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Foods that increase acidity

, medical expert
Last reviewed: 04.07.2025
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The quality of life largely depends on how you feel, and how you feel depends on the state of your digestive processes, including the acid-base balance. Digestive problems can ruin anyone's life. To keep the processes under control, it is useful to know at least a minimum about products that increase acidity and generally affect the gastrointestinal tract.

What foods increase stomach acidity?

Low acidity creates favorable conditions for the reproduction of harmful fungi and viruses, which can cause serious damage to the body. With such problems, a person involuntarily wonders what products increase stomach acidity and how to use them correctly?

  • Coffee and tea of high concentration, hot pepper and horseradish in smart doses give a quick result. Apples, apricots, grapes, berries, kiwi, honey are the most delicious products that increase acidity.

If you need to constantly increase acidity, then nutritionists recommend sorrel, which is even used to replace vinegar in preserves. Beans in any form are effective, as well as mashed fresh turnips seasoned with vegetable oil, carrot juice drunk before meals, and drinks made from sea buckthorn and rose hips.

At the same time, you should avoid foods that promote fermentation (mainly dairy products) and those that are difficult to digest (fatty meat, hard and homemade cheeses). Food should be freshly prepared and of high quality, with a minimum amount of salt.

Popular folk remedies for restoring acid balance. These are natural products and medicinal herbs: lemongrass, nut tincture, honey-oil mixture, plantain, cilantro, parsley, garlic. In many cases, such a potion helps to cope with the disease without medication.

Dairy products with high acidity

If we talk about a milk diet for gastritis, it depends on the form of the disease: hyper- or hypoacid gastritis bothers a person. It is believed that milk and individual products of its processing can be consumed in both cases, but in different ways.

Dairy products with high acidity include yoghurts, kefir, sour milk, sour cream, cottage cheese, ayran, ryazhenka, homemade cheese, cream. Since the diet for high acidity is designed to reduce its level, fermented milk products that increase acidity are undesirable in it. At the same time, regular milk, as an acid neutralizer, will be very useful.

  • Raw goat milk is especially useful due to its unique composition and properties, it does not cause burping and effectively neutralizes acid. Honey can be added to it.

With low acidity, whole milk is not recommended, except as an additive to coffee or porridge. But fermented baked milk, sour milk, kefir, cheese soufflés and casseroles are excellent stimulants of appetite and secretion of gastric juices.

Milk is drunk warm, in slow sips. Porridges prepared with milk need to be cooked for a long time. Oatmeal and buckwheat are especially useful; they can be eaten every morning. Due to the fact that different people's bodies perceive milk differently, it is sometimes advisable to listen to its reaction or consult a doctor before drinking.

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What foods cause heartburn with high acidity?

Heartburn occurs with both forms of gastritis, but with increased acidity - more often. Accompanied by a burning sensation, sourness, pain in the throat and behind the breastbone. Occurs when hydrochloric acid is thrown from the stomach into the esophagus. This is not only a very unpleasant, but also a dangerous condition - due to the fact that the walls of the esophagus do not have protection from hydrochloric acid, so they irritate and eventually destroy them.

Before finding out which foods cause heartburn with increased acidity, it is necessary to establish exactly whether the acidity is really increased. For this purpose, it is necessary to visit a doctor.

Products that increase acidity and provoke heartburn:

  • Tasty but unhealthy food, i.e. smoked, salted, fried, spicy, fatty – stimulates intensive secretion of juice, negatively affects the mucous membrane of the esophagus. Alcoholic drinks have the same effect.
  • Sour citrus fruits – increase pH levels.
  • Black bread, sweets, baked goods, tomatoes, coffee, beans, cabbage are undesirable foods for gastritis.

To eliminate heartburn, porridge, steamed cutlets, non-acidic apples, pears, bananas, stewed vegetables, lean fish and meat are introduced into the diet . Goat's milk, low-fat cottage cheese and cream, natural jelly are recommended. It is necessary to organize a diet of small portions, up to 6 times a day. Physical activity is also contraindicated, as well as overeating and late dinners. It is advisable to sleep with your pillow raised.

