No, Foods Do Not Change the PH of Your Blood.
Feeling sick and unhealthy? This is because you are eating too many acidic foods that make your body equally acidic and harm your health. Eat more alkaline (opposite to acidic) foods to heal your body! But if our blood pH fluctuated, which is easy, we would all be in serious trouble.
The gurus behind the popular “alkaline diet” say that what you eat and drink leaves behind ash residues (true) that can dramatically change the pH or acid level in your body and blood (not entirely true) and potentially provoke you. poor health. There are many wild claims and theories out there, but the bottom line is, eat more alkaline foods. Alkaline foods are mostly fruits and vegetables, while foods containing protein, sulfur and phosphates, such as dairy products, meat and alcohol, are more acidic. Let’s be clear : Normal blood pH ranges from 7.35-7.45. If your blood pH goes outside this range, your cells will die. Chris Kresser notes:
The body tightly regulates the pH of our blood and extracellular fluid, and we cannot influence the pH of our blood by changing our diet. ( 5 , 6 ) High doses of sodium bicarbonate can temporarily raise blood pH, but not without unpleasant gastrointestinal symptoms. ( 7 , 8 ) And, of course, there are circumstances in which blood is more acidic than it should be, and this does have serious health consequences. However, this state of acidosis is caused by medical conditions such as chronic kidney failure, not by your choice of salad or hamburger.
In other words, your kidneys help regulate the pH of your blood by filtering and buffering your blood, and excreting excess acid in your urine. If you ate bacon and eggs, you would have more acid than someone who ate an apple. Alkaline dieters cite the pH of their urine as evidence of their claims, but urine is indeed a poor and unreliable indicator of overall body pH and your health. This is a sign that your kidneys are working properly, as its job is to throw out the things your body doesn’t need.
Acid-Base Myth: Part 1 | Chris Kresser