Alkaline Diet Questions with Gareth (#3)

Hey everyone!

Each fortnight we’re putting the best alkaline diet questions we receive from you to our Alkaline Diet Expert, Dr Young trained blood analyst and highly qualified nutritionist – Gareth Edwards.

Gareth is right at the very top of his field, so these answers are absolutely the best you’ll find from arguably Britain’s most qualified expert in this area!

Q&A With Gareth Edwards

Question One: Coffee Substitutes

Really missing my milky coffee so am using rice milk with chicory, taking this to be non acidic- Is this ok? Also used ground barley substitute but stopped as I think this is acidic. Please advise.

I think that rice milk with chicory, should be less acidifying than milky coffee, so that is probably a step in the right direction. When you are trying to climb a mountain, having a few camps along the way usually makes it easier!

Rice milk is quite sweet so moving towards unsweetened soya milk may be preferable.

The main challenge with coffee substitutes is that they often have sweeteners added to them. Read the ingredients labels and avoid anything that has something ending in “ose” in it.

The best thing that I have found is dandelion root coffee. Cotswold do one which is just the pure root. You need to put it in a coffee grinder.

This is meant to help stimulate bile (alkaline salts) production. As you become more alkaline your cravings for coffee are likely to diminish so ….. keep drinking and eating your greens and adding salt and pHour Salts!

Question Two: Omega Oils

Regarding omegas — what sort of amounts are recommended daily? I have been taking supplements daily for a number of years now: One capsule omega 3 giving 276 mg DHA and 220mg EPA plus one capsule evening primrose oil giving 100mg GLA. Also couldn’t get LSA but am using a ground flaxseed, linseed and pumpkin mix instead. Do I need to use oils like Udo’s as well?

I think that you can quite happily take up to a gram of essential fatty acids (EFA’s) a day and some people take more than that. Personally I recommend and stick to vegetarian sources of EFA’s. DHA and EPA are usually (but not always) derived from marine sources, which can be polluted and the providers are rapidly becoming depleted or are farmed.

I’m a bit reluctant to prescribe when it comes to food, as your body has built in barometers which will guide you. Up to a gram of cold pressed and refrigerated (and ideally organic) hemp oil should give your body the building blocks that it needs to make EPA and DHA and even GLA too. Hemp really is a human nutrition dynamo and it is more stable, once processed into oil, than linseed / flaxseed.

Udo’s Choice has a good variety of vegetable oils in it, providing EFA’s but they are unlikely to be as stable as hemp. That said, it is a good idea to vary the vegetable sources you get your EFA’s from so having some of that occasionally and your ground linseed and pumpkin mix should be a good idea.
Keeping these unsaturated vegetable oils away from light and heat is essential(!) to preserve their nutrient qualities.

Great question. Remember that all unsaturated vegetable oils are omega oils. The one’s that your body cannot make itself (omega3 and 6) are EFA’s. Grab a copy of Udo Erasmus’ excellent book Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill to read more.

Question Three: Which Milk Is Best

What is the best milk for me to have? I still like to have oats and muesli sometimes but I hear such contradictory things about soy and rice milk (almond is quite expensive). Is soy milk safe? Should I use rice milk instead or just avoid altogether?

I generally encourage clients to use unsweetened soya milk rather than rice milk. Pour yourself a glass of each and the taste should let you know why that is. Rice milk, like rice cakes, has a high glaecemic index. That means that it releases sugars quickly in to your blood.

There is controversy around whether soya milk is good for you or not. Some people believe that some of the plant elements in it bind to minerals and prevent their absorption or utilisation in the body. At the same time fairly extensive scientific research has been carried out into the cancer protective effects of increased soya consumption in both men and women. On balance this research has generally come down in favour of soya as being beneficial to health, but like all studies involving food, cause and effect are challenging to prove.

My own view is that soya milk is safe for healthy adults to consume in modest amounts. It’s best to avoid packs that have added sweeteners (fruit juice included). The only challenge is that commercial soya milk is made with cooked beans rather than sprouted beans, so it is unlikely to be highly alkalising.

Almond milk is a possibility, but as well as the cost, I’ve never seen it without sweeteners added. The best thing really would be to make your own almond milk. That can be a bit pricy, but by soaking the almonds overnight, before blending and then straining them, you are getting fairly close to a living, fresh, alkalising “milk”.

Regular milk can be challenging for people to digest and absorb (it is after all food for baby cows) and the issue is heightened by industrial farming methods of production and the pasteurising and other treatments that the milk undergoes before it arrives in your fridge.

So – my overall advice – occasional soya milk, preferable to rice milk, but keep eating and drinking your greens!

Question Four: Can You Be Naughty?!

Is one allowed to be ‘naughty’ and eat acidic foods such as, say, a juicy steak once in a while with, say, plenty of alkaline vegetables? I weigh 125 lbs, am 5’5-1/2″ tall and am 65 years of age and am considered slim. Both my husband and I eat plenty of salads – usually one salad per day and on the whole we keep fit. We do not take any medication from the doctor since we are not in need of it. However, I do suffer from several intolerances and also have been suffering from osteo-arthritis in my hands, neck and lower back for about 4 years, hence my interest in your diet.

It is likely that acids stored in your body may be contributing to the pain you are experiencing. The exciting news is that you can get alkalising at any age, so hat’s off to you for giving it a go!

One salad per day is great and I am sure more than many of your contemporaries (or even the population at large). Ideally however, I would ask you to step that up to two or even three a day. Be sure to include dark green and leafy vegetables such as kale, chard, spinach and cavelo nero (ideally raw). Additionally I would recommend that you buy and drink at least a litre of powdered green vegetables with alkalising drops a day.

These measures should help to start to “wash” any stored acids out of your body. By dramatically increasing your intake of alkalising foods and fluids, having the odd moment of naughtiness should be less of an issue. That said, red meat is highly acidifying and likely to contribute to pain and inflammation. The best way to help overcome cravings for a steak is to find really tasty, nutritious alternatives. Sprouted sunflower seeds taste peppery and are packed with protein and minerals.

Having a blood test with a trained microscopist should help you to see if acids are being stored in your body and the practitioner should be able to support you on the path being pain free.

Question Five: Acid vs Alkaline

When the body makes acid, isn’t it simultaneously making something alkaline? To put it another way: Does the body really make acid or does it just separate acidic minerals from alkaline minerals to get an acidic solution for a specific use?

To use an analogy, isn’t it like getting cash from a bank? Banks don’t really make cash, they make “credits and debits”, and the two better balance at the end of the day.

Does our body make acid? Or “credits and debits” of hydrogen (pH) ready mixtures?
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To use another analogy: coldness: Refrigerators don’t make coldness, they just pull the heat out of the air, leaving it with less heat, and so its then cold.

Well, when our bodies “make” acid, isn’t it just pulling something acidic out of a pH neutral part of the body, leaving it to be alkaline?

A great question, but I think that making analogies with the activities of banks, in the current climate could be …… dicey!!

But seriously, generally speaking minerals are either alkalising or acidifying. Chemical reactions that occur “around” them can also produce acidic or alkaline complexes (substances).

A car analogy may be more helpful. When we carry out the reactions required to make energy using alkaline substances (hopefully) stored in the body we produce an acidic “exhaust”.

Similarly when we digest acidic food or fluids our body does it’s best to turn it into an alkaline substance, but that leaves an acidic residue.

Maybe another way to think of it might be like (a peaceful yogic!) tug of war with the same substances either becoming more acidic or alkaline depending on environmental factors.

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Remember! If you have a question for Gareth either leave it below in the comments or contact me on ross@energiseforlife.com!

Note: This blog is only my opinion. It is not medical advice or diagnosis. Only opinions based upon our own personal experiences or information detailed in medical/academic journals or other publications is cited. WE DO NOT OFFER MEDICAL ADVICE or prescribe any treatments. Please consult with a medical professional before making any diet or nutrition changes. Refer to our full disclaimer for more information.