Allowed foods for gastritis with low acidity

To normalize digestion in conditions of insufficient acidity, products that increase acidity are introduced into the menu. An approximate list of permitted products for gastritis with low acidity:

  1. Yesterday's bread, crackers, Lenten baked goods.
  2. Steamed main courses from lean meat and fish.
  3. Liquid porridges made with water and milk added.
  4. Low-fat broths with added noodles, vegetable soups.
  5. Mashed or boiled potatoes, pumpkin, zucchini, cabbage - regular and cauliflower.
  6. Fermented milk products, finely chopped mild cheese.
  7. Cow and vegetable oils.
  8. Soft-boiled eggs, egg white omelette.
  9. Baked apples.
  10. Watermelon, skinless grapes.

To stimulate the release of digestive juice before meals, it is recommended to drink carrot, potato, cabbage juice. Water with honey has the same effect. Allowed drinks include tea with lemon, rosehip decoction, light coffee, cocoa with added milk.

By eating such food, the patient “kills several birds with one stone”: not only does it improve the condition of the stomach, but it also normalizes weight, metabolism and strengthens the immune system.

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Prohibited foods for gastritis with low acidity

A diet for gastritis should help to balance the acid-base balance and maintain it in an optimal mode. In particular, with a lack of acid, products that increase acidity are necessary. To avoid negative consequences, you should avoid prohibited products both for gastritis with low and high acidity.

Many food products are prohibited for various reasons in the hypoacid form. Thus, freshly baked bread, pastries, beans and other legumes are too heavy for a gastritis stomach. Of the cereals, millet and pearl barley are undesirable. Anything fatty and salty, including meat with films, makes it difficult to chew and digest food.

Smoked meat products provoke an excess of gastric juice secretion. Lard and other animal fats are difficult to digest food in a slightly acidic environment. Milk and sharp cheeses neutralize the already insufficient amount of hydrochloric acid.

Spicy and hot foods irritate the stomach lining. Chocolate, alcohol, and grape juice also have the same effect. Coarse plant foods, berries with hard skins or seeds in the pulp are not recommended.

All stale or surrogate products that cause poisoning, inflammation and other diseases of the digestive organs are also subject to prohibition.

Products that increase the acidity of the body

A living organism has an acid-base ratio, which is characterized by a pH value. In it, positive ions create an acidic environment, and negatively charged ones create an alkaline environment. Acidification occurs, among other things, from the use of products that increase or decrease acidity.

The body is “interested” in balance, that is, maintaining a certain level of acidity, since disturbances can cause various unpleasant consequences: from general weakness to the likelihood of cancer.

The following are products that increase the acidity of the body:

  • sour milk;
  • meat and fish;
  • flour products;
  • alcohol;
  • soda;
  • vegetable oils;
  • vinegars;
  • mayonnaise and other sauces.

Acidity increases with heat treatment, addition of sugar, food additives, acidic ingredients, and long-term storage. Therefore, in all cases, fresh natural food, in particular, of plant origin, is more useful.

Not only food but also indirect factors contribute to the shift to the acidic side – ecology, dirty air, stress, electromagnetic rays generated by mobile phones, computers, microwaves, lack of movement and positive emotions.

Foods that increase urine acidity

Acidity characterizes the physical properties of urine, in particular, the ratio of acid and alkali, if you look at it in a simplified way. This is a hydrogen indicator, that is, it shows the amount of hydrogen ions in a specific portion of urine taken for analysis. It is important for determining the diagnosis and the state of the body as a whole.

  • Normally, pH is 6.2–6.8; if it is above 7, the biological fluid has an alkaline environment, and if it is balanced, it is maintained at 7. Acidity largely depends on nutrition. Products that increase urine acidity cause fluctuations in the indicator and lead to the formation of salts.

To prevent this, dishes rich in purines should be excluded from the menu: offal, chicken and veal; smoked and canned products, fish, legumes. The same list includes leaves and fruits of plants rich in oxalic acid: sorrel, rhubarb, beets, gooseberries, plums, strawberries, as well as white bread, buns, alcohol (beer, champagne and red wines).

  • Products that increase acidity should be limited: spicy, salty, savory, oatmeal and semolina, chocolate, drinks with caffeine.

To reduce acidity, a dairy-vegetable diet with sufficient amounts of fluids is recommended, in particular, up to 2 liters of juices, teas, and mineral water per day.

Failure to follow a diet for any type of gastritis can cause significant complications, including malignant transformations and diseases of the entire digestive system. A therapeutic diet of products that increase acidity is the best assistant to therapy, and in mild cases, a substitute for treatment. And, as always, a healthy lifestyle is the ideal way to stay healthy for a long time and enjoy life.

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