How to Accept Ripe Pu-Erh?

[Puerlife]

entropyembrace - Thank you for your fantastic post. I had it all backwards. (Thank you very little, local health food store owner.)
Ferment longer, reduce the alcohol. Got it.
Vinegar is acidic but they say its effect on the body is alkaline? According to the oft-cited ash test? I read something to the effect that that test is quack science but I wouldn't know. I suppose my main reason for being concerned about acid intake is that I use tea as a coffee replacement. I probably take in just as much or more caffeine by gong fu-ing so much tea, but I feel better and can sustain it over a long period of time, while even two cups of coffee leaves me feeling lethargic and strung out after only a week. I attributed that to coffee being acidic, but then, you know how well-read I am in science. Any insights would be appreciated.

[entropyembrace]

the whole idea of regulating the alkalinity of your body through diet is quackery, don't worry about it Vinegar will not alter your internal pH.

About the caffeine from tea vs coffee I think the dose from tea is usually less than coffee even for extreme pot packers (like me ) because you really use a lot of coffee when you're making it properly but even when your total dose from gongfu tea is higher than what you'd get from the coffee you're drinking it's spread out over many infusions so you take it more slowly while with coffee you infuse everything out that you want in one go and drink it. I've also seen the idea that the catechins in tea slow down caffeine absorption but I don't know if this came from a good quality peer-reviewed study or not.

Anyway neither coffee nor tea will actually alter the pH of your body at all so that can't be why you feel better drinking tea over coffee.

[Puerlife]

the whole idea of regulating the alkalinity of your body through diet is quackery, don't worry about it Vinegar will not alter your internal pH.

Hm, you have just (inadvertently?) branded a huge body of peer reviewed research quackery.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3195546/

[entropyembrace]

the whole idea of regulating the alkalinity of your body through diet is quackery, don't worry about it Vinegar will not alter your internal pH.

Hm, you have just (inadvertently?) branded a huge body of peer reviewed research quackery.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3195546/

There is no huge body of peer-reviewed literature supporting the alkaline diet. The review article you posted makes that clear.

Most of the potential benefits that Dr. Gerry K. Schwalfenberg identified are a result of improving potassium/sodium ion ratios by following the recommendation to eat more fruits and vegetables which has nothing to do with actually altering the acid balance of the body.

Most of the peer-reviewed literature that directly addresses the basis of the alkaline diet have found serious problems with the hypothesis that altering urinary pH actually changes calcium balance in the body. Those papers are cited in the review you linked to above.

[debunix]

Quack quack lkaline diet quack alkaline urine quack quack quackity quack.

Not worth my time to do my own point by point when it's already been done quite well on quackwatch: Acid/Alkaline Theory of Disease Is Nonsense.

[PurplePotato]

Quack quack lkaline diet quack alkaline urine quack quack quackity quack.

Not worth my time to do my own point by point when it's already been done quite well on quackwatch: Acid/Alkaline Theory of Disease Is Nonsense.

Key section from the article:

• Certain foods can leave end-products called ash that can make your urine acid or alkaline, but urine is the only body fluid that can have its acidity changed by food or supplements. ALKALINE-ASH FOODS include fresh fruit and raw vegetables. ACID-ASH FOODS include ALL ANIMAL PRODUCTS, whole grains, beans and other seeds. These foods can change the acidity of your urine, but that's irrelevant since your urine is contained in your bladder and does not affect the pH of any other part of your body.
  
  When you take in more protein than your body needs, your body cannot store it, so the excess amino acids are converted to organic acids that would acidify your blood. But your blood never becomes acidic because as soon as the proteins are converted to organic acids, calcium leaves your bones to neutralize the acid and prevent any change in pH. Because of this, many scientists think that taking in too much protein may weaken bones to cause osteoporosis.

So consuming too much protein can cause osteoporosis, and as foods high in protein are acid-ash foods, you could say that a high acid diet causes osteoporosis. But this does not mean acidic foods like vinegar are harmful.

[Puerlife]

the whole idea of regulating the alkalinity of your body through diet is quackery, don't worry about it Vinegar will not alter your internal pH.

Hm, you have just (inadvertently?) branded a huge body of peer reviewed research quackery.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3195546/

There is no huge body of peer-reviewed literature supporting the alkaline diet. The review article you posted makes that clear.

Most of the potential benefits that Dr. Gerry K. Schwalfenberg identified are a result of improving potassium/sodium ion ratios by following the recommendation to eat more fruits and vegetables which has nothing to do with actually altering the acid balance of the body.

