- my iParenting
- quick clicks
- recipes today articles
- recipes today q&a
- community & groups
- research baby names
- prepare a birth plan
- content channels
- ip channel rss feeds
- read birth stories
- read parenting stories
- recommended books
- e-newsletters
- safety recalls
- ip diaries
- ip store
- mom of the month
- dad of the month
- editor's letter
- letters to the editor
From Our Sponsors
- e-newsletters
- Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters
- award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
pH Balanced Diets
A Passing Fad or Dietary Common Sense?
By Jacqueline M. Duda
Lots of diets maintain a premise of rigidity and allow the consumption of only one certain type of food – eat all protein, avoid all carbohydrates or get rid of all fat. Few, however, say believers of the pH diet, give people who are seeking to lose weight or trying to regain optimal health a variety of nutrient-rich foods – and the flexibility to temporarily "fall off the wagon," so to speak, and recover without missing a beat.
Dr. Janet Starr Hull, a federally licensed certified nutritionist, serendipitously happened upon the pH diet while recovering from aspartame poisoning in 1991. Hull was initially misdiagnosed with hyperthyroidism, an endocrinological disease of the thyroid earmarked by hair loss, nervousness, ravenous hunger, rapid weight loss and a racing heartbeat, before she discovered that aspartame was to blame.
Hull cleansed her body with the pH diet, likening the experience to cleaning up the toxic environmental spills that were part of her previous job as an OSHA Hazmat engineer. Eventually, Hull gave birth to her 75/25 Eating Plan, a list of alkaline and acidic foods that are the hallmark of the pH diet, and the result of her combined environmental and nutritional know-how.
Seventy-five percent of the foods consumed should be fresh and unprocessed. The remaining 25 percent include cooked meats, fish or chicken.
"Divide your dinner plate into a pie," Hull says. Three quarters of the "pie" are alkaline, and should include raw or lightly steamed vegetables like asparagus, spinach, turnips or cauliflower. The remaining quarter is acidic, and can include cooked meats, poultry or fish. It's as easy as, well, pie. Think fresh, raw, natural and, most important, unprocessed. This is how the body needs to eat. And there is no gaining weight from real food, she adds. Weight loss will be easier too.