Firstly, I’d like to start this post by wishing all my readers Happy Holidays and Happy New Year. I hope you all enjoyed the festive season as much as I did.
Unfortunately, too large a proportion of most people’s diets is acidic. Bread, pasta, dairy products, meat, tea, coffee, sugar, soft drinks and alcohol are all acid forming in the human digestive system. This often neutralises high dietary intakes of calcium and can lead to malabsorption of nutrients, and deficiency diseases. In the longer term this can lead to serious rheumatic, arthritic, dental and osteoporosis issues, like the rising incidence of hip fractures. I also believe this acidity plays a role in and is one of the factors behind the rising incidence of cancers of various types, especially in conjunction with constipation and excessive sodium intake.
Most people eat too high a proportion of the above listed foods and insufficient fresh fruit and vegetables. Fresh fruit and vegetables tend to be more liquid, alkaline and rich in potassium and dietary fibre than most processed foods. It is my belief that fruit and vegetables should constitute at least two thirds of the diet with all the above acid forming foods being eaten sparingly rather than forming the major portion of the diet, as they do in many instances.
Sodium is another especially critical issue when consumed to excess. In the early 1920’s Dr. Max Gerson, a young veterinary student in Vienna, suffered from severe migraine headaches for which no-one could find a cause. By careful observation of his own eating habits, Gerson eventually related these severe headaches to the consumption of milk and bacon, both of which he found contained very high levels of sodium which he suspected constituted the major cause of his headaches. At the time and to this day milk was treated with caustic soda or sodium hydroxide to neutralize the acidity produced by fertilizers and the process of pasteurising the milk. At the time, bacon was also being cured with very high levels of salt or sodium chloride.
After making these discoveries, Gerson transferred to study medicine and later went on to establish a world famous cancer treatment clinic in Mexico, still being run by his daughter, Paula.
In next week’s post I will continue writing about Dr. Gerson, his cancer treatment clinic
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