Most people don’t think about the pH of their blood very often. But you might if you’re following the alkaline diet. This way of eating is based on a theory that food has a direct impact on the acidity or alkalinity of our blood. So-called acid-producing foods like meat, eggs and dairy are the villains to be avoided on the alkaline diet. That’s because these foods are thought to create an acidic environment in our bodies, allowing conditions like cancer, osteoporosis and obesity to take root.
The alkaline diet has science-y rules sprinkled in that make it seem legitimate. But a deeper dive into some of the diet’s dogma can leave a person pretty confused. Many of the tenets of this diet plan skirt around some basic facts about human physiology. For instance, the food we eat has virtually no impact on our body’s pH — which is tightly regulated by our lungs and kidneys. The purported health benefits of the alkaline diet have been studied by scientists, and there’s little evidence to actually support this way of eating.
Yet the idea that we can blame our health problems on acidic foods persists — and it’s a selling point used to peddle products like alkaline water to unknowing consumers, according to Tanis Fenton. As a registered dietitian and epidemiologist at the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, Fenton has analyzed studies that delve into the health claims of alkaline diets.
“Diet culture is very heavily promoted in Western culture, and certainly in North America … the idea that we could take definitive action to prevent or cure certain scary diseases, such as cancer, is very appealing,” Fenton says. “We need to be better at promoting activities that we do know prevent cancer, [such as] healthy diets with adequate fiber, active living and exercise, and limiting tobacco, alcohol and UV exposure.”
