66 Achieving pH Balance to Treat Specific Ailments
foods. When the supply of alkaline minerals is low, acidic wastes don’t
get neutralized. While some of the fatty acids in the waste are stored as
body fat, other fatty acids are converted to cholesterol and lactic acid.
This increases the acid levels in the blood and lymph fl uids, which
makes the body more v ulnerable to weight gain because as blood, loaded
with acidic waste, circulates, it clogs organ systems. This slows down
metabolism so that correspondingly less food (fuel) is burned up.
Excessive weight gain is also caused by the consumption of refi ned
grains. Even before our digestive enzyme glands had a chance to adjust
to the kind and quantity of enzymes needed to break down the grains
that had been introduced into the diet only around seven thousand
years ago, manufacturers (in the early 1900s) started tampering with
them by removing the husks.
The health benefi ts of whole grains are not just in the nutritional
content. They take longer to digest than refi ned grains. The advantage
of slow digestion is that blood sugar levels don’t rise excessively. Refi ned
grains, on the other hand, are broken down so quickly they leave behind
excessive levels of glucose in the blood. This is another case where high
blood sugar levels are converted by insulin to fat.
Excessive glucose in the liver is converted to fat just as it is in the
blood. A fatty liver is more dangerous to health than layers of fat under
the skin because the fat globules in the liver prevent it from detoxifying
digested food plus performing its myriad other functions.What’s Wrong with a High-Protein,
Low-Carbohydrate Diet?Many people who want to lose weight look for the silver bullet that
doesn’t demand too much sacrifi ce but still guarantees weight loss. This
is usually a diet that prohibits some foods while allowing unrestricted
consumption of others. For example, one diet that was popular in the
1950s was all the bananas and ice cream you could eat but nothing else.
This was a one-week diet. Another allows hardly any fat but the unre-
stricted consumption of carbohydrates. Such diets are appealing because
they promise relief from ravenous hunger by allowing the dieter to pig
out on one or two foods.
The most popular diet since it fi rst appeared in England in 1860, in
William Banting’s book, Letter on Corpulence, and more recently in Dr.