Hey All,
Just got done reading JB’s article in this weeks issue. Interesting stuff to say the least! Jeez…even with a diet that is high in protein and “clean” carb sources (grainy bread, oatmeal, etc)…we are still at risk of acidosis. Anyways, he suggested that to counteract this we can supplement with glutamine or we can opt for the cheaper bicarbonate (baking soda). He stated that 2-5 grams of baking soda would be sufficient to add into our protein shakes. My question is what does that amount translate to in terms of table spoons? I am assuming that 1 tbsp would be ample or would I need more? of maybe even less? Thanks for the clarification and help. Tony G
According to the box of Arm and Hammer’s Baking Soda 1/8 of a teaspoon equals 600mg. So 2 grams would be little less than 1/2 of a teaspoon. 5 grams would be just a little bit over a teaspoon or 1.04 teaspoons. The box also says that the amount of a serving is in baked food. Not totally sure how this translate if you just take it right out of the box and put it in your shake.
I would say the easiest way to do this is if you have a supplement like gluatmine, just take the serving cup that came with the bottle which is 5 grams and use that to measure your baking soda.
By the way I tested this and 5 grams of L-glutamine is almost exactly 1 tsp.
-Junior
Shit man, I tried taking 1.25 tbsp of baking soda, and I had SHITS for 3 straight hours. It wasn’t just shits, it was like I was peeing out of my ass. It was the most runny 'rhea I’ve ever had. I suggest taking small amounts at first and seeing if you can handle it.
Most people aren’t going to be able to tolerate sodium bicarbonate very well. You can get potassium bicarbonate here:
or look around for potassium citrate which may be even better.
thats probably the worst thing i have read from JB, still better than most articles i read, but not entirely realistic.
2-5 g of baking soda, that must be a joke/misprint.
I know of 800m+ runners that use BS and most cant handle more than 2g and they do the stuff reasonable often.
Anyways JB i still worship you…
Hi Guys,
I was just looking around the forum to see what you thought of friday’s article.
I’ve actually gotten tons of feedback so far. Actually there have been more emails in response to this article than in response to any article I’ve ever written.
So as I read your comments, I just wanted to chime in and confirm your conversation. Yes, baking soda may be hard for some to handle. However, I think Whetu is a bit off base. In all the sodium bicarb literature (and I’ve actually been a participant in bicarb studies), the researchers give 0.3g/kg. That translates into 20-30g for athletes in the 70-100kg range. Sure, there are serious GI problems with these doses.
However, at the recent ACSM conference,in a study in which sodium bicarb was given in the small 2-5g range, there were no problems. More than that, and you’re probably in trouble.
Regardless, dont focus on baking soda! I believe I suggested - in this order -
-
Taking a look at your diet and trying to balance your PRAL.
-
Adding fruits and veggies to each meal.
-
Adding some glutamine to shakes, meals.
-
Adding baking soda or alka-seltzer to the diet.
What’s so impractical about any of that?
In addition, here are some solutions that you might also consider -
a) As Kelly suggested, Potassium Bicarb or Potassium Citrate (the research uses these also).
b) Tums may also offer benefit as would most sources of calcium carbonate
Im partial to using sodium or potassium bicarb because they are relatively inexpensive and seem to be the “gold standard” in research settings for correcting problems of excess acidity.
JB,
After reading you article it seems to me that on a cutting diet (with very low carbs such as T-Dawg) it is very hard to carryout some of your recommendations to even out the PRAL.
Besides adding Baking Soda and L-glutamine to every meal that is in the acid range, what other recommendations do you have? We do not have the advantage of adding fruits to our diets and most of us already add a lot of fiberous veggies such as broccoli, spinach, beans, and collard greens. The majority of my P+F meals are still high in the acidic range.
For example, one of my P+F meal is
8oz lean beef and 180 grams Broccoli.
The PRAL of this meal is -17.34
I understand that broccoli isnt as high on the PRAL chain as spinach, but most people cannot eat spinach three times a day for a couple days a week.
So should our goal be that of just to minimize the acid load by only choosing items such as spinach which are increadibly basic?
Also I tried to get a hold on the study of glutamine (7), but the only thing I can find was that of adding glutamine to cola and they saw a rise in alkaline reserves and plasma growth hormone. I cannot find any exact numbers, so what would be the PRAL of glutamine and Baking Soda?
Thanks a bunch.
