Acid Reflux Diet in the Form of Alkaline Diet

Let us take a look at alkaline diet as a form of acid reflux diet as espoused by most practitioners of naturopathic medicine.  This view stems from the idea that your diet greatly determines the delicate balance of acid and alkaline in your body.  As a remedy to gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), you must have the correct balance of acid and alkaline in your body.  Having such also ensures a healthy and fit body.  Alkaline diet could be just the acid reflux diet that you need.

Let us review our knowledge of acid and alkaline.  To release hydrogen into a solution, you need acid; and to remove this hydrogen from a solution, you need alkali or base.  You must have heard of the term “PH balance” –you must even be using it to determine your sunblock, or the correct PH of your swimming pool, or even your feminine wash.  PH is used to measure the acidity or alkalinity in a scale of 0 to 14.  Neutral PH is pegged at seven.  Below 7 PH means acidic and above seven means basic or alkaline.  The maintenance of proper PH is important to our body as many processes of our body needs a certain level of acidity or alkalinity.  Proper acid reflux diet based on this could help people with GERD problems.

Remember that a slight change in your body’s PH balance can significantly impact some of your physiological functions specifically the enzymes and other chemical reactions.  For example, if your body has a low PH, muscle contractibility is reduced while your hormones, such as adrenalin, increase.  A basic understanding of the nature and functions of a correct balance of acid and alkali in your body would greatly help you understand and better prepare your acid reflux diet.  As the saying goes, “You are what you eat,” more acid in your daily food intake would mean more acid in your body.

To further illustrate this, and to further strengthen your appreciation of a correct acid reflux diet, let us take for example the foods you ate today.  Let us say, you had hot dog and cow’s milk for breakfast, you had potato chips for snacks and a slab of read meat (perhaps a sirloin steak) for lunch.  These are the types of food that would require more stomach acid to digest.  More stomach acids produced by your body means you are more susceptible to acid reflux as more of these acids could easily splash back upwards to your esophagus.

This illustration clearly shows why a good acid reflux diet means consuming more foods that are alkaline and less of the acidic ones.  An acid reflux diet that gives you foods that are more alkaline include vegetables like broccoli, cucumber, alfalfa sprouts, etc. 

You must avoid alcoholic and carbonated beverages as these increase your body’s acidity particularly your stomach.  If your esophagus is already damaged, acid is the last thing it needs as it could greatly irritate your LES or lower esophageal sphincter muscles.  Besides being a good acid reflux diet, meals that are more alkaline could be good for your entire body system.  High acidity could weaken you and your immune system.  Also a highly acidic body system is an ideal breeding and flourishing ground for germs, molds, yeast, fungi, and bacteria—remember your feminine wash?