Marni Wasserman

This book made some claims that caused me to wonder, so I checked out a few of them. Generally I found it to be inaccurate or misleading.

Claim: Dairy foods are rather acidic and can leach calcium from your bones. (Page 29)
Finding: Based on the areas under the blood radioactivity curves, lactase-deficient subjects and controls absorbed calcium equally well from yogurt and milk. (Lactase deficient is something of a worst case.)
rel="nofollow" target="_top">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3934956

Finding: These data indicate that, in lactase-deficient subjects, malabsorption of lactose does not affect calcium absorption.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3754202

Milk, yogurt, and cheese are rich natural sources of calcium and are the major food contributors of this nutrient to people in the United States [1]. Nondairy sources include vegetables, such as Chinese cabbage, kale, and broccoli.
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Calcium-HealthProfessional/

Comment: What is this acid/alkaline nonsense? The stomach is a highly acidic place in order to digest the food. So, the acid in the stomach overwhelms any acidity of the food.
Finding: The pH of gastric acid is 1.5 to 3.5 in the human stomach lumen, (Now that is acidic.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric_acid

Finding: Milk 6.3 - 8.5 (That’s not acidic! Milk is slightly on the base side of the scale.)
http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodborneIllnessContaminants/CausesOfIllnessBadBugBook/u...

Claim: Choose alternatives to wheat (page 37)
Finding: This grain is grown on more land area than any other commercial food.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat
Comment: I'm not convinced that I should avoid wheat. I still think of it as the staff of life, and homemade bread is my favorite food.

Claim: Chocolate is the ultimate antioxidant! (Page 65)
Finding: Many of us would love to believe that chocolate is a health food. Maybe you’ve heard or read about its potential benefits. Eating chocolate may have some health pluses, but the research is far from certain. The drawbacks, on the other hand, are clear. Think twice before you reach for that tempting treat. (Then the article goes into the research that first made it appear that chocolate has health benefits. It is well worth reading)
https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/issue/aug2011/feature1

Claim: Cheap protein powers can actually harm your recovery by causing your body to become acidic. (Page 276)
Finding: A pH of 7 is neutral. The lower the pH, the more acidic the blood. A variety of factors affect blood pH including what is ingested, vomiting, diarrhea, lung function, endocrine function, kidney function, and urinary tract infection. The normal blood pH is tightly regulated between 7.35 and 7.45. (Slightly alkaline.)
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=10001

Instead of having me eat common readily available foods, it would steer me toward exotic, more difficult to find foods. They might be fun to sample, but it looks like a headache and I haven’t seen the justification for it being necessary.

Needless to say, I did not read the entire book.… (mehr)