What's Wrong With Your Diet?

Recently, Sebastian and colleagues compared the pre-agricultural diet of our ancestors to the modern North American diet.(8) After evaluating the two diets for what they call NEAP (net endogenous acid production) - essentially the same measure as the PRAL above - a -88mEq/day acid load characterized the pre-agricultural diet while the modern diet was characterized by a +48mEq/day acid load. What this means is that our ancestors evolved eating a diet that was very alkaline/basic and therefore very low acid. However, modern people are eating a diet that is high in acid, and therefore very different from what we evolved to eat. As a result, our modern diet is responsible for what the authors have called a "life-long, low grade pathogenically significant systemic acidosis."

How have we gotten so far off track? Well, the shift from net base producing foods to net acid producing foods comes mostly as a result of displacing the high bicarbonate-yielding plants and fruits in the diet with high acid grains. In addition, most of our modern energy dense, nutrient poor selections are also acid forming. Finally, high protein animal foods tend to be acid producing as well.

If you're now wondering how your diet stacks up, check out the table I've provided below. This table includes a listing of 114 commonly consumed foods and their PRAL scores. A negative PRAL score indicates the food is basic/alkaline. A positive PRAL score indicates the food is acidic. A score of 0 indicates the food is neutral.