Does anyone know which are the most alkalizing foods?

FRUITS : [www.goutpal.com]
VEGETABLES : [www.goutpal.com]
NUTS/SEEDS: [www.goutpal.com]
LEGUMES: [www.goutpal.com]

sorry the tables are just to large to copy an paste

alot of the nuts an seeds tend towards the acidic side but some are more alkalizing ...

hope it helps

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2008 05:12AM by Jgunn.

It seems like this site must be going by weight of the fruit, given the way that dried and concentrated versions of each food always appear far more alkalizing.

I have a chart that shows melons and lemons to be most alkalizing,with virtually every other food being more acidic to varying degrees.

Brian



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2008 01:03PM by Raw1228.

I always wonder with these charts, and how they decide which foods are most alkalizing and acidifying. Most do realize that the pH level of the food itself is not the determining factor, but I don't know how they determine their values, and whether the values are to be trusted.

I like to eat the more alkalizing foods like melons early in the day.

Green leaves in general, and celery.

I bet Wheatgrass Juice is the most Alkalinizing
of all foods.......WY
[www.earthnotions.ca]

Wheatgrass Yogi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I bet Wheatgrass Juice is the most Alkalinizing
> of all foods.......WY
> [www.earthnotions.ca]


i ditto this. and lemons.

Wheatgrass Yogi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I bet Wheatgrass Juice is the most Alkalinizing
> of all foods.......WY
> [www.earthnotions.ca]
thank you for your unbiased opinion

Thank you for mentioning my acid/alkali food tables here.

They are definitely not based on the pH value of food. I fell into that trap myself once. That data is widely quoted, but it was developed for the canning industry so they could control the affect of pH on packaging materials.

To provide comparative data, the tables are all based on 100g of food or drink. In practical terms, a serving size comparison would be better. Unfortunately the serving size data in the USDA database is incomplete, so I've standardized on 100g.

I've realized that my explanations about the tables is a little poor, and I'll try to make things clearer on the site. The figures are a calculation of Potential Renal Acid Load (PRAL) which is a good estimate of the acidifying or alkalizing effect of foods after they have been digested. It is based on the work of Remer and Manz.

I plan to include PRAL data in on online food diary that I am working on, which will also serve as an acid/alkali calculator and table producer. Unfortunately, other commitments prevent me from spending time on this, so it will probably go into the new year. I'll announce it on GoutPal.com when it's ready.

goutpal if i may ask a question .. why is that the concentrated foods land in the higher alkalizing numbers? ie: the dried stuff .. or concentrates .. just kinda curious

Thank you Jgunn for the excellent links!

I am a bit in shock to find that almonds are NOT alkalizing! Except for the almond butter apparently! The propaganda I read on the web says different! Also why is almond butter only the alkalizing form? All it is is pure crushed almonds...

Thank you GoutPal for making such an informative site!

GoutPal, I just noticed that you have pine nut and pine nut (pinyon) listed. What is the difference between the two?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2008 11:23AM by VeganLife.

Other questions I have about the charts: What is Scotch kale?

Aren't beet greens and Swiss Chard the exact same thing? (They have different values in the chart.)

im also kinda curious if wheat sprouts are wheagrass?

yw Vegan . my dad has ongoing gout issues and has used the site for awhile getting alot of good ideas

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Jgunn Wrote:
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> im also kinda curious if wheat sprouts are
> wheagrass?
I would say yes. It's like when does
the Embryo become a Fetus? When does a wheat sprout
become grass? I've found the sprouts to be bitter, so
I'd say let them grow.......WY

rufio Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> WY
> thank you for your unbiased opinion
I'm just doing it the way He told me to
do it. But I'd never say..."and you should do it too"......WY

VeganLife Wrote:

> Aren't beet greens and Swiss Chard the exact same
> thing? (They have different values in the chart.)

No, they're different. Beet greens, on the left, are rarely sold unless they're still attached to the beets. (At least, this is true where I live.) They taste a lot like beets, and when boiled they will stain water red. Swiss chard, or simply chard, comes in many different colors, and sometimes have red stalks like beet greens do, but they're very different in flavor. They're grown for the green itself, unlike beet greens which are a side effect of growing beets, and they last a lot longer too.

VeganLife - 'pine nuts' is a general term for the kernels of pine cones, which are actually seeds, not nuts. There are several different varieties of pine so it's anyone's guess which variety was used for the pine nut values (the USDA database simply states pinus spp. and I believe this means species, which covers several varieties). Pinyon is a specific variety of pine (pinus edulis), commonly referred to as the Mexican pine. In the PRAL calculation, Protein and Phosphorous have positive values, and Potassium, Magnesium, and Calcium have negative values. The surprising difference between these two is mainly due to much higher values of phosphorous in 'ordinary' pine nuts. I've developed a tasty Pine Nut Combo consisting of 100g of these. Please feel free to play around with this food diary, but remember, it's a work in progress and has some rough edges.