Most of the peer-reviewed literature that directly addresses the basis of the alkaline diet have found serious problems with the hypothesis that altering urinary pH actually changes calcium balance in the body. Those papers are cited in the review you linked to above.

I think we are getting somewhere now. For some reason you insist on separating the K/Na ratio from an alkaline diet while the author has no such problem; in fact he plainly states in his conclusion: “Increased fruits and vegetables in an alkaline diet would improve the K/Na ratio and may benefit bone health, reduce muscle wasting, as well as mitigate other chronic diseases such as hypertension and strokes.” (Italics mine) Apparently, potassium and sodium do survive the stomach acid, and the potassium/sodium ratio (along with Vitamin D and magnesium) directly affect body processes and prevent such things as the blood needing to rob bone marrow of calcium. And since a healthy potassium/sodium ratio is alkaline, many people just talk about an alkaline diet. I’ve never mentioned the urine test in this thread because I don’t trust it and am not interested in it. What do you mean by “the acid balance of the body”?

[entropyembrace]

So consuming too much protein can cause osteoporosis, and as foods high in protein are acid-ash foods, you could say that a high acid diet causes osteoporosis. But this does not mean acidic foods like vinegar are harmful.

This is false and is addressed early in the article that Puerlife posted.

[entropyembrace]

the whole idea of regulating the alkalinity of your body through diet is quackery, don't worry about it Vinegar will not alter your internal pH.

Hm, you have just (inadvertently?) branded a huge body of peer reviewed research quackery.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3195546/

There is no huge body of peer-reviewed literature supporting the alkaline diet. The review article you posted makes that clear.

Most of the potential benefits that Dr. Gerry K. Schwalfenberg identified are a result of improving potassium/sodium ion ratios by following the recommendation to eat more fruits and vegetables which has nothing to do with actually altering the acid balance of the body.

Most of the peer-reviewed literature that directly addresses the basis of the alkaline diet have found serious problems with the hypothesis that altering urinary pH actually changes calcium balance in the body. Those papers are cited in the review you linked to above.

I think we are getting somewhere now. For some reason you insist on separating the K/Na ratio from an alkaline diet while the author has no such problem; in fact he plainly states in his conclusion: “Increased fruits and vegetables in an alkaline diet would improve the K/Na ratio and may benefit bone health, reduce muscle wasting, as well as mitigate other chronic diseases such as hypertension and strokes.” (Italics mine) Apparently, potassium and sodium do survive the stomach acid, and the potassium/sodium ratio (along with Vitamin D and magnesium) directly affect body processes and prevent such things as the blood needing to rob bone marrow of calcium. And since a healthy potassium/sodium ratio is alkaline, many people just talk about an alkaline diet. I’ve never mentioned the urine test in this thread because I don’t trust it and am not interested in it. What do you mean by “the acid balance of the body”?

What all of that means is that the alkaline diet makes some good recommendations (eat more fruit and vegetables) but for the wrong reasons. This has nothing to do with making your body alkaline.

"acid balance of the body" each compartment of the body is buffered to maintain a specific pH. This is not altered by food. The hypothesis behind the alkaline diet is false.

[bonescwa]

Too much protein in the serum can theoretically bind calcium, lower free ionized calcium, increasing parathyroid hormone and subsequent calcium release from bone.

[BioHorn]

Well... the pu-puing is definitely on topic

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LoR3qnpyu38

[PurplePotato]

So consuming too much protein can cause osteoporosis, and as foods high in protein are acid-ash foods, you could say that a high acid diet causes osteoporosis. But this does not mean acidic foods like vinegar are harmful.

This is false and is addressed early in the article that Puerlife posted.

The author is pretty blunt about it in the conclusion (underlining mine):

• Alkaline diets result in a more alkaline urine pH and may result in reduced calcium in the urine, however, as seen in some recent reports, this may not reflect total calcium balance because of other buffers such as phosphate. There is no substantial evidence that this improves bone health or protects from osteoporosis.

Which I guess means that he found this to be unsubstantial: http://jn.nutrition.org/content/128/6/1051.long. The author here is also rather blunt (underlining mine again):

• Overall, the evidence leaves little doubt that excess acidity will create a reduction in total bone substance. This is normal physiology—not pathology. This is a mechanism of Homo sapiens to protect himself against acidosis. The ability to buffer the acidosis of starvation or a high meat diet gave a survival advantage in a hunter-gatherer society. Modern peoples are now eating high protein, acid-ash diets and losing their bones.

From a cursorily look, I get the impression that the first author agrees that a high acid-ash diet causes calcium loss from bones, but that other regulatory systems will balance out this affect. The second author comes to the conclusion that such regulatory systems will not be that effective.

