Food Combining for Health: The bestseller that has changed millions of lives. Doris Grant

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СКАЧАТЬ no protein accompanies a starch food entering a resting stomach the amount of hydrochloric acid is insufficient at first to fully neutralize or overcome the alkalinity of the saliva present.

      In 1936, the work of three Philadelphia investigators provided interesting laboratory confirmation of the starch – protein concept. In Man Alive, You’re Half Dead! (Bartholomew House Inc., 1956), Dr Daniel Munro gives an account of a study on five subjects by these investigators showing the degree of acidity in the stomach after protein meals, after starch meals, and after combined protein and starch meals. This study revealed that, one-and-a-quarter hours after these meals were eaten, the stomach contents were most acid after the high-protein meal, least acid after the high-starch meal, and halfway between both states after the mixed meal. Moreover, when the mixed meal was eaten it was clear that the proteins were being digested under difficulties as the acidity present was far lower than that shown as required by the all-protein meal and had actually been cut to one-third less by the presence of the starches and their accompanying alkalis.

      This investigation clearly shows that when high starches and high proteins are mixed at one meal there is too much acid to permit the continued alkaline reduction of the starch part, and not enough acid to start the digestion of the protein part.

      The usual teaching, however, is that when we eat food of any kind (such as proteins and starches) we produce gastric juice which contains hydrochloric acid. The answer, here, is that hydrochloric acid is stimulated in exact ratio to the amount of protein presented by the digestive task. This was shown by Pavlov’s classic observations on dogs in The Work of the Digestive Glands (Charles Griffin & Co. Ltd, 1910).

      As already pointed out, the protein in starches such as grains is both very small (about 10 per cent) and incomplete in character, and therefore does not stimulate sufficient hydrochloric acid to interfere, for the first 30 to 45 minutes, with the alkaline medium necessary for the digestion of starches. During this time, the saliva – which has a pH value of 6.6, as compared with the pH 0.9 of pure gastric juice – acts as a natural buffer of the gastric acid.

      Some physiologists and physicians disagree with Dr Hay’s explanation of the starch – protein theory and claim that the gastric acid is necessary for the splitting of the starches; the starch is often contained in protein ‘envelopes’ which require the acid for digestion so that the starch can be released. This claim is undoubtedly correct but it does not alter the fact that starches have a preliminary digestion in an alkaline medium which buffers the gastric acid for the first 30 to 40 minutes in the stomach. There is, therefore, still plenty of time for the gastric acid to work on the starches during the remaining three or more hours that they are in the stomach before entering the small intestine. There, of course, the pancreatic juice completes the digestion of carbohydrate (starch, dextrin and the like), and also of protein, in a mainly alkaline medium.

      Whether Dr Hay’s explanation of his theory is right or wrong, however, does not really matter; the indisputable fact remains that his theory does most certainly work. As he pointed out, any professor of medicine who claims that it does not has never given it a fair trial, otherwise he could not with honesty make such a claim.

      The Importance of the Chemical Balance

      For optimum health and heightened resistance to disease the diet should, ideally, consist of alkali-forming foods and acid-forming foods in the ratio, approximately, of four to one, which, when metabolized, will produce a corresponding ratio in the body.

      When Dr Hay was asked what was the scientific basis for this ratio, he replied: ‘We have no way of arriving at the relative proportion of alkaline and acid elements needed by the body except through an analysis of its excretions. When we take into account all of the excretions through the four avenues of elimination, we find that the loss in alkali is four times as great as that in acid. This means that if we would replace our losses fully we need four times as much of the alkaline intake as of the acid intake. This is a fact well known to physiologists and can be verified in almost any work on physiology.’

      With regard to the chemical balance of the human blood, Dr Hay wrote: ‘It may seem strange that the slight difference between a pH 7.1 and 7.6 spells the wide difference between an acidosis and an alkalosis, yet this is true; and even this slight variation makes all the difference between function of the most chaotic variety and that of high efficiency!’ Judging by the average of those of his patients who had conserved their alkaline reserve for several years through observing the proper ratio of alkali-forming foods to acid-forming ones, the ‘normal’ alkalinity – as distinct from the ‘average’ one – should not be much below pH 7.5. From the standpoint of averages this is considered an alkalosis, yet when the alkalinity of the blood is sufficiently high to show a 7.5 pH, ‘there is extremely high functional activity with comparable feeling of good health, mental activity and physical efficiency’.

      An interesting and important sidelight is thrown on this question of alkalinity by Dr Dudley d’Auvergne Wright in Foods for Health and Healing (Health Science Press, Sussex). He points out that ‘the normal alkalinity of the body fluids is the most favourable one for the action of vitamins’. In her book about the growing problem of osteoporosis, Professor Jane Plant confirms the importance of the acid – alkaline balance for the health of our bones and muscles and for our general health. As she remarks, ‘keeping the blood at a slightly alkaline pH is a top priority in the body’. (Understanding, Preventing and Overcoming Osteoporosis by Professor Jane Plant and Gill Tidey, Virgin Books, 2003.)

      It is not difficult to distinguish between alkali-forming and acid-forming foods:

      

Alkali-forming foods comprise all vegetables (including potatoes if cooked in their skins and the skins are eaten);^* all salads; all fresh fruits (except plums and cranberries); almonds; milk.

      

Acid-forming foods comprise all animal proteins such as meat, fish, shellfish, eggs, cheese, poultry; nuts (except almonds); all the starch foods such as grains, bread and flour and other foods made from cereal starches; sugars.

      Complete lists of both types of foods are given in the Appendix (page 257).

      

It should be emphasized at this point that there is sometimes confusion for some people regarding the classification of ‘acid’ fruits (grapefruit, oranges, lemons, berries, etc.) as ‘alkali-forming’. It should therefore be understood that this classification does not relate to the ‘acid’ taste of the fruit but to its end-product in the body.^* The acid fruits, moreover, are the foods which deposit the highest alkaline ash of all foods. It is an interesting fact that the acids of these fruits leave the body within an hour or so of being eaten. They do so via the lungs (mainly), and the skin, urinary tract and bowel. The alkalis, when released from their combination with the acids, provide a highly valuable contribution to the body’s alkaline reserve. The only way in which acid fruits can be said to be ‘acid-forming’ is when they are wrongly combined with starches at the same meal, when they can cause an uncomfortable ‘full-up’ feeling, or even pain. Sufferers then conclude that acid fruits don’t suit them!

      In order to approximate the ideal four-to-one alkali – acid ratio, the day’s meals should include one protein meal only, one starch meal only, and one wholly alkaline meal, with occasionally two, or even three, wholly alkali-forming meals. An occasional ‘health day’ on nothing but frequent meals of one kind of СКАЧАТЬ