pH Chart Of Acid and Alkaline Forming Food Affect On The pH Of Your Body

The pH chart below lists foods that decrease pH (acid-forming food) and increase pH (alkaline-forming food) of the body. The affect of acid-forming foods and alkaline-forming foods on the body can be measured with a pH meter and with pH test strips. Most fruits and vegetables have a low pH because of their acid content, so you would think fruits and vegetables would lower your pH. The acids of most, but not all, fruits and vegetable are broken down during digestion, and once digested most fruits and vegetables raise pH due to their high potassium content. Potassium is highly alkaline forming. Most meat and dairy foods measure as alkaline, but when digested lower pH because of their high protein content. Protein lowers pH. But some dairy products raise pH due to their high calcium and potassium content – calcium is also highly alkaline forming.

Why A Food Would Lower pH

There are several reasons why a food would decrease your pH. Proteins are broken into amino acids which lower pH. The break down of nucleic acids (RNA, DNA) in food forms uric acid which lowers pH. Human digestion can’t break down acids found in some foods. The element carbon is acid forming causing soda to be significantly acid forming. Non buffered vitamin C supplements lower pH, so normal doses and especially mega doses of common vitamin C are acid forming.

Why A Food Would Raise pH

There’s only one reason why a food would increase pH – high alkaline forming mineral content, most often potassium and or calcium. Milk, fruits, and vegetables are almost all of the foods that are significantly alkaline forming. Magnesium is highly alkaline forming and zinc is somewhat alkaline forming, but there’s not enough of these minerals in most foods to affect pH. But mineral supplements of potassium, calcium, magnesium, and zinc in citrate, picolinate, and orotate forms are particularly highly alkaline-forming. You’ll see these terms on the label (i.e. “zinc citrate”). When taking these forms of minerals, it’s easy to raise your pH too high (alkalosis), so you may want to buy some pH test strips or a pH meter first.

What Should Saliva pH Be

The goal is to keep your saliva pH around 7.0. When your pH is too low (too far below 7.0, acidosis) the low pH deteriorates the body causing the body to pull calcium and magnesium from bone to maintain blood pH and causes the kidneys to overwork. Some symptoms of acidosis are fatigue, apathy, irritability, for some unexplained rapid breathing. From personal experience, when pH is too high (too far above 7.0, alkalosis), the high pH causes absentmindedness, lightheadedness, irritability, and hyperactivity. You want to keep saliva pH above 6.7 and below 7.5. It is necessary saliva pH is measured an hour or more after a meal or anything is eaten, two hours if a large meal is eaten. Digestive acids will push saliva pH down so you don’t want any digesting occurring when measuring saliva pH.

Finally, The pH Chart

The chart below will help with deciding what foods to eat more of and what to eat less of in order to keep your pH around 7.0. After reading through the chart, remember that a pH chart that gives you the pH of different foods is useless for controlling your pH. You need to know which foods are acid-forming (push your pH down) an which are alkaline-forming (push your pH up).

pH Chart Of Acid and Alkaline Forming Foods

Here’s another pH chart you should see. It identifies many more specific foods by their affect on body pH – whether the food is acid-forming or alkaline-forming.

Remember that elements mined from the Earth are called minerals, so in nutrition some elements are referred to as minerals (potassium, magnesium, zinc, etc.) and elements not mined from the Earth are usually referred to as elements (carbon, oxygen, nitrogen).

Acid-Forming, Alkaline-Forming Strength Of Elements

The electrons of atoms of elements are what are interacting between atoms in chemical reactions. The outermost electrons of an atom of a mineral (an element) are called valence electrons, and usually are the only electrons involved in chemical reactions. Elements with a valence of 1 have one electron available for chemical reactions. Elements with a valence of 2 have two electrons available for chemical reactions. Elements with a valence of 1 or 2 are very alkaline-forming elements. Elements with a valence of 3 are less alkaline-forming. Valence of 4 or more are acid-forming elements. Elements with a valence of 5 or 6 are more acid-forming. Elements with a valence of 7 are highly acid-forming.

Acid-Forming Alkaline-Forming Strength Chart

As you can see from the valence chart, potassium is a strong alkaline-forming mineral. Sodium is also a strong alkaline-forming mineral but it’s not a mineral you want to get a lot of because sodium attracts water causing blood pressure to increase. Calcium, magnesium, and zinc are good alkaline-forming minerals. As you can see chlorine lowers pH making it an acid-forming mineral.