The Alkaline Diet and Dash Diet Value Bundle: Easy Diet Guides to Lose Weight, Prevent Diseases, Strengthen the Immune System and Improve Overall Health

In this value bundle you will learn all you need to know to get started with the Alkaline Diet and the DASH Diet. Both of these diets are vital in changing your life to improve your overall health and wellness. You can implement the diet that best suits you or take some key pieces from both! The information found in these books will inform you of what each diet consists of, how they can be beneficial to your overall health and key recipes that you can implement on a daily basis. You will better understand the science behind each diet and how you can remain consistent in improving your health whether you are trying to lose weight or fight and prevent chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, cancer and diabetes just to name a few. Follow the tips and tricks and simple recipes to start strong in your new, healthy lifestyle!

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Need-to-Know Facts About the Alkaline Diet

Chapter 2: Benefits of Using This Diet

Chapter 3: Repairing the Immune System

Chapter 4: Fighting off Chronic Diseases

Diabetes

Chronic Kidney Disease

Heart Disease

Chapter 5: Common Myths About Plant-Based Diets and the Alkaline Diet

Chapter 6: Why Is Oregano Fantastic for Your Overall Health and Wellness?

Chapter 7: The Benefits of Incorporating Basil Into Your Daily Diet

Basil and Tomatoes

Zucchini and Basil Soup

Summer Rolls:

Chapter 8: Why Is Sage Such a Powerful Herb When It Comes to Overall Health?

Sage and Chocolate Nice Cream

Vegan Green Apple, Sage, and Olive Oil Bundt Cake

Pumpkin Sage Biscuits

Chapter 9: Tips to Remain Consistent With Your Diet

Conclusion

References

Introduction

Here is a scenario: The fields are rolling and filled to the brim with fresh fruits and vegetables that were tended by hand. The air smells crisp, and you can pick up on the faint hints of freshly dug soil and manure. You take a bite of an apple and the flavor explodes in your mouth, coating it with sweetness. Does this sound serene? Does it remind you of the way that life should still be? It is sad to say, however, that this world has changed. The days where farmers would tend to their crops with a combination of love and blessing from Mother Earth herself are well behind us. Our food and our way of life have changed to an extent that our ancestors would scratch their heads and wonder where we went wrong. You can admit that after the Industrial Revolution the way we produce our food has changed for the better but at what cost? Our air is filled with so many stray chemicals that we often wonder why we cannot breathe in the cities that we love dearly. Our animal kingdom has lost species after species. Our oceans, the lifeblood of our Earth, are polluted and becoming more acidic by the day. Our trees have been cut down to make way for more factories and human advancements. We have damaged the earth, but what about the wreckage we have done to the home of our bodies?

We can walk on our streets now and find fast-food chains on almost every corner. We love the taste and the convenience of not having to get our engines ready and cook a meal. We love fast food so much and it has become so ingrained in the mind of the Western world that our children, who need all the nourishment that they can get, cling to our arms and beg us for McDonalds. Does this scare you? It should. We have traded food that was good for our health for food that damages our health on a daily basis. The Western world gave up going outside for heart disease and diabetes, to name a couple of the diet-based ailments that plague us on a daily basis. We gave up living long full lives for an increase in mortality rates globally from these diseases that can be managed if not avoided. How do we help ourselves? How do we fix the damage we have done to ourselves after years of treating our bodies like they were never the temples that we should hold in pristine conditions? Well, the answer to that is very simple, and it is thankfully found in this book. The alkaline diet is a diet that aims to heal and strengthen the body by consuming foods that seek to balance the pH levels of the body by forgoing the acid rich meats and aiming to follow a way of life that is good for the planet and good for your bodies. The alkaline diet mainly focuses on foods that have an alkaline basis. Now for the chemistry laymen reading this book, pH is a scale of 0 to 14, where seven is known as having a neutral pH, anything below seven being acidic in nature, and anything above seven being alkaline. The body is composed of various alkaline levels. For example, the skin and stomach are largely alkaline in nature. This is to protect the skin from bacteria and to break down the food that we ingest. On the other hand, blood is regarded as being slightly alkaline in nature and functions to regulate the acid-alkaline balance in conjunction with other organs. The human body is complex in that way.

