Clemson,
if you have it to a t then could you give some real world results relating to elite athletes that get it right?
Others:
not everything in your diet addresses the calorie requirements, you eat to get different sorts of nutrients into your body. Vegetables are important for a number of other reasons which are important and when Clemson comes through with the goods you will be able to draw an obvious link between eating vegetables and performance on the track/gym.
The case that I heard was succesful with the alkaline Diet is Randy Couture current UFC light heavyweight champion, who is also 40 years old. http://www.sherdog.com/viewpics.cfm?pic=/articles/ufc44preview/weighins_5.jpg here is a pic
I have my doubts about the effectiveness of the diet myself, I don’t buy it.
I have recently come across alkaline diets myself through the writings and recordings of Tony Robbins, the motivational speaker. A lot of what he says may be perfectly true, such as meat and dairy products being full of parasites and contributing to an imbalanced ph level in favour of acid. He actually puts most human ailments down to an acidic lifestyle. Though i bet that he and his followers are no healthier than the rest of us who follow a healthy and standard diet, which doesn’t restrict whole categories of food.
If one was to follow an alkaline diet as advised by Robbins and others, you would literally be eating a very small variety of foods. As he rejects all ‘man- made’ and processed food, which is spot on in my opinion, he also rejects dairy foods and meat, acidic fruits, and grains. One would basically live on vegetables, fish, nuts, seeds, and beans. All washed down with wheat grass drinks by the way. I think i’d rather face a firing squad than eat that stuff for the rest of my life!
As i feel i am already making enough sacrifices with my diet (eating oily fish and vegetables- which i don’t like the taste of, eliminating all junk food and processed food apart from bread and breakfast cereal, next to no alcohol, no chocolate, no snacking, restricting excessive carbohydrate consumption, etc), i really would not want to eat only foods that promote an alkaline diet. Meat and dairy are the things i enjoy most in my diet, i couldn’t go without them. Also, i’m sure that a limited diet based on achieving a positive alkaline state must surely be devoid of essential nutrients. For example, without dairy food it is next to impossible to obtain the full rda for calcium, unless you want to sit and eat broccoli and spinach from dawn to dusk. Restrictive diets are just far too impractical over the long term.
I think if one eliminates almost all processed food, eats a good balance of most of the natural foods on offer with the aim of meeting health and strength targets, and doesn’t eat any one food to excess you won’t be too far off the mark. In life, the middle road is often the safest and most rewarding. As a rule, i would always avoid anything that promotes extremes, no matter who advocates them, because IF they are wrong you are likely to be way off the mark.
Amen!
Even worse than man-made food is the man-made diets…
Carson,
Most fruit is sugar rich and therefore acid forming after digestion.
Thank you for pointing out the interesting read.
The 1006: From what I understand after some reading, it is not the pH of a food when it is in a natural state that matters, but what that food breaks down into once it is digested. This is the key to its effects on our acid/base balance. E.g: ‘acidic foods’ such as oranges, lemons, and apple cider vinegar are alkaline forming. Here is a list of acid/alkaline forming foods. Note how many fruits and veggies are on this list. And there ARE protein-rich foods which are alkaline forming, such as chicken breast, eggs and whey protein.
Carson,
That is true…the key is to see what the total score with such influences. Great set of posts.
Carson,
I forgot to say thank you for porviding the links before so…:
Thank you. 
