What is the acid and alkaline diet? From one standpoint, just about everyone eats an acid and alkaline diet. This statement is technically true because practically everyone eats a mixture of acid-forming and alkaling-producing foods.

True, many diets are heavily weighted in one direction or the other. Some extreme diets recommend that you eat only alkalizing foods. But in practice, such an extreme diet would be very difficult to stick to. Meanwhile, the standard diet is strongly weighted toward acid-forming foods. Nevertheless, the point remains that most people eat both acid-forming and alkaling-producing foods.

When we talk about acidity and alkalinity in connection with food, we’re really talking about the idea that our dietary choices have an effect on our health. Almost everything that we eat alters our body’s pH, making it either a little more acidic or a little more alkaline. Even so, few people know about this relationship.

Those who are “in the know” use a variety of terms: acid alkaline diet, alkaline diet, acid alkaline balance diet, and so on. Despite the different names, all of these phrases refer to the same core idea: That by eating more alkaling-producing foods and fewer acidifying ones, we can cause the body’s pH to become more alkaline.

It is unhealthy for the body to be either too acidic or too alkaline. But while excess acid is very common, alkalosis due to diet is rare. The ancestral human diet is slightly alkalizing, thanks to lots of leafy vegetables, tubers, fruits, and nuts and seeds. In the modern world, the foods that most people eat are acidifying, including meat, dairy, processed grains, sugar, alcohol, and bad fats.

By choosing a more alkaline diet, you can return your body to its ideal condition. When you accomplish this task, you will feel better, have more energy, and experience fewer health problems.

What does it mean to eat an acid alkaline balanced diet? You have likely heard about this healthy diet, which is more often described as the alkaline diet. In actuality, “acid alkaline balanced diet” may really be the more apt name, because the goal of this way of eating isn’t to go to an extreme of alkalinity, but rather to produce a balanced internal pH.

When it comes to pH, as with many aspects of health, balance is key. For instance, let’s take body temperature. Is body heat a bad thing that you want to reduce? Or is it a good thing that you want to increase? The truth, of course, is neither. Either too high or too low a body temperature is an indication that your body is imbalanced.

Likewise, a pH that is either too high or too low is a sign that the body is out of balance. This imbalance is usually caused by an improper diet. And although it is definitely possible for the body to be either too acidic or too alkaline, overacidity (sometimes called chronic low-grade metabolic acidosis) is considerably more common than alkalosis. This is because the Western diet is strongly tilted toward acid-forming foods.

But on the bright side, you needn’t worry about your body becoming too alkaline, as long as you eat a balanced diet and do not overuse alkalizing supplements. A properly designed acid alkaline diet provides balanced proportions of fat, protein, and carbohydrates, not to mention both acid-producing and alkaline-producing foods. Fruits and vegetables are favored, as well as certain whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, and wholesome oils.

A refreshing change from bizarre fad diets, the acid alkaline balanced diet is a sound approach to eating that is similar to the way that healthy peoples have eaten for thousands of years.