Let’s talk about pH. For me it is one of the three most important factors we can know personally about our bodies when we are trying to understand our mental and physical health. The other factors would be our percent (%) body fat and our fiber intake would be a close third. In chemistry, the pH value is a measurement of the acid or base chemistry of an aqueous solution. An aqueous solution is a solution that is mostly water. Pure water is neutral with a pH value of 7.0, which is right in the middle of the pH chemical scale that has numerical values from 0-14. Aqueous solutions with the pH numbers below 7 denote increasing acidity and aqueous solutions with the pH numbers greater than 7 denote increasing alkalinity. There are numerous pH values in the different cellular compartments of the body, like the pH in the stomach or the pH in body fluids like excreted urine. But know this, our entire body with all of its cells and organ systems is bathed in an aqueous fluid ocean that is called the extra-cellular fluid. This extra-cellular fluid is tightly regulated by our brain in a process called acid-base homeostasis where excesses in our waste products (acid) and deficiencies in our evolutionary life nutrients (base) can affect the pH of our entire mind/body’s chemistry. This brain process of acid-base homeostasis maintains a slight alkalinity to our overall mind/body chemical pH, maintaining a balance. An imbalance in mind/body pH chemistry could easily cause a sickness or even death if a pH change occurs gradually or even suddenly to our internal aqueous living mental physical environment.
The extra-cellular fluids define all bodily fluids that are outside the cells of our tissues. These fluids are the plasma (our blood without its many different cells), the interstitial fluids (the fluids surrounding the cells of all our tissues) and the trans-cellular fluids (fluids like the cerebrospinal fluids and others). Intra-cellular fluids define the fluids that are inside our estimated 10-100 trillion body cells. The pH of the blood is usually slightly basic with a value or range of pH between 7.35 to 7.45, which means normal blood is slightly alkaline. This value is often referred to as the physiological pH in biology and in medicine and all other fluids in the body that surround the cells and tissues regulate themselves from this physiological pH. This means our trillions of cells bath in an ocean of fluid whose pH is 7.4 in alkalinity on the average. The intra-cellular fluids that are inside of our cells have a physiological pH of 7, which is neutral. Every healthy cell in our body has a job to do and works for a living. This cellular work produces a waste product like any combustion process will, which is slightly acidic and will be excreted by the cell into its interstitial space that is all around the cell. This waste is gathered and concentrated by the body and some of it is eliminated in the urine. Excreted urine can have a pH value of 6, which is slightly acidic.
Plaque or the bacterial cell populations in our mouth help to keep our teeth clean from the foods left between the teeth and along the gum line after eating. Growing plaque can create a local acidic environment in the mouth caused by their excrement. If it is not controlled, bacterial cell waste can cause a problem because, like our own cell waste, is slightly acid too. An uncontrolled bacterial cell population in the oral cavity, our mouths, can result in tooth decay. It’s a demineralization process of the tooth surface by the bacterial cell acidic waste. Healthy saliva produced by a healthy body is slightly alkaline and it has evolutionarily neutralized and controlled bacterial cell populations in our mouths and in all animal mouths throughout time until recently in modern humans. Look at a 65 million year old dinosaur skeleton with all its teeth. They never used a toothbrush and never got tooth decay. You can see the same thing in hominid skeletons of the past and in wild primates living today as well as any wild animal.
Enzymes and other proteins produced and injected into the extra-cellular fluid space by certain cells of the body will have an optimum pH range and can become activated, inactivated or denatured outside their functional working pH ranges in the body, for example in the space of the stomach or small and large intestines. The digestion of our foods is very much controlled by the pH of the food’s environment traversing along in the space of the gastrointestinal track. Digestive enzymes are very much pH dependent for their function. In fact that space in the stomach and intestines is really outside the body. Like the skin being the surface of our body, the gastrointestinal skin is a barrier too and until something, put on the skin or into the intestines, reaches the blood stream that something substance is still considered to be outside the body. If you put olive juice, olive oil, on your skin it will be absorbed into your body and the same is true for food and drink in the gastrointestinal track. The food and drink may be in the intestinal space but until it is absorbed through the gastrointestinal skin, also a protective barrier, it will not be technically in the body until it enters the blood and lymphatic circulatory systems, which is inside the body.
The most common human physical disorder in acid-base homeostasis is acidosis, which means there is an acid overload occurring to the entire body, generally defined by the pH falling below 7.35 when we are speaking about the human body’s blood. Acidosis can also be observed by testing our saliva too with pH paper. How does this acidosis happen? There are seven life variables that affect the aqueous solutions of our body and they are breathing, drinking, eating, sunning, moving, resting and our minding. All these variables individually and collectively working together can affect the acid-base homeostasis of our mind/body balance, where balance is the dynamic interplay between the processes of consumption and the processes of elimination, mentally as well as physically. This means our experience of health and life. I will give you some real life stories of patients I have witnessed over time to illustrate this dynamic mind/body balance in pH body chemistry. It is important for me to understand why a patient needs to see me and in the very first visit I ask a lot of questions. The purpose of these questions is to determine what the patient knows of this health/disease process in life, so that I may fill in the blanks to their complete understanding of their responsibilities for their teeth and their whole body. This knowledge with a complete understanding, I know is important to them, my patients, because that is why they came to see me.