Jgunn - dried and concentrated foods always give higher values than their natural equivalents mainly because of the water content. So 100g of grapes are a little alkalizing, but you need many more to make 100g of raisins. To put it another way, if you took 100g of grapes (PRAL=-3.23) and dried them to make raisins, you would end up with around 22 to 23g of raisins. The PRAL for 100g of raisins is -14.45, so multiplying this by .225 gives a PRAL of -3.25 - more or less identical. It's a weakness of using a 100g standard - dried foods are usually eaten in smaller quantities than fresh - unless you're talking about me and dried apricots.

All - you may well see some very unusual foods in the database, but there is little I can do about this, and often can't explain it. I use the USDA food nutrient database. My usual advice is to simply use the figures as a guide, as they can only ever be an approximation of the nutrients we actually absorb through digestion. Values change from variety to variety and season to season.

On the other hand, anyone taking nutrition advice from such a fat b*****d is a bigger fool than I :-)

haha ! love your sense of humor very nice

thanks for the info again , it makes sense what you said .. i thought thats what it was all about but wanted clarification, it sounds like you have put alot of time, effort and thought into your site

i hope you get a chance to stick around or pop in once in awhile if you see something of interest

another question .. why do you think the almonds as mentioned above show such much more acidic in your system than in others?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2008 11:48AM by Jgunn.

Jgunn, I sense your frustration, and remember my own when I first started trying to find sources of acid and alkali foods. It is an inexact science at best, but I have started to understand that it is all about how food affects the body, rather than the physical properties of the food.

The PRAL calculation I use was taken from a scientific source that I trust. However, it does not claim to be a perfect measure of the acid/alkali effect of food. For that, you have to test urine pH, which again is an inexact process, particularly outside lab conditions.

Before I found this measure, I was totally confused. I now see why - the Internet is full of pH food lists, but hardly any explain where the values come from or what they mean.

One major pseudo-scientific stumbling block is the treatment of "food ash". The theory is that the significant measure is the pH of food after it is digested. It is never clear to me how this food ash data has been compiled. Most is very similar and looks like the typical Internet trend of taking data out of context and reformatting it in a type of 'Chinese whispers' until it becomes meaningless. Of course, this is fanned by the flames of commerce as there are tremendous profits in food supplementation and health diets.

I don't want to turn this in an anti-capitalism rant. Just bear it in mind when you look at what seems to be scientific data, and see if the motive is really promotion of knowledge, or promotion of an entirely different kind.

So back to "food ash". As I can't find a definitive source for this I've got to make an [un]educated guess. Many of the "food ash" pages refer to burning and digestion as a way of explaining that it is the pH of ash remaining after food is burned or digested. Data tables tend to be produced in the lab, and my instinct tells me that the oft-quoted tables come from physically burning foods, then measuring the pH of the residue.

Other than my recipe for toast, I don't see the relevance of this in real life.

Of course, I may be totally wrong. I'm certainly annoyed that I can't find a definitive answer to the almond anomaly.

Perhaps you could tell me which sites are showing almonds as alkalizing. All the ones that I've looked at, except one, fail to mention their sources. The one that does mention a source is a promotion for a book called "Back to the House of Health: Rejuvenating Recipes to Alkalize and Energize for Life!". There's no way I'm shelling out the best part of $40 just to see if has scientific value. If anyone else wants to, please find an Amazon link on my site, and buy it through that - at least I get a few pennies to keep the server running:-)

GoutPal Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jgunn, I sense your frustration, and remember my
> own when I first started trying to find sources of
> acid and alkali foods. It is an inexact science at
> best, but I have started to understand that it is
> all about how food affects the body, rather than
> the physical properties of the food.

it is frustrating to disect all the information and try to decide what is true or right .. this i agree with

i think this makes sense that there is alot of information that points to the PH of the physical food rather then the how the PH works in the body .. this is evident when people think lemons for example are acidic


>
> So back to "food ash". As I can't find a
> definitive source for this I've got to make an
> educated guess. Many of the "food ash" pages refer
> to burning and digestion as a way of explaining
> that it is the pH of ash remaining after food is
> burned or digested. Data tables tend to be
> produced in the lab, and my instinct tells me that
> the oft-quoted tables come from physically burning
> foods, then measuring the pH of the residue.

ok this is interesting twist ive never heard of before ..interesting i will look into it thank you

>
> Other than my recipe for toast, I don't see the
> relevance of this in real life.

haha yea no kidding


>
> Of course, I may be totally wrong. I'm certainly
> annoyed that I can't find a definitive answer to
> the almond anomaly.
>
> Perhaps you could tell me which sites are showing
> almonds as alkalizing. All the ones that I've
> looked at, except one, fail to mention their
> sources.

lol yes this is the problem ..it seems .. just the info thrown out there with nothing backing it up

The one that does mention a source is a
> promotion for a book called "Back to the House of
> Health: Rejuvenating Recipes to Alkalize and
> Energize for Life!". There's no way I'm shelling
> out the best part of $40 just to see if has
> scientific value. If anyone else wants to, please
> find an Amazon link on my site, and buy it through
> that - at least I get a few pennies to keep the
> server running:-)

i cant say im willing to buck up the 40$ either .. id sooner spend it on some good food .. but perhaps someone here will

thanks again for being a part of this discussion

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist