Rule#16 Rule of Food (RUFO) - Part 3

We have looked at the nutrirional properties of foods. Next we need to take a look at the chemical properties of foods. All the foods that we eat will produce acid waste. This condition is called acidosis. A growing number of health care practitioners and scientists from around the world have been advocating the theory that aging and disease is the direct result of the accumulation of acid waste products in the body. There is a great deal of scientific documentation that supports such a theory. A poor diet may be partially to blame for the waste accumulation. Meats, sugar, white flour products, fried foods, soft drinks, processed foods, alcohol, dairy products and other junk foods cause the body to become more acidic. Stress, whether mental or physical can lead to acid deposits in the body.

            In order to understand how acid is being formed in our body from the food that we eat, we need to look at the chemical properties of food. In food there are many inorganic minerals such as sulfur, chlorine, sodium, calcium, iron etc. They are classified into two categories, namely acid forming elements and alkaline forming elements. A summary of acid forming elements and alkaline forming elements is summarized in the table below:

Acid forming elements	Alkaline forming elements
Sulfur (S), Phosphorus (P), Chlorine (Cl), Iodine (I)	Sodium (NA), Potassium (K) Calcium (Ca),  Magnesium (Mg),  Iron (Fe)

            This inorganic minerals in the food determine whether the food is alkaline or acidic. The acidic property here is not related to the taste of the food. For example, orange juice is acidic by taste (a pH of 3.5), but this acidity is generated by organic acid which can all be burnt away. The inorganic minerals inside the orange will determine the acidic or alkaline property of orange. Since the inorganic minerals in orange are potassium and magnesium, then orange is considered an alkaline forming food.

            Next we will examine the waste product of the food that we eat. There are two types of waste product that our body will produce. The first waste product is the organic waste. Chemical formulas of some organic waste products that our body produces as follows: Acetic acid (CH₃COOH), Ammonia (NH₃), Lactic acid (CH₃CHOHCOOH), Uric acid (C₅H₄N₄O₃), Cholestrol (C₂₇H₄₅OH), Fatty acid (C_nH_2nO₂), Carbonic acid (H₂CO₃). Ammonia comes out through the urine and carbonic acid can become water by breathing out CO₂ through the lungs.

            Our body also produce waste product called inorganic waste. These waste products are formed from the acid forming minerals in the food. They are poisonous to the body. Chemical formulas for the inorganic waste products produced from sulfur, phosphorus and chlorine are: Sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄), Phosphoric acid (H₃PO₄), Hydrocloric acid (HCl).

            In order to neutralize the poisonous inorganic acid, our body produce products from alkaline minerals such as sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium. These products are Sodium carbonate (Na₃CO₃), Sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO₃), Potassium carbonate (K₂CO₃), Calcium carbonate (CaCO₃), Magnesium carbonate (MgCO₃).

            As an example, sulfuric acid can be neutralized by calcium carbonate as follows:

            CaCO₃ + H₂SO₄ = CaSO₄ + H₂O + CO₂

            Sulfuric acid is changed into neutral calcium sulfuric salt, water and carbon dioxide. In the equation above, Ca can be replaced by Mg, Na₂ or K₂. As long as there are sufficient amount of Alkaline minerals in the body, poisonous acid are neutralized. When there is not an adequate supply of calcium or other alkaline minerals in the blood, sometimes the body borrows calcium from bones to survive.

            While inorganic acid has to be neutralized immediately to prevent damage to our body, our body tends to accumulates acidic wastes in the form of organic acid and some byproducts of inorganic acid. Uric acid is an organic acid, a white odourless crystalline substance found in urine, being one of the products of nuclein metabolism. It is nearly insoluble in water, alcohol and ether but soluble in alkaline salts. These undissolved uric acid crystals can accumulate between joints and can cause arthritis and gout. If our body is alkaline which is true when we are young, the uric acid gets dissolved and safely discharged through kidneys.

            Fatty acid is an organic acid which is made by our body due to over-ingestion of carbohydrates and not enough exercise. I have explained earlier that the result of insulin spike is the creation of fatty acid in order to balance the glucose level in our body. These fatty acids generally form under the skin especially around the waist line for men and around hips, thighs and breasts for women. Acetic acid, lactic acid and cholesterol are the derivatives of fatty acid. When athlete over-exercise, there is not enough oxygen in the cells and this creates lactic acid and acetic acid, which are incompletely burnt carbohydrates.

            When blood contains too much of these fatty acids, lactic acid and acetic acid, many complicated actions take place to maintain the blood pH within the safe range. A buffer system in the blood, in the form of alkaline salts, work hard to neutralize the acids. Another solution is to solidify some of the liquid acids into solid acids, in a non dissolved acid form. Cholesterol is one of those examples. For this reason, even if we don’t eat any food containing cholesterol, our body makes cholesterol as long as we are eating and generating acidic byproducts.

            Some examples of waste due to byproduct of organic acid are kidney stone which  is a hard mineral deposit formed in the kidney from phosphates (a salt of phosphoric acid), urates (a salt of uric acid) etc. Kidney stone does not dissolve in urine but it dissolves in an alkaline solution. As we age, we build up these acid salts in our cells as well, causing our cells to stiffen. Our body makes and neutralizes hydrochloric acid in the stomach and in the small intestine respectively. In this process, the mineral sodium (Na) which our body gets from Sodium chloride (NaCl, salt) is used.

            To summarize, all foods, healthy or junk, expensive or not, good tasting or bad, produce acidic waste products that our body has to get rid of. The disposal of this acidic waste product is through having alkaline minerals in our body which can be consumed from alkaline food. There are other ways to consume alkaline minerals in our body by consuming alkaline water. This will be discussed further in the next chapter.

To be continued in Part 4