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Green For Life
> The Significance of
Stomach Acid
Chapter 10
The Significance of
Stomach Acid
How many people know what their measurement of stomach acid is?
How many of us appreciate its importance for our overall health? Almost nobody
recognizes how crucial it is to have normal hydrochloric acid in the stomach. I
don't know why none of the many doctors I have ever visited have asked me about
my hydrochloric acid, or tested it for me. I've never heard my friends talk
about their stomach acid. I was grateful to learn about its importance from a
veterinarian, who was helping me create a healthy diet for my dog.
To my surprise, I found scores of books and scientific articles about the
connection between the level of hydrochloric acid and human health. This topic
has been studied for decades. Professor W A. Walker from the Department of
Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, states that, "Medical
researchers since the 1930s have been concerned about the consequences of
hypochlorhydria. While all the health consequences are still not entirely clear,
some have been well documented."
Low stomach acidity (hypochlorhydria) is a condition that occurs when the human
body is unable to produce adequate quantities of stomach acid. Low stomach
acidity inevitably and dramatically impacts digestion and absorption of most
nutrients necessary for health. Most minerals, including such important ones as
iron, zinc, calcium, and the B-complex vitamins (folic acid and others) need
certain amounts of stomach acids in order to be absorbed at all.
Without stomach acid, nutritional deficiencies
inevitably develop leading to disease.
Besides absorption, stomach acid has many other important functions. For
instance, stomach acid is supposed to destroy all harmful microorganisms,
pathogenic bacteria, parasites and their eggs, and fungi that enter the body
through the mouth. Therefore, if stomach acid is
insufficient, there is no barrier against parasites. I have spoken with a
gastroenterologist who takes test samples of stomach acid from his patients and
often finds several kinds of parasites flourishing in the very place where they
are supposed to be killed. I would want my stomach acid to be strong for this
reason alone.
Stomach acid helps to digest large protein molecules. If stomach acid is low,
then incompletely digested protein fragments get absorbed into the bloodstream
and cause allergies and immunological disorders.
The natural level of hydrochloric acid (HCI) decreases as we age, especially
after the age of forty. That is when most people begin to develop gray hair as a
result of nutritional deficiencies caused by lowered stomach acid. Hydrochloric
acid could also start decreasing early in life if we abuse our gastrointestinal
tract, or entire body through food excesses, chemical use, and stress.
Overeating, especially overconsumption of fats and proteins, wears out the
parietal cells of the stomach that secret HCl.
Indigenous people have had many different diets throughout history, depending on
their environment. What they had in common was that they ate large amounts of
fiber. Researchers have estimated that Australopithecus and some other
indigenous people consumed roughly 150 grams of fiber daily. By looking at this
number, it's easy to suggest that the acidity of their stomachs was quite
strong, a lot stronger than ours. They also had much stronger teeth, jaws, and
jaw muscles. They were able to chew this rough, stringy food to a creamy
consistency in their mouths, and then their stomachs continued digesting this
well chewed matter by applying hydrochloric acid. Our bodies have dramatically
changed since then. Make an experiment: take a piece of any vegetable or green
leaf, sit down and chew it as long as you can. Just before you are ready to
swallow it, spit it out onto your palm and take a look at it. You will see that
it will still be far from a creamy consistency Keep in mind that your body would
only be able to assimilate nutrients from the tiniest particles. Large particles
won't get digested and will turn into acidic waste. A friend of mine who is a
doctor, and frequently takes blood tests, has shown me on a screen connected to
a microscope such an undigested piece in the blood of a vegan patient. I was
shocked to see that whenever this tiny undigested piece touched red blood cells,
those cells instantly died. Eventually this piece of undigested food ended up
being encircled in several layers of about a hundred dead cells. My friend
explained to me that such toxic pieces accumulate in our small intestines
causing people to have enlarged, protruding bellies.
If, in addition to improper chewing, some of us do not have the necessary
concentration of hydrochloric acid, then it is very likely that a few of us have
multiple nutritional deficiencies. In order to produce hydrochloric acid, the
human body has to work very hard. As we grow older, our body becomes weaker and
cannot produce adequate amounts of hydrochloric acid. That is why most people
have less stomach acid as they age.
