Introduction
It took me twenty years of researching, writing, and consulting in the fi eld of alternative health before I found the common denominator in all degenerative disease: acidic waste.
These wastes are largely the byproducts of the food we eat. Wherever acid waste accumulates, it causes nearby organs to malfunction and degenerate. Before I ever became aware that acidic wastes could cause serious health problems, I was unknowingly devising simple strategies to reduce the toxic acid levels in my body.
After a stressful day at work, I would take a hot bath unusual for me, as I am a confirmed shower taker or drink some hot milk. I later learned that hot baths and hot milk reduce excess acidity in the urine, and this has a calming effect on the nerves.
A remedy I used for an upset stomach was an ice pack. It gave me relief within seconds. I read later in the medical journal Lancet that cold temperatures stimulate the production of antihistamines as the name implies, they destroy histamines, which are the cause of allergic reactions. Yet if you had asked me at the time if elevated acid levels were dangerous to health, I would have denied it.
Despite being knowledgeable about the physiology of the body, I knew nothing about hyperacidity. After all, my mother had had acid indigestion all her life, and she died at the age of ninety-eight, still able to live by herself.
Whenever she had a stomach upset, she used an old folk remedy handed down from her mother: one-eighth teaspoon each of bicarbonate of soda, spirits of ix ammonia, and essence of peppermint.
The alkalinity of the ammonia,
bicarbonate of soda, and peppermint neutralized the acidic residues in
her stomach—the by-products of foods not adequately broken down.
