5 TIPS FOR AN ACID-BASE BALANCE
Your diet, your lifestyle, your stress levels, infections, pollution: all these factors have a direct effect on your acid-base balance. Your overall health depends on your body's ability to maintain this acid-base balance, which is constantly being upset, particularly by modern food, which is highly acidifying.
The acid-base balance in 5 points with Benoit Nave, Baouw nutritionist and holder of the European University Diploma in Micronutrition, Food, Prevention and Health.
What is acid-base balance?
Acid-base balance is the balance between the body's acidity and alkalinity levels. Determined by the body's pH levels (blood pH, urine pH), this acid-base balance, which lies within a fairly narrow range, is directly influenced by our lifestyle (diet, sporting activities).
Top acid-base balance: blood test: just above 7 (between 7.32 and 7.42).
Urine test : between 6,5 and 7,2.
How can you adapt your diet to achieve a healthy acid-base balance?
To achieve a healthy acid-base balance in your body, you need to give priority to alkalinising foods: fruit and vegetables for the most part (with a few rare exceptions, such as plums), aromatic herbs, dried fruit and spices. That's why Baouw eproducts are full of them. And avoid the most acidifying elements: refined sugar, processed products and meat (especially red meat). It's also to preserve your acid-base balance that we've chosen not to include cereals in our bars. Your Baouw bars are alkaline to ‘buffer’ the acidification of the body by physical effort. The acid-base balance is in fact damaged by sport.
What are the risks of an acid-base imbalance?
The main risk? Demineralisation. When you have a chronic imbalance, when you are in a perpetual state of acidosis, your body will draw on minerals such as magnesium, calcium and potassium, which are neutralising molecules.
The risk is all the greater for sportspeople, as mineral balance is important during muscular contraction. A body in a state of acidosis is more likely to develop phenomena such as cramps or contractures. .
How can we overcome acidosis, in addition to rebalancing our diet?
To measure your acid-base balance and determine whether your body is in a state of acidosis, test your urine in the morning using a pH paper (easy to use). If they are acidic, you should first try to change your diet. By turning to basifying foods, you will restore the balance. If the pH is 5.5 or 6, you can buffer the acidity with mineral salts in the form of citrates, to give the body a boost.
Sport is an acidifying factor for the body, so how can you maintain your acid-base balance if you do a lot of exercise?
It's important to distinguish between sport and sport, particularly in terms of intensity. Intensive sport has an acidifying effect, whereas gentle, moderate sport promotes basification. Intensive’ sportsmen and women can buffer this effect by avoiding acidifying products. For hydration, choosing an alkalinising bicarbonate water (such as Saint-Yorre) is a wise choice Baouw products are made from fruit, vegetables, oilseeds, plants and spices that respect the acid-base balance, so using them during the recovery phase is a good idea for a healthy body. It doesn't matter whether you're an athlete or not!
Lemon juice in a little water in the morning on an empty stomach and you're well on your way to balance! Because, contrary to what you might think, these healthy fruits are alkalinising (or ‘basifying’), not acidifying.
Champions of acid-base balance
- Banana, carrotfennel, celery, avocado
- Green vegetables
- Almonds
- Sultanas, dried figs
- Plant proteins (tofu, pulses)
- Quinoa
- Potatoes and patate douce
- Vegetable oils (sesame, olive, rapeseed, walnut, etc.)
- Spices
- Waters rich in magnesium, calcium and potassium
Everyday friends of acid-base balance
- Alkalinising red wine rather than acidifying beer
- Green tea rather than black tea
- Spices and aromatics to season rather than salt or sugar (thyme, coriander, mint, cinnamon, ginger, cayenne pepper, etc.)
- Raisins rather than peanuts...
Enemies of the acid-base balance
- Tomatoes, spinach (don't deprive yourself of them, but buffer them with other, more base-building foods)
- Industrial sweetened drinks
- Yoghurt and fromage frais
- Cold meats
- Ketchup and mayonnaise
- Tobacco
SPORT, AN ALLY FOR ACID-BASE BALANCE
Particularly when practised in the fresh air, gentle or moderate intensity sport helps us to restore our body's acid-base balance. How can it help? Through its diuretic effects and through our breathing. By helping us to combat stress, which plays a major role in the loss of our acid-base balance.
Intensive sport can have a negative effect on your acid-base balance: it's important to compensate by eating a diet that will buffer this acidification.
Restoring your acid-base balance
Avoid refined cereals and sugar (white bread) as much as possible.
Avoid excess salt.
Baouw For their oleaginous fruits, their quinoa, their spices: for their ingredients that respect the acid-base balance, in short!