The one thing all animals have in common is, we all have a body to take care of and all the seven variables of life affect our body’s extra-cellular fluids, which is the micro-ocean fluid surrounding every cell of an animal’s body. These seven variables breathing, drinking, eating, sunning, moving, resting and the minding all affect the composition of our physical body and the body’s functions in life as well. We have no concept or even idea of evolutionary time and of what it took for DNA to evolve to our present experience as a living being. Just think of the variety of life on the planet and each life with a different DNA program in appearance, yet the DNA functions in consuming and in eliminating are very much the same. As a living being everything we do affects our body’s chemistry. Everything we breathe in that enters the blood stream becomes our body. Everything we drink that enters the blood stream becomes our body. Everything we eat that enters the blood stream becomes our body. The sun on our skin converts cholesterol into vitamin D along with many other sun reactions affect our body. Muscle movement produces a local cell waste around a cell’s environment, lactic acid, and needs to be collectively eliminated constantly to maintain acid-base homeostasis keeping the body alkaline. Proper daily rest is needed for both mind and for body to catch up with daily maintenance and is natural to all animal species. Breakfast is the first meal of the day, which breaks the fast of the daily elimination period called sleeping at night with benefits to both mind and to body balance. And then there are the dreams that come in the night, could they be messages from our soul for our mind’s maintenance, its balance?
I had an acupuncturist vegetarian Buddhist patient and on the first consultation appointment tested acidic when I used pH paper to her saliva. The patient’s mouth was very clean from good oral hygiene habits but the oral environment was acidic from being bathed in its own saliva. I tested my saliva and showed the patient, then asked her why was my salivary pH was alkaline and her’s acid? I explained that bacteria in the mouth eat our left over food debris from meals to clean our mouths, evolutionarily speaking, and when the mouth is clean, bacterial acidic cell waste is not a big variable for the resting salivary fluid pH of the mouth, which would be alkaline in healthy situations. I asked where her saliva came from and we ended up talking about how the body makes itself, duplicates itself over time, through the seven variables of life that goes on daily. We live to acquire the raw materials to make our bodies everyday and with the energy and nutrients acquired we use it to function in this mind/body experience. The answer for why her saliva was acid? The patient gave me a Chinese Medicine answer that her constitution was to blame and that was genetic and she had no control over it.
I said no animal in Nature is destined to lose their teeth in their lifetime and that is just an evolutionary fact. I said the modern human animals living today create conditions that are not resonating with all the rest of life in Nature, especially when it comes to cooking their food. Well to make a long story short, the patient took the uncooked planetary food plan to heart and in less that six month her resting salivary oral pH evolved to being a healthy alkaline fluid. Resting alkaline salivary fluids keep the bacteria under control in our mouths, day and night, and in all wild animals throughout evolutionary time to present. All through time it has occurred. Our saliva has evolved with many functions. Saliva supplies minerals to the teeth, like fluoride ions. Saliva has our first line of defense because saliva contains the immune system. Saliva has an alkaline pH to neutralize bacterial cell waste that’s an acid. Salivary glands increase production of their alkaline fluids when eating, which triggers all the other functions of digestion and assimilation of food while chewing. I might add at this time that the uncooked planetary food plan works great especially when you eat seaweeds daily as part of this uncooked plan. Seaweeds are the best sources for all the needed minerals and trace minerals, which poor soils are deficient with making them harder to acquire just from the soil and from the foods grown in it.
By word of mouth my practice attracted a lot of holistic types including many who were already living on the uncooked planetary food plan. One particular fellow comes to mind, he wanted to have all his mercury/silver fillings replaced with a high noble gold, which is a dental gold alloy in the 80-90% pure gold range. His resting salivary pH was alkaline and he was an athlete so he was in great shape for a guy in his fifties. We went over the information on how the body and mind maintains acid-base homeostasis and how important it is to clean the teeth after every meal to help the body maintain the well-being of its mouth. He was very knowledgeable and had read a lot of Herbert Shelton’s books and books on Natural Hygiene. Common to Shelton devotees is they are not interested in eating seaweeds but this patient saw the light on that subject and I gave him some good sources for these herbs. I finished his dental restorations after some time but within ten years he was getting new and recurrent decay, which I thought to be almost impossible if you clean your teeth after every meal and have a healthy alkaline resting salivary pH. What I discovered about this patient was very interesting to me. It turns out this patient was extremely competitive in sports, even in a friendly card game. He would get so upset about everything that didn’t go his way and when you tested his saliva during these bouts with his reactive mind, his saliva would turn instantly acid. I saw him at a competitive contest he was participating in when he was very angry after losing and pulled out my pH paper, which I carry all the time, his saliva was acid. He learned a very valuable lessons on those occasions, seeing his pH turn acidic and only caused by his thoughts. Remember our minding in life can also influence our body’s acid-base homeostasis, our body’s chemistry. So we need to also take responsibility for our negative emotional experiences, our negative thoughts, because they are acidic and can affect our immune system and our acid-base homeostasis, which are very important when we are trying to heal ourselves.
