Please see an article regarding Acid/Base Balance:

The Urine pH Challenge

The purpose of checking the pH of your urine is to evaluate how your alkaline reserve is holding up and if your ammonia backup system must take the role of key acid neutralizer. The first step of the pH challenge is to eat only acid ash-producing foods for two days. That means lots of meat, eggs, pasta, rice, chicken, bread, peanut butter, and anything else listed on the Acid Ash Foods list. But no fruit, no fruit juice, no salad, no potato chips, no banana splits, and no strawberry jam--nothing listed on the Alkaline Ash Foods list.

As soon as you get up and go to the bathroom, separate a strip of pH paper. You will see that there is a color guide in the package. This is the chart you'll use to get your urine pH number. Now, using your two-to-three-inch strip of pH paper, direct one end of the paper into the urine stream very briefly--for about one second. All you need to do is get the paper wet. The paper will respond. Then match the color of the wet pH paper with a color on the chart. Note the number designated above the matching color. Dispose of the used pH paper, and write down the pH number and the current date. If you don't write down your pH score, you'll forget the number before your next urine pH check, and you want to compare the two. Now comes the important part, interpreting the results. These interpretations may not agree with your medical doctor's interpretation and understanding of urine pH. Medical urinalysis may be directed toward different evaluations. The urine pH numbers you are interpreting are intended to help you monitor your health, not to tell you how sick you are or what disease you have.

Urine pH 5.5-5.8

If your urine scored pH 5.5 or pH 5.8, your alkaline reserve is adequate. It's holding its own. You still have enough alkalizing minerals in our body to handle a concentrated load of dietary acid. That's good. It shows that you have enough alkaline minerals to protect your kidneys from being burned by strong acid from excess protein. Although your urine pH indicates that your body can handle great gobs of protein, don't start eating copious amounts of it. If you make a habit of overloading with high-protein foods, your supply of neutralizing minerals will dwindle slowly. Make sure you eat enough alkaline ash foods to keep it well stocked. Now that you know your body can handle excess dietary protein, go back to your regular diet. After a couple of days, check your first voiding urine pH again. If it registers pH 6.2 or below, you are eating too much acid ash food. You need to reduce the amount of meat, poultry, fish, cheese, and grains and increase the amount of alkaline ash vegetables and fruits. Your body can handle moderate amounts of dietary acid as long as you bolster your alkaline reserve with generous amounts of replacement minerals from fresh vegetables and fruit. If your regular diet follow-up pH test checks in at above pH 6.2, keep doing what you're doing. You are on the right road. You probably already eat generous amounts of vegetables, fruit, and grains, and minimal amounts of meat. If you reduce the amount of grains and meat in your diet, your pH numbers will rise even higher. That's even better.

Urine pH 6.0-6.6

Urine pH challenge test results of 6.0 to 6.6 tell a different story. It's not "good," but it's not "horrible." This is the "warning" stage. Although it would appear that your neutralizing reserves are better equipped at pH six-something rather than pH five-something, actually, the reverse is true. Your alkaline reserve is running low. However, you still have some alkalizing minerals available. The workhorse mineral of the alkaline reserve--sodium--can weaken strong acid enough to protect your delicate internal tissue. Your alkaline reserve can neutralize moderate amounts of acid forming protein. It can't handle tremendous amounts of acid from protein, like you created with two days of high-protein eating. Your alkaline reserve supply either isn't adequate to do the job by itself, or it's just overwhelmed by the volume of acid that needs to be neutralized. So backup systems begin to contribute to the neutralizing (buffering) to get the job done. You are speeding up the aging process by eating too much protein. Your alkaline reserves are so low that your body has called on backup systems to help neutralize too much strong dietary acid. It's beginning to get tired no matter how old you are. You should reduce the amount of high-protein acid producing foods and increase the amount of vegetables in your daily diet. You should introduce them to your body gradually. As your body becomes accustomed to handling more plant food, you'll be able to eat more raw vegetables and fruits without "dietary distress."

Urine pH 6.8-8.0

A high urine pH seems to indicate a vast store of alkalizing minerals at work. However, that's not the case when you've been challenging your body with two days of protein overload. A urine pH score of 6.8-8.0 when the body is saturated with dietary acid is very significant. It indicates that your supply of available alkaline reserve is virtually depleted. You may be sick frequently or chronically ill. You may be tired most of the time, have stiff joints, sore muscles, and burning on urination. This is the natural progression after the pH 6.0-6.6 stage if your regular diet consists mostly of acid ash foods. When the body is overwhelmed with acid and protein, the kidneys have a lot of acid to handle. They must generate greater quantities of ammonia to handle the greater quantities of acid and protein. But the kidneys are nearly the end point of your digestion-elimination process. By the time fluids get to the kidneys, they should have already been neutralized by your metabolic alkaline reserve. A high urine pH following the acid challenge test of acid ash foods indicates that the important emergency neutralizing backup system of ammonia is the principle neutralizer. Instead of minerals neutralizing the acid from dietary protein, ammonia is doing the job.

The urine of strict vegetarians can be an ammonia 8.0 just as can the urine of avid meat-eaters. Many vegetarians are heavy grain eaters. Their diets revolve around grains. Most grains in all forms are acid ash-producers. Most nuts are also acid ash-producers. Nuts are also big favorites of most vegetarians. Your body will let you know in a hurry that it isn't accustomed to handling a sudden surge of vegetables and fruits. Your body isn't telling you it "can't" handle a lot of fruits and vegetables. It certainly can. But you probably won't like the short-term results. Your body has been working for a long time in its survival mode of constantly coping with excess protein. It's programmed for protein survival. A quick, radical change in diet can magnify unpleasant symptoms you already have, and it can add a few that are new. The objective is to alkalize your body slowly but surely. Begin changing your diet immediately, but make diet changes slowly enough to let your body adapt easily. Give your body a little time to adjust. If you test your urine too quickly after you have started your new eating-for-health program, you may be disappointed that dramatic results don't show up immediately. Even on an improved diet, the changes in your urine pH won't be as dramatic as you might like.

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