pH miracle diet shopping tips
If after reading about the pH miracle diet you have made the decision to give it a go, then you have a number of jobs to do first. If you are totally committed to the diet you might start by emptying out your cupboards of food and refrigerator of all the highly acidic foods. This may not be possible if you live with others so alternatively you can dispose of the high acidic treats that you find hard to resist, either way, after doing your kitchen purge you will be in need of a grocery shopping trip.
You can shop for the pH miracle diet at any grocery store, but sometimes people find it better to visit health food stores or natural food chains like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's for the specialty items. But if you live in an area without these types of store, you can still easily purchase everything you need at a standard grocery store.
Prior to leaving on your shopping trip, you will need to create a list of items. You don't want to stroll in to the grocery store blind and just try to remember off the top of your head the things you need to buy. Some people will want to work from the alkaline food lists in the book. This is a decent approach if you are not too concerned about how much you spend and you just want to fill your kitchen with suitable foods. But a more organized approach might be to construct a menu list for the coming week. When you shop from a planned menu and recipes that go with these meals, you will only buy the foods that you need. On top of that, many of the foods on the list in the book will be fresh vegetables. You will want to make sure that you need all these before you waste money buying them and not using them.
Don't forget than when you first begin, the diet doesn't have to be 100% alkaline. In actual fact, even if you are on a strict version of the pH miracle diet, a balance between acid and alkaline is still recommended. So when you create your menu and grocery lists, keep that in mind. Foods that are slightly and moderately acidic include bananas, whole grain pasta, dried beans, eggs, milk, nuts and wheat bread. These are but a few and you can find many different resources that list the acidic levels of various foods. Try and strive for a balance of around 70% alkaline to 30% acid.
When you arrive at the grocery store with your list of foods in hand, you will find that you'll mostly be perusing the foods around the outer rim of the store. In general, the foods along the walls are fresher and more natural, where the foods in the aisles are mostly packaged and processed foods. The outer edges consist of the produce section, the dairy section and the deli or meat counter.
The primary focus of your pH miracle diet shopping trip is going to be produce, or vegetables. If you have the means, try to buy organic foods. Although the main importance is that you purchase the vegetables and use them in your recipes. If you can only use conventionally grown produce, or even frozen produce, that is still better than using no produce at all.
This being said, you have to be careful with canned fruit and vegetables. The canning process has a negative effect on the alkaline states of these foods. Canned fruits and vegetables also contain a lot of sodium. If you can't buy fresh then look for frozen but try to avoid buying canned. Many shops that do not stock organic fresh produce will sometimes have organic frozen produce.
Ideally you should buy a balance of alkaline and acid foods initially while you get used to living and eating in this manner. If you try to go 'cold turkey' on all your favorite foods and feel you need to be really strict on yourself in order to be healthy, you will probably end up returning to your acidic eating habits. Aim for mainly alkaline to start with and then you can proceed further up the alkaline ladder and reduce the more acidic foods.