Sadly, even in peer-reviewed research, the truth can come down to who to believe. My guess is that one of these authors is massaging the data somehow.

Anyways, to go back to Puerlife's original question, according to this table: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/wordp ... s-pral.pdf, coffee has a lower PRAL (potential renal acid load) than green tea. So whatever cuases the "strung out" difference, it's probably not acidity.

[Puerlife]

About the caffeine from tea vs coffee I think the dose from tea is usually less than coffee even for extreme pot packers (like me ) because you really use a lot of coffee when you're making it properly but even when your total dose from gongfu tea is higher than what you'd get from the coffee you're drinking it's spread out over many infusions so you take it more slowly while with coffee you infuse everything out that you want in one go and drink it. I've also seen the idea that the catechins in tea slow down caffeine absorption but I don't know if this came from a good quality peer-reviewed study or not.

Both of the reasons here seem likely. I major hit of caffeine in a mug of strong coffee (what other kind is there? ) must tax the body's resources more than a similar (or lesser amount) in a gong fu session. I feel a huge amount of caffeine with some black teas, too, but green, oolong and my dear pu are much nicer to my sensitive system. I'm too lazy to follow this thread into even more sciency areas and it seems we're never going to agree but I want to thank you for explaining kombucha to me and also the idea of the K/Na ratio.
Purple potato--very interesting chart you linked to; I've downloaded it. Thank you.
The quackers--Thanks for the entertainment but it's like arriving at a party and everyone's ten drinks ahead of me; just can't catch up. A word to the wise: google "quackwatch is a quack" or something similar. If you can be bothered to do so you might be as surprised as I was to learn what I've learned in this thread.

[PurplePotato]

The quackers--Thanks for the entertainment but it's like arriving at a party and everyone's ten drinks ahead of me; just can't catch up. A word to the wise: google "quackwatch is a quack" or something similar. If you can be bothered to do so you might be as surprised as I was to learn what I've learned in this thread.

Wise words indeed. Sometimes the "quacker" is really the "qauckie"

Another note about coffee and acidity, is that coffee can cause the stomach to produce more acid, as well increase sphincter pressure, which can cause acid reflux, where the stomach acid moves up into the throat. So maybe that's why you heard that coffee is acidic.

Interestingly, this study compared the effects on the stomach of coffee, both regular and decaf, to caffeine, suggesting that something in coffee other than caffeine causes the brunt these effects:

• Decaffeinated coffee gave a maximal acid response of 16.5 ± 2.6 mEq per hour (mean ± S.E.M.), which was similar to that of regular coffee, 20.9 ± 3.6 mEq per hour, both values being higher than that of caffeine, 8.4 ± 1.3, on a cup-equivalent basis. Sphincter pressure showed minimal changes in response to caffeine, but was significantly increased by both regular and decaffeinated coffee (P <0.05).

More drink for thought

[BioHorn]

About the caffeine from tea vs coffee I think the dose from tea is usually less than coffee even for extreme pot packers (like me ) because you really use a lot of coffee when you're making it properly but even when your total dose from gongfu tea is higher than what you'd get from the coffee you're drinking it's spread out over many infusions so you take it more slowly while with coffee you infuse everything out that you want in one go and drink it. I've also seen the idea that the catechins in tea slow down caffeine absorption but I don't know if this came from a good quality peer-reviewed study or not.

Both of the reasons here seem likely. I major hit of caffeine in a mug of strong coffee (what other kind is there? ) must tax the body's resources more than a similar (or lesser amount) in a gong fu session. I feel a huge amount of caffeine with some black teas, too, but green, oolong and my dear pu are much nicer to my sensitive system. I'm too lazy to follow this thread into even more sciency areas and it seems we're never going to agree but I want to thank you for explaining kombucha to me and also the idea of the K/Na ratio.
Purple potato--very interesting chart you linked to; I've downloaded it. Thank you.
The quackers--Thanks for the entertainment but it's like arriving at a party and everyone's ten drinks ahead of me; just can't catch up. A word to the wise: google "quackwatch is a quack" or something similar. If you can be bothered to do so you might be as surprised as I was to learn what I've learned in this thread.

Just had kombucha for the first time this week. You know what? I felt better after and had a second later that week.

Coffee makes me feel wretched. So I never drink it.

Acquaintances of mine are paralyzed by fear of drinking water above a certain pH. They will go without drinking before having anything but. They subscribe to this proposed "belief system":

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IsBNlcHrObw

Alkaline or Acid? We can agree, disagree...
Maybe the quack video was a bit rude. Sorry for that.

I hope you have a great tea day!