As we grow older, we develop gray hair. I have observed that most people
diagnosed with very low stomach acid had noticeably more gray hair, which is an
indirect sign of nutrient deficiencies. On the other hand. there are numerous
well-documented accounts of people's natural hair color returning as a result of
consuming blended greens on a regular basis, Ann Wigmore being one of them.
Blending is similar to chewing, therefore, eating blended food can make a
dramatic improvement to our health. After being broken down in a high-speed
blender, pieces of food become the perfect size for assimilation. As a result,
the body doesn't keep the food in the stomach as long but sends it right into
the small intestines, allowing the body to produce less hydrochloric acid.
Consequently consuming blended foods saves us
energy and keeps us youthful despite of aging.
For many years I couldn't understand why some people quickly loose too much
weight on a raw food diet. These people simply cannot stay on a raw food diet
because they feel uncomfortable living their lives with constant remarks from
their friends and relatives about being too thin. I agree that humans shouldn't
be too skinny. After doing a lot of research about the impact of hypochlorhydria
on assimilation of food, I asked some of my friends with this weight problem if
they had ever checked their stomach acid level. Several of them got back to me
and reported that they were diagnosed with very low or no stomach acid at all.
Their doctor prescribed HCL pills to take with their meals. A close friend has
been trying to eat raw for several years and became so thin that her husband
became concerned for her health. She went to a doctor and was diagnosed with
achlorhydria (no stomach acid). Her doctor put her on HCL pills and she
continued her raw food diet. My friend gained all her weight back.
In order for nutrients to be absorbed, the food has to be broken in the stomach,
both mechanically and with acids, into very small pieces of 1-2 mm. Raw fruits
and vegetables have the most valuable nutrients in them, but they are especially
hard to digest because their tough cellulose structure has to be ruptured in
order to get all the nutrients out. If there is not enough stomach acid, the
body is unable to receive all needed nutrients, especially proteins, and
deficiencies start to develop. I have encountered several people with such a
problem who felt as if they were trapped. While eating only raw food they were
able to eliminate symptoms of certain illnesses that they had, but they became
very skinny. Then they would add cooked food to their diet to gain their desired
weight, but their unwanted symptoms would return. Puzzled, they kept going back
and forth not knowing what to do.
That is why I felt great joy when, after teaching a couple of classes about
green smoothies, I began receiving letters like this one:
"Though the raw food took care of my arthritis I was never able to stick to it
longer than two months because on raw foods alone, I dropped weight so quickly,
down to 135 lbs, that my wife panicked thinking that I was dying, so I had to go
back to cooked foods which made my arthritis return. When I started drinking
green smoothies, my weight stabilized! I have been raw now for six months and
keep my normal weight of 155 lbs. Thank you!" (N. H., Canada)
I have already witnessed many cases in which people with digestive problems were
able to greatly improve their assimilation by adding blended greens to their
diets. While cooking makes the food softer and easier to digest, in the process
of heating, most essential vitamins and enzymes in the food get destroyed.
Blending is a lot less harmful than cooking because it saves all the vital
nutrients in the food.
There are numerous conditions that are associated with low stomach acidity.
These are just some of them: bacterial overgrowth, chronic candidacies,
parasites, Addison's disease, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, asthma, auto immune
disorders, celiac disease, stomach carcinoma, depression, dermatitis, diabetes,
eczema, flatulence, gall bladder disease, gastric polyps, gastritis, hepatitis,
hyperthyroidism, myasthenia gravis, osteoporosis, psoriasis, rosacea, ulcerative
colitis, urticaria, and vitiligo. This is why the famous researcher, Dr.
Theodore A. Baroody, stated in his wonderful book Alkalize or Die, "Hydrochloric
acid is absolutely essential for life." In other words,
no one can be completely healthy without normal
hydrochloric acid.
Please do not confuse acidity in the stomach with alkalinity of the blood. Our
blood must be slightly alkaline and we will discuss it in up-coming chapters.
"Hydrochloric acid is the only acid that our body produces. All other acids are
by-products of metabolism and are eliminated as soon as possible."
Chapter 11 -
Roseburg Study
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Green For Life by Victoria Boutenko
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