The alkaline diet

The principle of the alkaline diet? Review your diet by choosing the right foods that will help balance the body's pH and thus make war on the extra pounds. Discover all the details of this method.

To follow this method, it is necessary to look at the pH of the body. To lose our little extra pounds, it would be enough to maintain our pH at an ideal level between 7.35 and 7.45. To reach it? Only one rule: avoid acidity by limiting or even abandoning meat, fish, alcoholic beverages, coffee, sugars, and industrial products. Choose vegetables, fruits without preservatives, and cereals such as quinoa, barley, or flax... However, give pride of place to spices and fresh herbs.

Recommendations

To carry out this diet, make sure as much as possible to take time for your meals because eating too quickly is harmful. It is important to chew food enough and live away from stress as much as possible. The advantage of the Alkaline diet is that it is easy to follow on a daily basis and it is enough to reduce the quantities to obtain results. However, a lack of protein can be dangerous without the advice of a doctor. In addition, to date, no scientific research has been carried out to date to demonstrate the veracity of the principles advocated by this diet.

The method

The diet is based on the principle of the need to maintain and balance the pH of our body by reducing the intake of so-called 'acidic' foods. For this, it is necessary to consume mainly alkaline foods. Note that, unlike other diets, carbohydrates, proteins, and fats are allowed. It would also be recommended to cure the small ailments of everyday life: stress, fatigue, pain...

In practice

More than a diet, the alkaline method is a real way of life. Be careful, the idea is not to completely eliminate acidic foods because some are necessary, but to limit them above all. The principle is to get as close as possible to a vegetarian diet. Fruits and vegetables provide a boost of vitamins, while cereals and legumes provide the necessary dose of protein. In practice, your plate should contain 65 to 70% alkalizing foods and the rest more acidic products. You may not know it, but meat, dairy, bread, and pasta with gluten or prepared meals are considered too acidifying foods, so they should be limited. Not surprisingly, it is also better to stop consuming coffee, soft drinks, alcohol, and industrial cakes stuffed with sugar because they produce a lot of acidities and are very difficult to digest. To find out if your body is too acidic, simply test your pH using strips found in pharmacies. The test can be done via urine, but also via saliva.

My shopping list

Cereals and legumes: cooked beans, chickpeas, beans, brown rice, buckwheat, soybeans, lentils
Fruits and vegetables: asparagus, artichoke, avocado, beetroot, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, carrot, cucumber
Drinks: fresh vegetable juices, fresh fruit juices, green tea, herbal infusions

Recipe ideas

And to make the Alkaline diet more concrete, here are recipe ideas from the book The Alkaline Diet - The Keys and the Best Recipes for Acid-Base Balance by Nathasha Corrett, and Vicki Edgson published by Éditions Larousse. This book contains a multitude of menus (from starters to desserts to snacks) that will accompany you on a daily basis to develop tasty and balanced dishes.

Vegetable lasagna (For 4 people)

Ingredients:

80 g of Le Puy lentils

4 spoonfuls. soup of olive oil + a little to coat the vegetables

1 tomato Coarsely ground beef heart

1 clove, minced garlic

1 diced beet

1/2 spoon. Tamari coffee

1 spoon. dehydrated chopped shallot coffee

1 pinch of cumin powder

400 g of butternut squash, cut into thin slices lengthwise

300 g of zucchini, cut into thin slices lengthwise

This is enough to change from the traditional lasagna already known! The layers of pasta have been replaced by multicolored vegetables that will fully satisfy your appetite leaving you infinitely lighter!

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 170 °C (th. 5-6). Put the lentils in a small saucepan and cover them with water. Bring to a small boil and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, until they are 'al dente'. Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large saucepan, then crush the tomato that will be the base of the sauce. Add garlic and beetroot, tamari, shallot, and cumin. Pour 2 tablespoons of water and cook for 15 minutes over medium heat to obtain a thick puree. Add the lentils to the contents of the pan, an extra drizzle of water, and simmer for another 5 minutes.

Spread half of the butternut and a third of the zucchini in a gratin dish, then cover with half of the lentil sauce. Repeat the operation and finish with a layer of zucchini. Coat them extensively with olive oil and cook for 45 minutes, until the vegetables are just tender.

You can replace olive oil with parsley oil.

Cereal biscuits

To avoid buying industrial cookies, take the time to make them yourself with this very complete recipe. Stuffed with dried fruits and seeds, these cakes are very nourishing and therefore perfect in the case of small hungers.

175 g chopped pitted dates
150 g fresh cashew nuts
150 g fresh hazelnuts
300 g oatmeal
150 g fresh pumpkin seeds
150 g fresh sunflower seeds
475 g agave syrup or liquid honey
75 g of a mixture of fresh seeds of pumpkin, sunflower, and sesame, for garnish

The advantage of making these homemade cookies is that they do not harm health, like Demerara sugar used for preservation in industrial manufacturing. The variety of dried fruits and seeds used offers a large amount of proteins and good lipids, useful to the brain and skin, and which, more put in a good mood. You'll love it.

Preheat the oven to 160 °C (th. 5-6). Put the dates in a saucepan and add 22.5 cl of water. Bring to a small boil and cook until tender. Then mix them in the blender, then pour this dough into a large bowl.

Gather the cashews and hazelnuts in the bowl of the blender, add 22.5 cl of water and mix into a soft cream. Mix it with the date paste.

Then summarily chop the oatmeal and pumpkin and sunflower seeds in the robot, operating it for about 1 minute, then transfer them to the bowl. Pour the agave syrup or honey and stir vigorously to homogenize the mixture.

Spread the preparation in an even layer of 1-2 cm on a sheet covered with parchment paper, then cover with the mixture of seeds and cook for 20 minutes, until the surface is golden.

Let cool on the plate before cutting.

Almond, lemon, and poppy cake (For 10 people)

Very easy to make, this cake is ideal to have fun without feeling guilty. In addition to containing lighter ingredients than the usual cakes, it can be available in several versions (with orange or raw cocoa for example).

4 eggs
60 g honey
200 g of vegetable butter + a little for the mold
250 g almond powder
1 spoon. baking powder coffee
finely grated zest and juice from 3 small lemons or 2 large ones
2 spoonfuls. soup of poppy seeds
melted raw chocolate, for icing (optional)

Preheat the oven to 160 °C (th. 5-6). Beat the eggs and honey in a bowl.

In another bowl, work the butter and almonds, then gradually incorporate the eggs to obtain a supple and homogeneous consistency. Add the yeast, zest, and juice of the lemons, mix well, then incorporate the poppy seeds.

Pour the preparation into a round buttered mold of 20-25 cm and cook for 30 minutes, until the surface is well browned (cover with aluminum foil if the coloring is too fast). The cake is baked when it is flexible and elastic under a small pressure or a fine tip pricked to the heart comes out dry.

Put to cool on a rack, then optionally cover with a thin layer of melted chocolate.