Why am I so obsessed with acid and its effect on our health, when all the other health experts are talking about calories? That may be a question some of you have been asking. Well it is because acid is what’s killing us! I believe if this simple truth is understood it could change our health and ultimately our lives in a very profound way.
One of the problems with the “information age” is that we have become jaded. There is so much, often conflicting information that we don’t know what to believe. When a simple truth is revealed, we may say to ourselves that it makes sense, but then our attention is taken over by something else. We never have a chance to fully appreciate this truth and to incorporate it into our lives.
I think we can all agree that our current collective views on health and fitness are not working. All of the so-called advances in medicine, science, health and fitness have done little to improve our health. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity are all on the rise, despite our “war” on these deadly afflictions.
The answer is there, and has been for a long time. My first introduction to the concept of over-acidification was many years ago. I read the following words from Rev. Kanjitsu Iijima in his book called, Buddhist Yoga, published in 1975.
“The best way to find out the quality of the blood is to determine the proportion of its acid and alkali. A hydrogen ion exponent of 7 indicates a neutral state, but actually, for the blood, 7.2 to 7.4 with a slight inclination toward the alkali is considered the ideal condition. When the blood is in this neutral state, poisonous bacteria cannot increase and one does not become ill from contagious diseases.”
That was written 35 years ago! Since then our understanding of this fact has been increased in large measure by Dr. Robert O. Young. Dr. Young is a microbiologist and spent years examining the blood of healthy and unhealthy people. He was able to see and document the effects of excess acidity on the blood. Based on years of research, he posited his theories on the over-acidification of the blood in his ground-breaking book, The PH Miracle.
Perhaps one of Dr. Young’s most well known discoveries is his theory of the cause of being overweight. He believes, as do I, that fat is actually an over-acidification problem. That is to say, the body uses fat cells to carry acids away from our vital organs, so these acids are not given the opportunity to choke our organs to death. Your fat is saving your life! The fat that many of us have been struggling with is actually a response from the body to an alarming over-acidic condition. Don’t fault your body, it is doing what it is supposed to do!
The problem is most of us never give our bodies a chance to catch up from years of eating diets which produce over-acidity. One of the key secrets to health is to balance our bodies pH, or more accurately to assist the body through our diet and give it the time to balance our pH.
How do we do that? By focusing our diets around foods that are alkaline and that do not cause the body to go into defensive mode. Here is a simple way to start alkalizing now: Drink a lot of water and eat a salad with every meal. These are two simple changes that will make a big difference.
I hope I don’t come off as if this is something easy to do. I like many of you was raised on meat and potatoes, processed foods, and SUGAR. I struggled for years trying to eat healthy. It is not easy, but it is simple! Once you realize this simple truth, the choice is simple.
Many of you have commented that you would like me to continue the train of thought started in my previous blog called “Alkalize for Life”. Given the importance of this topic, I am only too happy to oblige. In order to do so, I will need to talk history. Stay with me though, your understanding of this is vital to realizing the importance of maintaining an alkaline environment in your body.
I quoted Rev. Kanjitsu Iijima from his book called, Buddhist Yoga, in my previous post,”…When the blood is in this neutral state, poisonous bacteria cannot increase and one does not become ill from contagious diseases.”
To comprehend this statement fully we must consider the origin of our current views, and very briefly explore this controversial topic. Keep in mind that this is a complicated subject, one that has filled numerous volumes. This topic has been explained and debated by people much smarter than myself, but I will attempt to present the important aspects in this short post.
Louis Pasteur is best known for his work with “Pasteurization” of milk and other food products, as well as his experiments with regards to the “Germ Theory”. The Germ Theory states that microorganisms from outside the body are the source of disease. There’s no doubt that Louis Pasteur was a good man whose contributions to science are well documented.
However, not everyone agreed with Mr. Pasteur. Claude Bernard, a colleague of Pasteur, didn’t completely agree with his findings. Bernard’s opinion was that “the terrain is everything.” In other words, germs can not make a person sick unless the person’s body (the terrain or internal environment) supports illness!
Bernard attempted to proved his point by drinking a glass of water infected with cholera. Knowing that a healthy immune system and balanced internal environment (terrain) would enable his body to combat this microorganism, he drank and did not get sick. Pasteur is reported to have said his colleague was just, “Lucky.” I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound very scientific to me, “Lucky”. This view seems to echo a current popular view that staying healthy is just a “crapshoot”. We often hear this defeatist view in a variety of forms. I don’t believe it!
Anyway, there were others that disagreed with Pasteur’s Germ Theory. Antoine Bechamp proposed the Cellular Theory to explain the process of disease. Mr. Bechamp discovered tiny organisms he called “microzymas” which are present in all organic things (plants, animals, etc.) whether living or dead. Based on the internal environment of the host, these microzymas can assume various forms.
Bad bacteria and viruses are simply the forms assumed by the microzymas when there is a condition of disease or an over-acidic environment. In a diseased or overly acidic body, microzymas become pathological bacteria and viruses. In a healthy environment, microzymas form healthy cells! It’s these microzymas that become yeast, fungus and mold, which assist in decomposing a dead body. That’s their job!
So what does this all mean to our health? Dr. Robert Young, on page 21 of his book The pH Miracle, states “Pasteur’s germs of the air may contribute to illness, but they are not, contrary to popular belief, necessary for illness to occur. Their negative effects are simply added to the compromised environment already existing in the body”. In order to get an infection or “catch a bug” your body has to be predisposed to it already. You have to provide a hospitable environment for the “bud” to thrive.
When I first learned about the Power of Alkalinity to support health, I couldn’t understand why everyone wasn’t promoting this as a lifestyle. “You can prevent most disease by maintaining a balanced (slightly alkaline) internal environment”, should be headline news. I just couldn’t understand it, that is, until I saw what I have been sharing with you.
My intend here is not to provide you with a detailed analysis of the Germ Theory vs. the Cellular Theory, or to get into the reasons and possible motives why one theory is promoted over the other.
My desire is to let you know that you don’t need to live in fear. You don’t have to worry that your body will be attacked by some outside organism and there is nothing you can do about it. You don’t have to just hope that you are “Lucky”.
There is something YOU can do about it. You can take care of your own internal environment, and strive to keep it in balance by providing it with alkaline food and drink.