The starting point is to maintain the correct acid/alkaline balance in the body.
This is the absolute foundation of sound nutrition. If we get this right and keep it right, most of our health falls into place. While the bloodstream is strongly buffered to be slightly alkaline at a pH close to 7.4 and works very hard to maintain the 7.4 level, tissue fluids can vary in their acidity, and if they are forced to depart far from the optimum (being close to neutral), we are in deep trouble.
A body that is very acidic – and therefore in a toxic state – is prone to inflammatory conditions like colds and eventually degenerative illnesses like arthritis and worse.

The acid/alkaline balance depends mainly on what we eat. Because foods are either acid –
or alkaline forming. Generally speaking, the foods that leave an alkaline residue in the body are the fresh, ripe fruits and green, yellow and red vegetables. But foods that increase acidity are almost all the rest, like meat, cheese, eggs, nuts, legumes, seeds, grains (such as bread, pasta, rice and cakes), refined sugar, coffee, tea and so on.

Because fruits and vegetables have a high-water content, we need much more of them to balance the concentrated foods. They need to comprise three-quarters to four-fifths of total food intake (by weight), with the concentrated foods that supply protein, carbohydrate and fat comprising only one-quarter to one-fifth.

Most Australians consume nowhere near this proportion of fruits and vegetables, paying the way for illnesses ranging from colds to arthritis or possibly cancer.

One of the greatest mistakes in nutrition is the assumption that acid fruits, including citrus,
pineapples and tomatoes, are acid forming. But they are not, they are alkaline forming.
During the metabolic process in the body, their weak organic acids are broken down to release energy, and the acidic end product, carbon dioxide, is breathed out, living a residue of alkaline minerals. We get rid of the acidic part and are left with the alkaline part. So acid fruits, like other fruits, are alkaline forming.