Re: Zeolite drops-Has Anybody Heard About This?
There seems to be a little more agreement here, so I will post my general thesis in this discussion if there are any questions, and hopefully this will wrap it up at least on my end.
The body requires a number of nutrients, some of which are alkaline in nature, some of which are acidic in nature, and some of which are neutral in nature. pH balance of these nutrients is but one of the many attributes and means of categorization that can be applied.
Trying to categorize these nutrients in terms of pH and then saying that we need a certain ratio of foods that are acid or alkaline is a much, much poorer method of breaking down nutrition than the standard method of listing nutrients and giving RDAs or recommendations as to their use.
Four of the alkaline metals are macrominerals. Your body needs them, and in large amounts. Most people in Western culture probably have a deficiency of one or more these alkaline metals: magnesium, potassium, and/or calcium. Sodium is the other one, but deficiencies in it are rare in modern society. If anything, many people tend to have too much of it.
You can't interchange these metals. One will usually not fulfill the function of another in the body all that well. So you think in terms of diet and supplements that will provide all of them as needed.
This continues onward with all of the other nutrients that we know about or believe ourselves to need: vitamins, proteins, and so forth. It is true with many other substances as well, even if there is no substantiated definite need for them, such as chlorophyll from green plants or enzymes from raw foods.
When this is done, you have a diet that is adequate in terms of pH for the body. The body can regulate pH pretty well, especially through the filtering mechanism of the kidneys, so your exact ratio of foods need not be close to that of the very precise pH balance that is maintained by the body. Just so long as the body has adequate materials to work with, and no great burdens to handle. The important thing to remember here is that the notion of breaking down nutrients in terms of the body's needs will act adequately as a checks and balance system to make it easy for the body to maintain optimum pH for all of its systems.
Almost the only time you really have to worry about pH itself in terms of your own nutrition is if your kidneys are not functioning properly or are stressed for some reason.
IMO, the breakdown of foods by pH with recommendations as to percentages is about as useful as the Four Basic Food Groups stuff. Maybe helpful if you have a very poor diet, but offering virtually no insight for those of us who have been trying to eat healthy for years.