When it comes to food, there is a difference in the various pH levels of the body that will be addressed in this book. Our guts are the foundation of having a healthy body, so it is not an assumption that the pH level of our bodies depends on what we eat. Diets that are too high in an acid content act to the detriment of the body. Plant-based and alkaline diets, however, affect the body in astounding ways. To get this out of the way, it needs to be known that meat or too much meat is a no. Meat and animal products, except for milk which has a neutral pH and a large amount of calcium, are not necessarily bad when controlled. Yet, the problem with our Western diet is that we put animal products as the main focus of our meals and relegate plants to being secondary. You may be thinking, I need protein! Protein is a building block of the body, but following a plant-based lifestyle does not mean that you never get protein. With the alkaline diet, there is a cornucopia of plant-based proteins, like soy and lentils, to name a couple. This diet works by naturally regulating the pH levels of the human body through the consumption of food. Our bodies are constantly changing and thrown with factors that affect our bodies. To compensate this, the body regulates itself through something called homeostasis. When combined with an alkaline diet, the body regulates and repairs itself at a greater rate than on the common Western diet. This is due in part to how healthy the alkaline diet is; it is because of the focus being on plants which can never be in moderation. Plants are storehouses of the minerals and fiber that we need for optimum health. What makes the alkaline diet so powerful, is that it focuses on intuitive eating and removes a large amount of saturated foods that the common diet has. This has the obvious benefit of making us healthier but also strengthens our immune systems. A strong immune system can fight anything that comes its way, but a weak one attracts the plight of many health problems. The plant-based and alkaline diets do not have to be difficult. They can be as simple as breathing.

Chapter 1:

Need-to-Know Facts About the Alkaline Diet

The alkaline diet has a plethora of health benefits that people who follow this lifestyle and science have touted. Now before you groan and wonder why, the science of the book will be fun to learn and very easy to read. An alkaline diet as stated in the introduction is high in the minerals that we do need, but what are those minerals? Calcium is the first to be discussed. Calcium is one of the "big five’’ minerals that the alkaline diet provides and the body needs for proper function not only for bone and teeth health but also for our well-being. An adequate presence of calcium within the human body ensures that the nerves work, which in case you did not know, carry messages of movement and stimulus to our brains (Newman, 2020). It is a common trend for women who are postmenopausal and people who are of an advanced age to experience a leaching of calcium from the bone mineral density of their skeletal systems which leads to osteoporosis later in life. This dangerous disease causes the potential for fractures and broken bones to occur at a much higher rate (Newman, 2020). Diets that are high in the net acid load have the tendency of seeping away the calcium of the skeletal structure through a process that is known as metabolic acidosis, which will be explained in chapter four of this book.

The kidneys function in order to ensure that the acid-base balance of the body is always at a level that the body can manage, by releasing non-volatile acids in the urine stream and releasing a chemical compound that is known as sodium bicarbonate that is regenerated and reabsorbed continually. When this is left unchecked as a means of compensating for the imbalances, the body takes from the calcium stores of the body which surprisingly not only affects the skeleton but also the heart. The heart needs calcium in order to continue pumping our blood. Science has observed that the modern day diet has a largely acidic composition which when left unmonitored can lead toward an acid bulk load in the human body. This is due to a higher presence of hydrogen ions which caused the pH of the bloodstream to fall from basic to acidic in nature (Rodrigues Neto Angélico et al., 2018). When this is left unchecked, it wreaks havoc with the function of the kidneys. The alkaline diet, when scrutinized by scientists, does not have an acid load that is comparable to a meat centric diet. This is mostly attributed to the nature of alkaline foods which contain a large amount of potassium and calcium which are alkaline in nature.

