water every morning. Apparently, I had too much lemon or my body didn’t like it. I ended up at the doctor, now temporarily on Nexium (I hope) to get me back on track. I drank the lemon water for two months before I figured out my new pain was from acid reflux. I’m scared I did permanent damage. Could this be?
So what is an unhealthy level of alkaline, and what could be the signs/symptoms and what type of disease could be the result?
As the morning begin I was drinking cucumber water and wanted to know if it was more acidic or alkaline your blog is good, could you send more info that would or be great
I’m kind of confused. I have been suffering from recurring yeast infections and my vaginal ph is 5 which is not acidic enough. So wouldn’t drinking things like lemon water which is alkalizing only hurt me? I am trying to figure out how to lower vaginal ph. Any ideas are much appreciated!
Can I use essential oil in my ionizer Alkaline water? Thanks
I have just joined, is it free, if not please unsubscribe me . Thank you
GREAT, SIMPLE, COMPREHENSIVE AND TO THE POINT.
THANK YOU FOR DUMMYING DOWN THE INFORMATION.
Do you think this relationship is really related to the pH? Or just that fact that the foods you are listing as acidic are just generally unhealthy foods?
Seems to me someone would experience health benefit from eating more fresh fruits and vegetables as opposed to processed foods and it would have nothing to do with the pH and more with nutrient content.
These are ambitious claims. The article they reference claims that the alkaline diet may decrease morbidity from chronic diseases, that I don’t doubt. But to attribute this to pH is very ambitious, and the article above does little to support or describe how this works.
The vast majority of foods we eat are acidic including most fruits. There are very few foods that are actually alkaline, and these are only pH 7-8. So overall, our diets are acidic.
The benefits of eating more alkaline foods (greens, even though some are acidic), are well documented and are already recommended to reduce the onset of chronic diseases. This is due nutritional value, not pH.
Everything we eat becomes acidified by the stomach. It doesn’t matter whether the foodstuff is acid or alkaline, it will become acidified in the stomach before getting dumped in the more neutral intestines.
Also, pH is a log scale, meaning the difference between 6 and 7 is an entire order of magnitude. So something pH 7.5 isn’t all that alkaline, whereas something pH 4 is very acidic. There’s plenty of healthy foods with acidic pH, it doesn’t matter.
Also, our blood is buffered meaning it requires a tremendous amount of acid in order change the pH of our blood and plasma. Numerous studies have shown that what we eat ultimately has no significant effect on our blood pH.
To say that we mine our bodies for potassium, calcium, and magnesium is misleading, we replenish these when we eat!!! If you eat a banana and a glass of milk, guess what, you just consumed more calcium and potassium than your body would supposedly lose in order to neutralize the acid intake.
Overall, eating greens is good, duh, that’s always been the case. But to suggest not eating as many acidic foods is irresponsible for a normal diet since so many healthy foods are acidic.
Interesting because my mother has consumed milk, cheese butter and all kinds of dairy products her whole life and she has osteoporosis so bad that the doctors are surprised she’s still standing. They have her on calcium and magnesium but nothing works. I on the other hand don’t touch it, never liked milk and my bones are twice as strong as hers. did have a couple broken bones but nothing like the dozens she has broken for the last 30 years. No other species on earth drinks milk after they are weaned nor drinks milk from another species. Cows milk and human milk are different in that cow’s milk is heavier so it can put 500 pounds on a calf the first 6 months of it’s life. Vegan eating a proper diet generally will live longer and healthier than meat eaters.
My dad while eating a vegan diet and working at a commune back in the ’70’s didn’t take his insulin shots for five days and had no repercussions until he went back eating the old way. My mother wouldn’t change her cooking, saying we couldn’t afford to eat that way, too expensive. When he died in ’03 they were paying $300 a month for insurance because of all of his hospital stays, which included bypass surgery, and that didn’t pay for his meds. He actually died of liver failure because he couldn’t leave the meat and sugar alone.
In the Essene book of Peace, they wrote “Eat that which is dead, become dead. Eat that which is alive become alive.” They were strict vegans.
That is the most uneducated response to an educated opinion. Did you even read it? Oh, and your mother’s osteoporosis has nothing to do with her dairy consumption. You stated even with calcium supplements her body isn’t responding. And if I read one more post about how we are the only species that drinks milk after being weaned.. blah blah.. We are the only species that are intelligent enough to find nutritional values in our resources available. We also are the only species to make bread, extract oils, take vitamins, drive cars, work and on and on….anyway, you need to research more. I think Dave has a valid point, and your response has nothing to do with it.
I am working on a post about detox baths and I would love to attach a link to this post about PH balance. Would that be okay if I mentioned you and connected your site with my post?
Bodys pH plays such an important role. The public needs to catch up. I use ph papers weekly to check my body’s ph to assure its within the safe range 7.4-7.8. Its as helpful as brushing ones teeth in preventative health care!
Thanks for the reminders… They are so helpful and welcome. I have been in love with your amazing story since it began and am overjoyed that you are sharing all your wellbeing tips. Your books are brilliantly funny and inspirational. Thank You Thank You Thank You Kris. YOU ROCK!!!!
My body became extremely alkaline vs acidic after a diet change in 2005 to vegan. Cancer cannot survive in an alkaline environment. I was diagnosed with aggressive cancer in 2005. Diet was all I did to combat cancer–no surgery, chemo, or radiation.
Many other benefits include elimination of joint pain, headaches, acid reflux, and other health problems.
Larry are you healed? I am interested in some of the foods and items you have used. I need some recommendations and would Love to cut the inflammation and such out of my body as well!
Iwas doing ACV in the morning, but i do not have much time. Wonderedabout taking the supplements that are to be on empty stomach or with water, which should come first or is there a time interval? Going to get the bottle back in the bedroom. Works better than lemon as the bedroom is upstairs.
Hi there!! Thank you for sharing everything you know about health and wellness, but also for being such a positive and spiritual influence. I look forward to your articles, recipes and well, everything, which also includes my latest purchase of Crazy Sexy Diet!! 😉 After reading this article about pH 101, I wanted to ask if it would be a good idea to include lemon in my water throughout the day to keep it alkalize. Is that too much, if I’m drinking 8+ glasses of water?
Look forward to hearing from you.
Paula
I’m trying so hard to get off my prevacid. Thanks so much for this!!!
Hi Kris, could You write sth about honey, I know vegans don’t eat it, but have no idea why…..as far as I know it is super healthy and very supportive for the immune system
Kris,
I go to my health food store and fill up glass jugs with reverse osmosis water (gets rid of all the fluoride and chloramines). Do you know what the ph is for this kind of water? I’ve heard Spring Water that has not had the minerals removed is a better choice, but for many of us this isn’t an option.
THANKS,
Cammy
This is really interesting information. Thank you for taking time to share (or re-share as you stated) and for caring about others the way you do. I appreciate you and all the great info you provide. 🙂
Hi Kris Ian here from London England, just read your article about acid/alkaline, very interesting. I did know about the a/a balance but your article has some info I did not know,
many thanks
Ian
Hi Kris,
delighted to read this today, shared on a FB’s friend page, exactly the motivation I needed to get back to my healthy habits.
Question: I wonder though is it ok to press a couple of lemons and mix it with water to last for a few mornings (I guess I shouldn’t store it in the fridge or it’ll be too cold?) Just as a time saver for the rush of the mornings. And it would still be better than concentrated lemon juice (which is highly available here) ?
Thank you so much!