Q: I love your book and have told friends about it. I am concerned, however, about getting enough protein since most of the usual protein sources are acidic. I am trying to maintain the proper balance by having a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar every day in a glass of water. Also, I did not see iced tea or green tea on either the alkaline or the acidic list. Let me know your thoughts.
A: I’m glad you joined the revolution and that you’re helping me spread the truth about osteoporosis.
To answer your question, the protein requirement is a huge myth. When we consume protein, it is digested in our stomach like any other food, which means that all amino-acids are broken down so our body will later on “build” its protein requirements. Gorillas, elephants, and many of the strongest mammals on earth eat only leaves and grass. Check out their muscles and then don’t worry about your protein.
Taking apple cider vinegar is a great move for your bone health and your overall health.
As far as tea is concerned, it’s alkalizing (whether hot or iced) but I don’t like too much of it because of its high fluoride content, which could have a negative effect on our bone health if consumed in excessive amounts. Check out if your city adds fluoride to its tap water, so if you’re crazy about tea or green tea, you can at least use water filtered by reverse osmosis (which removes 100% of fluoride) to prepare it at home. Even if the bottled tea says “filtered water”, most filters don’t remove fluoride.
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October 29, 2009
Hi Vivian,
What’s your take on Vivian’s information?
November 25, 2008
Hi Vivian,
I’d like to comment on Reverse osmosis filters.
I heard recently that while RO filters take out all the ‘baddies’ in our tap water, they also take out all the alkalising minerals, so it’s not good for our bone health.
I tested the pH of both my tap water and RO water, and was disturbed to see that the RO water had a pH of 5.5, while the tap water’s pH was 7.
I’ve used one for about 15 years and had also been eating about 12oz of animal protein a day. I was recently diagnosed with osteoporosis, with a high risk of fracture.
The doctor was puzzled to see such a loss in bone density, as I don’t have any of the risk indicators for osteoporosis – don’t smoke, drink, have never been underweight, don’t have relatives with osteoporis.
It was only after doing some research that I realised that my food and water had been causing my body to lose calcium at a very high rate.
I’d never before heard of this downside to RO filters – it must not be generally known.
One remedy would be to use mineral drops to re-mineralise filtered water, but the important thing is to publicise this information about the acid pH of RO water and what can be done to rectify it. So when I read your comment about reverse osmosis filters I felt I should share this information.
Best wishes,
Nichola
November 3, 2009
Same thing happened to my wife. You and her are a mirror image. We took her off the RO water.