Ridding Your Body of Acidic Wastes 11
Proof that acidic food staples do not threaten the blood’s pH factor
or cause degenerative disease are the several populations that have what
the “experts” claim are predominantly acidic diets. Yet they are known
for their longevity. One example is the macrobiotic diet developed by
Dr. Sagen Ishizuka in the latter half of the nineteenth century to cure
his kidney disease, which Western medicine had failed to do. Although
it is based on the concept of balancing opposites—yin (acid) and yang
(alkaline)—the dietary staple of the macrobiotic diet is brown rice,
which contains a high level of acid-forming phosphorus.
Dr. Weston Price, an American dentist, traveled during the 1930s in
Africa, the outback of Australia, and the Arctic to study the relationship
between diet and health in the tribes in these regions, which still followed
the traditional diets of their forefathers.^2 He found that many of the tribes
who followed a grain-based diet, which is high in acid-forming phospho-
rous, were in robust health, free of cardiovascular disease and cancer.
It seems that a diet high in alkaline minerals is not necessary either
for the maintenance of health or for a normal 7.4 alkaline pH blood
plasma. Normalizing acid-alkaline blood pH by eating more foods
higher in alkaline-forming minerals than acidic ones should not be the
basis for working out a diet for two more reasons: First, clusters of
acidic, toxic wastes in various parts of the body don’t necessarily raise
blood acid levels. It is doubtful that balancing the blood pH through
diet would make any inroads into concentrations of acidic wastes located
far from major blood supplies. Second, the amount of enzymes, bile,
hydrochloric acid, and other metabolites the body manufactures for the
breakdown of nutrients is not determined by the blood pH but by the
particular food fl avors and protein that sustained the individual’s ances-
tors for thousands of years.A Young Girl Benefi ts from Following Her
Ancestral Diet
Dawanta was born with sickle-cell anemia. When I met her she was
seventeen years old and getting four pints of blood every month. Her
sickle-cell gene was an inheritance from her ancestors who lived in the
equatorial region of Africa. Ironically, the sickle-cell gene in Africa is
benefi cial because it prevents malaria—rampant along the equator
because of the infection-carrying mosquitoes that proliferate in this
swampy region. Despite the prevalence of the sickle-cell gene in Afri-