Another fellow comes to mind from one of my health presentations. His comment was that he tried eating raw foods for some time and when he went to his dentist in his mid twenties he had 20 new cavities. I asked him what influenced his decision to eat raw foods. He mentioned some books and authors and then I asked him about his oral hygiene habits before going on raw foods. He brushed and flossed regularly but after going on raw foods he stopped brushing and flossing because animals didn’t and so he thought he didn’t need to either because he was on raw foods. To understand why this fellow got so many new cavities in his teeth is very important. All of us are acid and I don’t meet very many who are not. We don’t live like the wild animals of Nature, which means we are sedentary, breathing bad air, drinking unnatural liquids, eating no energy artificial foods, surviving indoors, not moving naturally anymore and resting at night with an alarm clock instead of the sun and the moon. This lifestyle is an acidic lifestyle. Then think of what our minds are full of and all those images are not very green. This guy didn’t understand how acidic he was when starting on raw foods. The first thing our bodies are going to do with all that new and abundant energy it will get by eating uncooked planetary foods is to eliminate all that stored acid that has accumulated over the years and isolated into our adipose tissue (fat). If the body cannot keep its daily balance with consumption and elimination, it will store all that it can’t eliminate in fat tissue.
Have you ever heard of a “flash back” that someone has experienced? A flash back is a LSD trip that happens 30 years later, after, from the original experience. The body at the time was processing the LSD chemical but was incomplete in doing so and ended up storing some of it somewhere in the body’s fat. Thirty years later the elimination process catches up with cleaning out some old fat cells and there goes that same LSD back into the blood stream and to the brain for round two. The same thing will happen when you go on the uncooked planetary food plan. Your body, with all the new nutrients with abundant energy, which it comes with it, will clean to the point that for some time we will have some interesting things coming out of our bodies as well as our minds during the detoxifying process you will experience. Testing your saliva and its pH often will help you understand this healing cleansing process the uncooked planetary food plan can cause over time and help you protect your teeth from our own accumulated acid that’s eliminated during the transition from a civilized lifestyle to a more natural one. During this lifestyle change you may find your saliva is constantly acid so you will need to rinse your mouth often with salt water to prevent what happened to that person who experienced twenty new cavities.
One of my favorite bits of knowledge comes from physical therapy, PhD researching types. A study presented in a medical journal many years ago showed the body and the mind functions the same no matter what the age. Some physical therapists went into a nursing home and put a group of bed-ridden individuals on resistance exercises. They found out even bed-ridden persons benefit from daily exercise to the point that they were able to build muscles like anybody else. Some were so successful, they were able to get out of bed and walk again. So your age doesn’t matter when it comes to improving your well-being and moving towards a healthier and more natural lifestyle. I read about an 80 year old women, some years back, who wanted to run a marathon. She started out walking in the beginning and eight years later she finished her first marathon. Intentions are very important and will over power any lazy mind if you are persistent. Recently I have been sharing health information with a retired nurse who is also in her 80’s. She is the kind of person who thought doctors were “gods” back in the days when she was working as a nurse. Today she looks up every medicine prescribed to her, especially wanting to find out about the side effects. Since I have known her, the doctor who she sees has taken her off coumadin, a blood thinner she was taking for some time. The other day she asked me how much seaweed I was eating per day and when she found out, all she said was that she was going to double her seaweed consumption.
Why don’t you double your seaweed consumption too, it’s the best sources for all the minerals in any uncooked planetary food plan that we humans have evolved eating over time. No matter what your age, your body/mind experience works as it always has and any improvement to any of the seven variables in life will only improve your quality of life. Isn’t that the reason why we are here on Earth to enjoy this quality of life? The only thing left now is to choose and no one can do that for you. Start by purchasing some pH paper, which can be found in most health food stores and pharmacies, and learn about you body/mind experience. Test your saliva upon waking in the morning. Test your saliva before and after a meal. Test your saliva during the day when you are stopped in rush hour traffic. Test your saliva before going to bed. You will learn a great deal about your life if you test your saliva. The two pictures show the best pH paper to purchase and the second picture shows my resting salivary pH with the yellow color change to the paper turning it blue.
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