Why the Alkaline Diet Beats Low Carb
Posted on March 8, 2010
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The alkaline diet is a way of eating that emphasizes foods that have an alkalizing effect on your internal pH. This approach is not new, but its popularity has dramatically increased over the past several years, and it shows no signs of going away anytime soon.
Many people are confused because “alkaline” and “alkalizing” are two different things. This means that a food that has a sour, acidic taste, such as apple cider vinegar or lemon juice, can actually have a strongly alkalizing effect once it has been digested and assimilated. By the same token, a food that seems perfectly non-acidic, such as cane sugar, is often quite acidifying inside your body.
Why the Alkaline Diet Is Superior to Low-Carb Diets
If you are new to the alkaline diet, you probably want to know how it contrasts with other trendy diets, especially low-carb diets including the Atkins and South Beach diets.
To the casual observer, the alkaline diet appears to be the exact opposite of the low-carb diet, but this is only partially accurate. As you are undoubtedly aware, the low-carb diet drastically restricts your consumption of carbs, including cake, pasta, potatoes, sugar, beans–even fruits and vegetables. On the other hand, you are allowed to eat an unlimited amount of meat, cheese, and other foods that are rich in fat and protein.
The alkaline diet, on the other hand, encourages you to eat less meat and dairy products, virtually all of which make the body more acidic. Another difference is that while low-carb diets limit fruits and vegetables, produce is strongly emphasized on the alkaline diet. The reason is that fresh produce has the most nutrients and the fewest calories of any food group, so it’s perfect for anyone who wants to lose weight, gain energy, and improve his or her overall health.
There is a sense in which the low-carb and alkaline diets do have something in common. Both diets restrict consumption of sugar and processed grains, but they do so for different reasons. Fans of the low-carb diet say that these abundant carbs are a big reason for the explosion of obesity over the past few decades. In the words of Barry Sears, author of The Zone, the central aisles of any grocery store are pretty much one big chunk of carbs diced up into different packages. (There’s a lot of fat in those packages, too.)
Nearly all of these junk carbs are acidifying. This is because the most common grains, such as corn, rice, and wheat, contain acidifying compounds.
When you get down to it, the big difference between these two diets is that the low carb diet eliminates virtually all carbs, but the alkaline diet only targets “bad” carbs. True, some high-carb foods are very harmful to your health, particularly when you eat too much of them. But it’s kind of crazy when people eliminate even apples, carrots, and sweet potatoes from their diets. These nutrient-dense foods are highly beneficial, and they’re certainly not why so many people are fat. On the contrary, they are the key to losing weight, because they’re filling without adding a lot of calories.
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