Question

What is pH? Will it teach you to eat and digest food better? Can you change the acidic/alkaline nature of foods by varying ingredients and cooking methods? What is the pH value of orange juice, bread, and milk? Do you get heartburn only because of eating acidic foods? Is heartburn reserved for older people? Who typically gets heartburn and why? Where do eggs rate on the pH scale? How will you use the information that you just learned to improve your health?

Answer 1

pH is a measure to calculate the amount of acidity or alkalinity of a solution. It ranges from 0 to 14, 0 means that the substance is extremely acidic and 14 means the solution is extremely alkaline and 7 means that the solution is neutral. It is logarithmic and it is the negative of logarithmic base 10 activity of H+ ions. Thus, shows the amount of H+ ions present in the solution.

The pH of food will change with cooking and adding ingredients. During cooking if we are heating the food that means we are providing head to the solution that means the pH reaction will shift towards the endothermic side to increase the consumption of available heat in accord to Le Châtelier's Principle. The conditions will shift so as to absorb the available heat. For example the pH of water decreases on heating because of favor of forward reaction which is towards the side of H+ and OH- ions. However, the overall acidity or alkalinity of the solution would not vary as the total number of available ions in the solution remains same.

Adding ingredients to a solution will change its pH as the no. of available H+ and OH- ions change. For example if you add water to an acidic solution its acidity decreases. Adding a strong acid in water will dramatically change the pH of the solution for example if we add water in HCl the following reaction will take place-

HCl + H₂O → H₃O⁺ + Cl^-

^{thus, the free H+ions in the solution reacted with water to make H3O+ thus decreasing the pH.}

SOLUTION	pH
orange juice	3.8
bread	5 to 6
milk	6.7 to 6.9
eggs (yolk)	6.4 to 6.9

Heartburn is a retrosternal discomfort of burning type and often rise up to the chest and can be accompanied by acidic regurgitation of acidic fluid which is bitter in the throat. This mostly occurs after means when the person lies down or is bending or straining or is heavy lifting after a meal. Symptoms are chest pain, halitosis, belching, coughing and soar throat. It can happen at any age in younger patient it is found that the response to the dietary changes is good, acid suppressants and antacids but in older patients above 55 years of age endoscopy is required. Ingestion of certain kind of acidic foods increases the chances of heart burn like citric food, chocolates, spicy food, etc. but there can be other causes also like obesity, smoking habits, certain drugs,etc. Anything that triggers that acid reflux of the stomach can cause heart burn.

To avoid heartburn the patient should avoid or limit ingestion of milk, carbonated drinks, smoking, caffeine and should intake protein from non cholesterol source, bananas, high fiber foods, green vegetables and potatoes. To maintain a good digestive system health we should avoid habits like smoking and heavy alcohol consumption, intake of highly acidic or alkaline food, after having a meal we should avoid exercising like heavy lifting and bending and lying down.