Matt Stone did some research into a protocol called RBTI that involves measuring salivary pH and manipulating body chemistry -
http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com/search/label/RBTI. I think RBTI is mad but I've got a lot of time for Matt Stone.
I'm pretty sure that the 'grains and meat' causing acidity and leaching calcium and fruit and veges being alkalizing has been debunked as pseudoscience. This paper in
Research Reports in Clinical Cardiology entitled 'The western diet and diseases of civilisation' has a section on acid load that appears to be well referenced.
Net acid load
After digestion, absorption, and metabolism, nearly all foods
release either acid or base into the systemic circulation.
Dairy products (especially hard cheeses), cereal grains, salt
(because of the chloride ion), meats, fish, shellfish, and eggs
are net acid yielding, whereas fresh fruit, vegetables, tubers,
roots, and nuts are net base yielding.65,215
It was recently estimated that the diet of East African Homo
sapiens during the Paleolithic era was predominantly net base
producing,216 as opposed to the typical western diet, which is
net acid yielding65,215 and hence leads to a chronic, low-grade
metabolic acidosis, which elicits loss of calcium ions caused by
mobilization of alkaline salts from bone to titrate some of the
retained hydrogen ions.215 This calcium is lost in the urine with-
out a compensatory increase in gastrointestinal absorption.215
Chronic, low-grade metabolic acidosis also induces the release
of amino acids, including glutamine and amino acids that the
liver can convert to glutamine.215 Glutamine is the major nitro-
gen source used by the kidney for synthesis of ammonia, thereby
increasing the excretion of acid (as ammonium ion) in the urine
and mitigating the severity of the acidosis.215 ccordingly, in
the long term, a net acid-yielding diet may increase the risk for
osteoporosis and sarcopenia.65,215
Furthermore, a net acid-yielding diet increases not only
calcium excretion217 but also magnesium excretion.218 Finally,
there is evidence that chloride (a key determinant of the
diet’s net acid load219) may be a major cause of salt-induced
hypertension.215
On a final note, this chronic, low-grade metabolic acidosis
is exacerbated in elderly people who experience a decline
in glomerular filtration rate and hence have a decreased
renal acid excretion capacity,65 which is why correcting
diet-induced chronic metabolic acidosis in this age group
is even more important. Hence, we propose as a solution
to this chronic, low-grade metabolic acidosis a decreased
intake of sodium chloride and an increased consumption of
unprocessed fruit and vegetables, at the expense of refined
vegetable oils, refined sugars, cereal grains, hard cheeses,
and processed foods.
