7 Alkaline Foods For Optimum Health

If you want to lose weight, maintain fantastic health and look fabulous and full of vitality, you'd do well to find out about following an 'alkaline diet'.

Check out this list of 7 wonderful and easy to find alkaline foods that you should include in your diet almost every day:

1. Spinach - In general, all dark green leafy vegetables are alkaline foods. Spinach fall into this category and is highly alkalizing. The chlorophyll contained in the green pigment is pure sunlight energy and highly alkalizing to our bodies. It is most beneficial eaten raw, in salads or even juiced with some other alkaline foods, such as...

2. Avocado - one of the only alkaline fruits, it makes a great smoothie when blended with spinach, cucumber and pineapple (pineapple is not alkaline but we are looking to achieve a 70:30 balance between alkaline and acidic foods, so this is ok ☺). Avocado is also packed full of essential omega oils, for a healthy heart and great skin, hair and nails, as well as maintaining good joint functionality.

3. Celery - With virtually zero calories in it and full of nutrients, you can't really go wrong with celery. It's great to eat celery sticks raw with houmous dip, or chop it up in your spinach salads, with some seeds and almonds, or make a cabbage and celery soup if you like. Celery loses its bitter taste when cooked but remember that cooking also destroys some of the vitamins and minerals and makes it less alkaline.

4. Tomatoes - our little round red friends are fantastic alkaline foods and, like avocadoes, one of the only alkaline fruits. Tomatoes contain lycopene, which can help to prevent against heart attacks. However, lycopene it is not well absorbed into the body unless the tomatoes are cooked. Thus, the best sources are concentrated tomato products like tomato paste, ketchup and tomato juice. Also, vine-ripened tomatoes contain more lycopene than ones that are picked before they fully ripen.

Tomatoes can be found everywhere ad they're pretty cheap, so you should be eating them all the time, as a main staple in your alkaline diet!

5. Broccoli - broccoli contains loads of cancer preventing/fighting anti-oxidants and it is also a good source of folate, iron, fibre, potassium and vitamin K, and has more calcium than a glass of milk (milk is acidic by the way too).

6. Cucumber - like celery, there are virtually no calories in cucumber, just water, nutrients and chlorophyll. Cut up into crudités and dip in houmous, or chop into salads. The most alkalizing part of a cucumber is its dark green skin, so eat all of it.

7. Lemons - many people are surprised to learn that lemons are an alkaline food. A fantastic and cheap way to make alkaline water is to squeeze the juice of a couple of lemons into a large jug of fresh water, or a lemon and a lime and drink.