Is milk an acidic food or an alkaline food?

Milk can be said to be a food that is recognized as being good for human health, and it can also serve as a good calcium supplement. However, milk is a strong alkaline food and contains a large amount of protein. It is often said that the more you drink milk, the more acidic your body will become, and the more susceptible you will be to illness. This is a wrong understanding.

1. It is a "strong alkaline food" and you won't get sick from drinking milk.

2. Some people say, "Milk contains a lot of protein, which will produce a lot of acidic substances when metabolized in the body, making the body acidic... So the more milk you drink, the more acidic your body becomes, and the more likely you are to get sick..."

3. So, first let us take a look at what are acidic foods and what are alkaline foods. According to the current common definition, any food that contains a lot of chlorine, sulfur and phosphorus elements, whose final metabolic products in the body are acidic, is acidic food. This type of food mainly includes livestock and poultry meat, fish, shrimp, eggs, cereals, and hard nuts such as peanuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, etc.; any food that contains a large amount of elements such as calcium, potassium, and magnesium, and whose final metabolic products in the body are alkaline, is an alkaline food. This type of food includes various vegetables, fruits, beans, milk, and hard nuts such as almonds and chestnuts.

4. Secondly, let’s look at the content of several types of micronutrients in milk. According to the food ingredient table, every 100 grams of milk contains 135 mg of calcium, 157 mg of potassium, 11 mg of magnesium, etc. According to the classification of food acidity and alkalinity, milk belongs to "strong alkaline food".

5. Therefore, it is a common sense mistake to say that milk is an "acidic food" and that "the more you drink milk, the more acidic your body becomes and the more susceptible you are to illness." Current Chinese and foreign research suggests that consuming large amounts of acidic food will cause the body to become acidic, which can easily lead to certain diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, etc., and increase the risk of disease; while eating alkaline food will make the body alkaline or weakly alkaline, which is beneficial to maintaining health.