When we think about maintaining strong bones, we automatically think calcium, but a low-acid diet built around fruits and vegetables might be beneficial, too.
In her book Building Bone Vitality, University of North Carolina Assistant Professor of Health and Wellness Amy Lanou, PhD, tells us lowering your body's acidity is as important as getting enough calcium. That's not the acid in foods, but the acid level in your body as regulated by the foods you eat, with animal proteins at the high-acid end, and fruits and vegetables at the low acid, or alkaline end.
Eating less protein from acid-producing meat and cheese products, and more alkaline-forming fruits and vegetables in your overall diet can stop your body from leaching the calcium out of your bones. Keeping calcium in the bones where it belongs prevents osteoporosis and decreases the need for more calcium in the diet. She stresses that the overall dietary pattern is more important than what she calls the "single-nutrient approach" for bone health.
A low-acid diet would contain 6-9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, and fewer animal proteins from cheese, meats, poultry and fish. Most other foods such as cereal, grains, milk, and beans, are all somewhat neutral when it comes to acid.
The low-acid approach to maintaining bone health also helps explain why Asian countries that consume much less calcium in their diets have a much lower rate of osteoporosis than in the west. Western countries with the highest rates of osteoporosis not only consume the most dairy products, but also consume the most meat, poultry and fish, and eat fewer fruits and vegetables.
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