Susun Weeds Wise Woman Forum

I have read that a low acid diet is best to help prevent osteoporosis. Does this mean that herbal infusions made with cider vinegar are not a good idea due to the acid in the vinegar?

I'm actually not sure - I'll do some research but I'll be interested in what anyone else has to offer, information wise.

mo

Hmm, I'll leave actual Advice to others, but I have a vague idea that in smaller doses, a splash of nourishing herbal vinegars actually help with getting the minerals out of dark leafy greens. At least that was my understanding, so would hesitantly suggest small splashes to be Helpful to osteo-issues. Vinegar helps make the calcium in darker greens more bio-available... I think. Or perhaps it's the oil that helps break down the cells and "cooks" salads for us. Been a while.

That said, my other herbalist friend swears by making an almost Heroic medicine from vinegar & eggshells, to splash on lambsquarter salad, for helping her friend with brittle bones. All that calcium in a cup, much yummier than in a pill. But your milage may vary...and I'd need to research more for "real answers" from more knowledgable sorts here.

I will second what Nate wrote. By all means use some ACV on foods and to extract minerals from herbs and greens, and bone broths etc. Our stomachs are naturally acidic and necessarily so...we need acid to digest foods - to make the nutrients more bio-available and absorbable. But then further down in the GI tract it all gets turned more alkaline.

There is a place for both acid and alkaline. They are natural and they do a dance and the timing is everything.

There is a lot more to this topic but you have to delve deeper to understand acid "forming" and alkaline "forming" processes, and how the body deals with constantly 'balancing' (compensating), to keep fluid systems within a narrow PH range.

I have learnt that what constitutes as acidic as we see it outside the body does not mean it's an 'acidic food'. What makes a food acidic, is more what happens when it enters the body. There are some foods like lemon juice and acv that actually turn alkaline within the body.

I don't have a complete understanding of it all, but mainly that red meats, sugars, any sweeteners, or foods that convert to nasty sugars i.e. most junk foods, all are heavy on the acidity level, once they are in the body.

I hope this little bit of info helps!

I'm no expert, but I've always understood that nettles, dandelion greens, and other good mineral-rich green herbs infused in vinegar are wonderful for bone health. And now that I'm no longer taking medication for osteopenia, I have been planning to add a lot more such preparations to my diet!