What the heck’s wrong with pizza?

I’d like to devote this blog entry to pizza.  I have traveled all over the globe, and while there is nothing like pizza in NYC, Chicago or the mother land (Italia), I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that my fathers pizza is literally out of this world.  With all the places I’ve traveled, I have still never come across anything that remotely touches my dads pizza.  In addition, I’m a pretty good cook myself, and I can’t touch it either.  It’s truly legendary.

Of course, he makes his own dough, which is a step up from anything you’ll ever get in a restaurant that offers pizza.  In addition, the sauce is also homemade, and he only uses fresh ingredients.  However…

Pizza is not really something that works well for me.  Let’s just start with the dough.  It’s wheat-based, and I am allergic to wheat.  Gluten-free dough is much, much better, but very few places carry that kind of dough.  The cheese is probably the worst offender, and for so many reasons.  Despite my absolute love for cheese and wine, cheese is one of the most unhealthy things we can eat, and for a variety of reasons.

It’s not rocket science anymore… Most everyone is well-aware that human beings don’t actually need dairy, in fact the entire way cheese is processed and the way milk is homogenized is problematic.  I recently read a statistic that France and Ireland have the highest rate of breast cancer anywhere… Both of these country’s diets are cheese and meat-driven, and I cannot help but wonder if there’s a correlation.

When most cheese is made, however, the lactose in milk is converted into lactic acid by bacteria. The resultant acid begins the curdling process that eventually results in cheese, and little – if any – lactose remains at the end. Sometimes even trace amounts of lactose can trigger sensitive individuals, but cheese is usually fairly safe. A good general rule is the longer a cheese is aged, the less lactose it’ll have. Another thing to remember: the less lactose a cheese has, the less carbohydrates.

HOWEVER…

Complications arise because of the acidity in cheese.  Medical Microbiologist and author, Dr. Robert O. Young says, “That is why I have stated, “acid is pain and pain is acid.” You cannot have one without the other. This is the beginning of latent tissue acidosis leading to irritation, inflammation and degeneration of the cells, tissues and organs. After a rich animal protein or dairy product meal, the urine pH becomes alkaline. The ingestion of meat and cheese causes a reaction in acidic fashion in the organism by the production of sulfuric, phosporhoric, nitric, uric, lactic, acetylaldehyde and ethanol acids, respectively, but also through the formation and excretion of base in the urine. Therefore eating meat and cheese causes a double loss of bases leading to tissue acidosis and eventual disease, especially inflammation and degenerative diseases.”

I was in an accident 11 years ago, that opened the door for arthritis to blast the areas of my body that were traumatized from the collision.  It’s been quite a battle, and when my doctor who was doing all of the food allergy testing then told me that I have “Gout,” I was floored.  “Gout?” I said… “That’s for the seriously old.”  He asked for more blood-work… and I tentatively obliged.  As he suspected, my acid levels were off the charts.  This was the beginning of my indoctrination into the world of pH balance, and eating according to our design, which is more alkaline.  Acid causes disease and it causes pain.  When I asked the doctor what I could do for gout he said, “Yeah, become a vegan.”  I was aghast!  For an Italian, with the kind of eating tradition I was used to, I couldn’t even wrap my  brain around that concept.  All I could think of was the few vegans that I had encountered over the years, who were hippies with grown out arm-pit hair, unshaved legs, etc.  You get the idea… everything was a-natural… Believe me.  This was NOT something I wanted to remotely embrace.  In a nutshell, I was pissed.

One can begin to understand why eating vats of sauce, cannoli’s, pasta, pizza and slabs of roast were all not what this new doctor would order.  Indeed, it was out with the roast and in with kale, but it didn’t happen overnight.  Believe me, I bucked this for YEARS!  I was more upset about giving up things like polenta, semolina pasta and rib eye steaks than chocolate or ice cream.

Bottom line—these foods on an occasion are not the thing that’s going to make us sick, but continuous consumption of acid-driven, carb-bent, animal protein will become a health issue at some point.  I began to research and read everything I could get my hand on about arthritis and gout (which is another form of arthritis). All disease is formed because of an over-acidification in the body…In other words, disease comes about when a person’s pH is not alkaline balanced, but acidic.  Even more interesting, especially when considering my diet while growing up, gout is called the “rich mans disease,” and it is caused from too much protein in the diet.  Animal-based protein, which when broken down in the body produces ACID in the blood.

Perhaps the saying, “You are what you eat” is true.  There is no doubt in my mind that my “Italian” protein-driven, carb-based diet laid the groundwork for issues as I got older.  By the way… pasta, polenta and bread all break down in the body as sugar, and sugar is acidic.

When choosing between pizza, tradition and familiarity, or learning a new way to eat, I eventually did choose the later, and WOW…what a difference it’s made!

But, more on that later…

Source:  Great article to read!

http://articlesofhealth.blogspot.com/2011/09/why-eating-meat-and-cheese-leads-to.html