I have been having difficulty in applying the latest article myself. Yesterday I added 1Tsp of baking soda to my Low Carb Grow + Flax and I barely got it all down, and still felt like I was going to hurl an hour later, and with all due respect, it is not very practical to add a salad to every meal consumed. There must be a better way.
1 Tbsp of B.soda is around 15g, so this is 3-7 times the recommended amount. Use a teaspoon(the actual measuring spoons you can buy at most kitchen supply stores, not an actual spoon) and make it level, not heaping. This will give you 5g of b.soda.
Try mixing the baking soda with a little nut butter for a P+F meal. It’s not good, but it’s better than in a shake.
cheers for the clear up JB, and like i said, i still worship the ground you walk on… JB used my name… wow! time to run around in a beatle-mania like crazed state… hehehe
anyway,
I have seen some studies and i must admit i couldn’t believe at how much they get these subjects to consume.
1 tspn is about my upper limit, in saying that i haven’t used the BS method in over 4 years so maybe i can handle that stuff now im a big boy.
Whetsu,
I’m with you brother!! Freakin JB chimed in on a thread that I started…haha. That made my day. I guess I was a bit oversumptious with my question about using a tablespoon of baking soda. I wasn’t clear as to what 2-5 grams equaled to. I’m the idiot. I’m glad that JB cleared it up though. Like he said, the order should be:
- figure out yout PRAL.
- adding some fruits and veggies to each meal (which by the way silles is practical)…whats NOT practical is using a salad each time. Try frozen veggies and throw them in the microwave. Shoot…I eat close to if not more than a bag of veggies day!
- supplement Glutamine in shakes
- add baking soda.
So suffice it to way, the baking soda is LAST on the list.
Thanks all for responding. Good times, good times.
Baking soda needs to be heavily diluted to be palatable; I use one-half teaspoon in a full cup of water, taken several times a day.
I emailed JB about the Tums. I also wondered about training that raised your lactid acid, thus making your blood more acidic. I think the raise is temporary, but I wonder if that would have any effect?
Ahh, surely you guys jest - too much flattery - too much flattery…
Seriously, thanks for the comments and questions. As indicated in the article, Im not an expert in this area yet - Im just very interested in it and am just beginning to explore it by digging deeper into the research.
To make it simple, what I might do is this…
Add more veggies, despite your current intake.
As long as we’re talking about baking soda here, I’ll just take the opportunity to remind everyone of the “Cure for the Common Cold” thread that I started a while back on the O/T forum. In it, I recommended (based on Michelle’s advice) that people take a tbsp or two of the stuff if they felt the onset of a cold, the idea being that the shift in pH would kill the cold virus off (viruses being very pH-specific).
Quite a few people responded to the thread, come saying that they tried it (and it worked!), others saying that they gave it a shot and got the runs. After having read JMB’s article, I’m now thinking that perhaps the difference could be partly that some people are in a more acidic state (and thus the baking soda is “needed” and well-tolerated) than others (who, being more “basic”, don’t need it and therefore find their bodies excreting it post-haste). Just a thought.
Also, there was some anecdotal stuff about people who took small amounts of baking soda after each meal on a regular basis and rarely got sick. Just a little more food for thought…
Another thought, since saliva is usually slightly alkaline, eating slower and chewing more, along with a proper chewing gum after meals may help a little.
I thought the article was bad ass. Different and thought provoking. Besides, almost everything JB writes is golden. I hope he comes up with more great “ish” for my grey matter.
I’ve been trying to apply the same principles for awhile now (I read the Paleo Diet almost a year ago).
Really, you can get many benefits by more fruits and vegetables instead of baking soda. I carry tupperware of salads I make in the morning, I just shake them, open them up and eat them. Also I get all my carbs from fruits (& veggies), I barely eat any grains at all.
I do take Metamucil though maybe once a day.
Fruits and vegetables also help stop calcium leaching associated with high protein diets (much more than drinking milk will help). I have a friend who had a calcium deficiency, drinking milk did not help, but the fruits & veggies did.
The more I think about this article, the more questions I have. White bread has a PRAL of 1.8, brown rice of 10.7 Huh? I’m better off eating Wonderbread, cake and Kellogg’s Cornflakes than brown rice and oatmeal? There has to be more going on here… Not many people argue about eating whole fruits and veggies, but how useful is this PRAL data if it so strongly contradicts experience?