Basically our healthy cells in our body have an alkali nature. The more acidic our cells, the more we will be easier to get ill. Our body produces acid as a side effect of normal metabolism. If the body no longer produces alkali, the need of alkali must be supplied from the outside. Principally, a diet with 80 percents of alkali and 20 percents acid will make us healthy.

When a person who got an early stage cancer, having a strict alkali diet could potentially cured them. Generally it’s known that normally our body has an alkali character with pH 7.4. Within this balance, the chemicals within the body would work at its best and all the waste and toxin would be disposed quickly.

But when the body gets too acidic or consuming too much acidic food then our blood and our body will become acidic. Consequently the liver, spleen, heart and kidney have to work harder to clean up our blood. This kind of condition will make us more vulnerable to deceases. But we have always accused the virus for being the cause of all of our deceases.

The toxin that still stayed in our body usually gathered at our joints, causing rheumatism and gout. The toxin could get out from our body in the form of acnes, eczema, abscess and more. Worst, the acidic state of the blood and body could trigger deceases like high blood pressure, hemorrhoids, heart attack, cancer, and so on.

Alkali foods are also identical with vegan food. Meat, fish, and eggs are acidic. Other acidic example are tea, coffee, alcoholic drinks, chili, pickles, spices, vinegar, grains (especially whiten-grain, or granulated flour), garlic, oil, fat, and food that contains too much sugar.

The alkali food that need to be increased in our diet are vegetables (especially green vegetables), milk, butter, honey, fruits, and juices especially the one with high water content like papaya, pineapple, tomato, and banana.

If you’re daily diet contains rice then the perfect rice to use is red rice or brown rice. If there is no red rice available you could make them from organic white rice cooked with vegetable stock. The vegetable stock is made from a long boiling of carrots and celery, so the vegetables essence will be totally absorbed by the cooking water. Using the vegetable stock is more like demi glace (brown stock made from beef and bone) which commonly used for cooking.

One of the vegetables soup recipe known are made from spinach, avocado, paprika, celery, mixed with vegetables stock and a bit cooking spices. To enhance the texture a handful of almond nuts can be added. Then blend. For the final touch we’ll use lemon squeeze.

Hey, wait a minute. That’s not a good idea, because lemons are acidic. Well, that’s not true. Just because it tastes sour it doesn’t mean that lemon is acidic. If we drink a lemon juice, the juice will oxidize into water, carbon dioxide, and other alkaline inorganic matter. That’s why lemon is one of the alkaline citrus. Sour fruits like pineapple, orange, and grapes are also alkaline.

Nowdays we could see restaurants or bakeries in Bali that serves healthy food – whether it’s alkaline food, macrobiotic, vegetarian, organic, and other health foods. Zula for an example is one of the restaurants in Jalan Dhyanapura that serves macrobiotic food.

Macrobiotic is a popular diet methodology in 1980s. Macro means big or tall, and bio means alive, which mean through this method, people are expected to live longer. Basically the concept teaches people to eat seeds, beans, and vegetables. Processed food must be avoided and all food must be chewed until it’s tender before swallowing it.

Macrobiotic has almost the same method as alkali food, especially the forbidding of meat and strict organic vegetable diet. But Macrobiotic is stricter because it holds the yin-yang principal. The food generates energy for us, but that energy has to be balanced in its yin-yang, and that balance could only be attained with the right menu. Some menu suggested in alkali food – like avocado, beets, spinach – is forbidden because it leans too much to yin. Macrobiotic is also a suggested diet methodology for treating cancer.

What does this new knowledge I’ve discovered means to me? For all this time I’ve always been stressing the principal “know what you eat” for everyone who likes to eat. These new knowledge complete my understanding about food.

Who wouldn’t want to live healthy, both body and soul?

Translated and edited from Mr. Bondan Winarno’s article in Kompas.com