Potassium is one of the other minerals that the alkaline diet has in abundance. Potassium is an alkaline mineral that works in tandem with calcium when it comes to nerve health, but calcium ensures that the nerves have the ability to contract properly. Adding to the benefit of calcium to the heart, it also keeps the heart beating properly, yet it does so much more than that! Potassium acts as a mineral which helps move waste outside of the cell and move nutrients into the cell (Cherney, 2018). This adds to the validity of the alkaline diet. Our diet and our lives are so inundated with harmful substances that the nutrients we do need and the chemical waste that we do not need are left in limbo. The other mineral to be discussed is magnesium. Magnesium is a mineral that works by regulating muscle and nerve control, balancing the body’s blood pressure and sugar levels. Adding to the job of magnesium is making bones, DNA, and protein. Another important alkaline mineral that this lifestyle provides in abundance is manganese. Manganese helps regulate the body's metabolic processes by activating enzymes. For example, it has been found that manganese aids in protein and amino acid digestion as well as their utilization, while also having the ability to breakdown carbohydrates.

The final mineral that should be addressed is iron. Yes plant-based diets do have iron. Popeye the Sailor Man showed us about the power that a single can of spinach gave him. Iron is a mineral that aids in the growth and development of the body. Remember that blood mentioned earlier? Iron is responsible for making the red pigment that allows oxygen to be used by the body. Let us now get down to the benefits of the alkaline diet. Our forefathers ate a diet that was mostly alkaline and plant-based in nature, and they lived very long lives free from most of the diseases that we are plagued with.

The first scientific fact of the diet is how it affects our tickers. The modern day diet is so laden with unhealthy foods that are high in sodium and fat as well as a high focus on meat which has been shown to increase the chances of developing heart disease. The alkaline diet removes these vast quantities and supplements by providing fresh produce which lowers the chance of heart disease. This can mostly be attributed to the high content of good nutrients that the alkaline diet provides. A high consumption of meat has been shown to increase the propensity for a person to develop a form of heart disease. It makes sense if you think about it. All that fat and gristle we see when we cook meat has to go somewhere. It does not just go to our stomachs, but also to the rest of the body, in the form of cholesterol. Cholesterol is not a bad thing, quite the contrary. It is needed in order to build healthy, functioning cells (Schaefer, 2020). Too much, however, leads to fat being deposited on the lining of the blood vessels which constricts the flow of blood (CDC, 2017). There are many people who love meat so much that they eventually end up eating too much, developing gout and high blood pressure. The alkaline diet also bans coffee which has been known to affect the heart in many other ways than giving us the gumption to go. Caffeine has been shown to negatively affect the body when consumed in a great amount because not only does it affect the pH of the body because it is acidic, but it also places too much of a strain on the heart and the mind.

A second scientific fact of the alkaline diet is the major energy boost of eating a healthy plant-based diet. Let us use an example here: think of any moment you ate a very meat heavy meal. Did you get tired? That, my friends, is due to the disruption of your body’s circadian rhythm. Meat is delicious, yes, but too much is not good for the body. A diet high in alkaline centric plants gives you a major boost to your energy because plant-based nutrients are released by your body over a longer period of time and do not hamper your body’s metabolism by forcing it to break down proteins and amino acids (Sissons, 2019). Another important aspect of the alkaline diet is the fact that the alkaline diet has a high nutrient basis which allows for the oxygen in your body to be more readily accessible, due to the reducing thickness of the blood. This improves the flow of the blood and gives more blood to the tissues of the body (Barnard et al, 2019). There are so many people who follow a plant-based diet that have enough energy to last all day.

Third, the alkaline diet helps the body produce human growth hormone. HGH is one of the most vital hormones that the body produces in a combination with testosterone if you are male or estrogen if you are female when you are still a teenager (Clarke, 2020). HGH is vital for the building, maintenance, and repair of the tissues of the body, but it does so much more than that (Sissons, 2018). It ensures that the