WHY NOT TAKING ADVANTAGES OF THIS PERIOD OF HOME LOCKDOWN TO RECHARGE YOUR ALKALINE BATTERIES?

From DRY Issue #1

By Marie-Noëlle Terrisse
Cover photography Lucio Convertini

An alkaline diet classifies foods according to their acidic or alkaline properties, and promises miraculous purifying and re-balancing effects… But scientists are skeptical.

Reestablish Your Body’s natural equilibrium, improve health, increase energy, slow down aging and prevent numerous illnesses from obesity to fatigue… The alkaline diet promises all this and more, and is currently a hot topic in the media and among celebrities. The basic idea is that our average food intake, currently rich in animal proteins, refined sugars, flour and industrial products, promotes an acidic environment inside our bodies. Ever since Paracelsus first wrote about health and medicine, we’ve known that we are what we eat, and who wants an acidic personality? 

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The alkaline diet was pioneered a century ago by an Austrian doctor, Franz Xaver Mayr, who understood the important role a healthy intestine plays in wellbeing. Mayr created a holistic diagnostic therapy for intestinal health. Promoters of the acid-base therapy explain that the method is more than just a diet. According to Dr. Stephan Domenig, Director of the Original FX Mayr Health Center, “it’s a way of improving your lifestyle through choosing healthy, fresh foods, dedicating time to the preparation of daily meals, to relaxation and physical activity.” In her book The Acid-Base Method, German physician Eva-Maria Kraske explains that “contrary to popular belief, the acid-base balance does not consist of a particular type of diet, but rather of a carefully-constructed nutritional plan aimed at helping a person live a long, healthy, happy life.”

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Recently a number of new methods based on the same principle have sprung up, underlining the fact that there is no one, single alkaline diet or approach to the list of recommended and non-recommended foods. Not everyone uses the PRAL (Potential Renal Acid Load) scale, invented in 1995 by Tho- mas Remer and Friedrich Manz to define foods that deposit residues in the kidneys (and consequently in urine) and those that cause acidic deposits. 

Most meats, aged cheeses, alcohol, sweets and industrialized foods create acidic environments in the body. Fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, are quite different: some consider all fruit to be alkaline-based, while others only include lemons, limes and grapefruits in this category (alkali- zing food has nothing to do with whether it tastes acidic or not). The main area of disagreement is around vitamins: some suggest taking them, others focus purely on food consumption. Some recommend a daily intake of two thirds of base foods and one third acidic foods; others suggest that alkaline foods should account for 80% of a person’s total daily food consumption. 

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But before we all abandon ourselves to a diet of avocados, broccoli and cucumbers, it’s important to note that the scientific community remains skeptical. Many experts wonder: what exactly becomes alkalized through food intake? Certainly not our blood, the PH of which is already slightly alkaline, and remains constant between 7.35 and 7.45. Any variation in the- se values would damage cells, and our bodies would automatically correct it in minutes. Acid-base methods focus primarily on PH levels in urine: the more acidic the urine, the more the body has to work to eliminate unwanted elements. But critics of the method point out that urine however is a byproduct, and doesn’t come into contact with the rest of the body. 

So far no scientific study conducted with human subjects has proven the effectiveness of an alkaline diet for disease prevention. But who can deny that eating more fresh foods, reducing junk food, relaxing and increasing physical exercise make people feel a whole lot better? 

For some great akaline’s recipes go to
Alkaline recipes #1
Alkaline recipes #2

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DRY takes up the challenge 

Like each of us, even journalists and publishers are facing many battles at this time. As the storytelling of the present is likely to fall apart in the attempt of keeping up with a super digital and fast world, we need to identify the different topics and find time and space to deepen them. Our original mission of creating meanings which prevail on the overload of the repeatable, making future interact with memory, retains all its relevance today. So we made the decision to repost a selection of subjects and images from our First Issue Archive (April 2016) to show you how they lend a dramatic currency to the actual painful happenings, wishing it could help you to understand and sensibly reflect on the consequences of the virus global diffusion. We hope you’ll enjoy the reading.

The DRY team