ach acid. I was grateful to learn about its impor­tance from a veterinarian, who was helping me create a healthy diet for my dog.

To my surprise, I found scores of books and scientific articles about the connection between the level of hydrochloric acid and human health. This topic has been studied for decades. Professor W. A. Walker from the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, states that, "Medical researchers since the 1930s have been concerned about the consequences of hypochlorhydria. While all the health consequences are still not entirely clear, some have been well documented."

Low stomach acidity (hypochlorhydria) is a condition that occurs when the human body is unable to produce ade­quate quantities of stomach acid. Low stomach acidity inevitably and dramatically impacts digestion and absorp­tion of most nutrients necessary for health. Most minerals, including such important ones as iron, zinc, calcium, and the B-complex vitamins (folic acid and others) need certain amounts of stomach acids in order to be absorbed at all. Without stomach acid, nutritional deficiencies inevitably develop leading to disease.

Besides absorption, stomach acid has many other impor­tant functions. For instance, stomach acid is supposed to destroy all harmful microorganisms, pathogenic bacteria, parasites and their eggs, and fungi that enter the body through the mouth. Therefore, if stomach acid is insufficient, there is no barrier against parasites. I have spoken with a gastroenterologist who takes test samples of stomach acid from his patients and often finds several kinds of para­sites flourishing in the very place where they are supposed to be killed. I would want my stomach acid to be strong for this reason alone.

Stomach acid helps to digest large protein molecules. If stomach acid is low, then incompletely digested protein frag­ments get absorbed into the bloodstream and cause allergies and immunological disorders.

The natural level of hydrochloric acid (HCl) decreases as we age, especially after the age of forty. That is when most people begin to develop gray hair as a result of nutritional deficiencies caused by lowered stomach acid. Hydrochloric acid could also start decreasing early in life if we abuse our gastrointestinal tract, or entire body, through food excesses, chemical use, and stress. Overeating, especially over consumption of fats and proteins, wears out the parietal cells of the stomach that secrete HCl.

Indigenous people have had many different diets throughout history, depending on their environment. What they had in common was that they ate large amounts of fiber. Researchers have estimated that Australopithecus and some other indigenous people consumed roughly 150 grams of fiber daily. By looking at this number, it's easy to suggest that the acidity of their stomachs was quite strong, a lot stronger than ours. They also had much stronger teeth, jaws, and jaw muscles. They were able to chew this rough, stringy Food to a creamy consistency in their mouths, and then their stomachs continued digesting this well chewed matter by applying hydrochloric acid.

Our bodies have dramatically changed since then. Make an experiment: take a piece of any vegetable or green leaf, sit down and chew it as long as you can. Just before you are ready to swallow it, spit it out onto your palm and take a look at it. You will see that it will still be far from a creamy consistency. Keep in mind that your body would only be able to assimilate nutrients from the tiniest particles. Large particles won't get digested and will turn into acidic waste.

A friend of mine who is a doctor, and frequently takes blood tests, has shown me on a screen con­nected to a microscope such an undigested piece in the blood of a vegan patient. I was shocked to see that whenev­er this tiny undigested piece touched red blood cells, those cells instantly died. Eventually this piece of undigested food ended up being encircled in several layers of about one hun­dred dead cells. My friend explained to me that such toxic pieces accumulate in our small intestines causing people to have enlarged, protruding bellies.

If, in addition to improper chewing, some of us who do not have the necessary concentration of hydrochloric acid, then it is very likely that a few of us have multiple nutritional deficiencies. In order to produce hydrochloric acid, the human body has to work very hard. As we grow older, our body becomes weaker and cannot produce adequate amounts of hydrochloric acid. That is why most people have less stomach acid as they age.

As we grow older, we develop gray hair. I have observed that most people diagnosed with very low stomach acid had noticeably more gray hair, which is an indirect sign of nutri­ent deficiencies. On the other hand, there are numerous well-documented accounts of people's natural hair color returning as a result of consuming blended greens on a reg­ular basis, Ann Wigmore being one of them.

Blending is similar to chewing; therefore, eating blended food can make a dramatic improvement to our health. After being broken down in a high-speed blender, pieces of food become the perfect size for assimilation. As a result, the body doesn't keep the food in the stomach as long but sends it right into the small intestines, allowing the body to produce less hydrochloric acid. Consequently, consuming blended foods saves us energy and keeps us youthful despite aging.

For many years l couldn't understand why some people quickly loose too much weight on a raw food diet. These people simply cannot stay on a raw food diet because they feel uncomfortable living their lives with constant remarks from their friends and relatives about being too thin. I agree that humans shouldn't he too skinny. After doing a lot of research about the impact of hypochlorhydria on assimila­tion of food, I asked some of my friends with this weight problem if they had ever checked their stomach acid level.

Several of them got back to me and reported that they were diagnosed with very low or no stomach acid at all. Their doctor prescribed HCL pills to take with their meals. A close friend has been trying to eat raw for several years and became so thin that her husband became concerned for her health. She went to a doctor and was diagnosed with achlorhydria (no stomach acid). Her doctor put her on HCL pills and she continued her raw food diet. My friend gained all her weight back.

In order for nutrients to be absorbed, the food has to be broken in the stomach, both mechanically and with acids, into very small pieces of 1-2 mm. Raw fruits and vegetables have the most valuable nutrients in them, but they are espe­cially hard to digest because their tough cellulose structure has to be ruptured in order to get all the nutrients out. If there is not enough stomach acid, the body is unable to receive all needed nutrients, especially proteins, and defi­ciencies start to develop. I have encountered several people with such a problem who felt as if they were trapped. While eating only raw food they were able to eliminate symptoms of certain illnesses that they had, but they became very skin­ny. Then they would add cooked food to their diet to gain their desired weight, but their unwanted symptoms would return. Puzzled, they kept going back and forth not know­ing what to do.

That is why I felt great joy when, after teaching a couple of classes about green smoothies, I began receiving letters like this one:

"Though the raw food took care of my arthritis I was never able to stick to it longer than two months because on raw foods alone, I dropped weight so quickly, down to 135 lbs, that my wife panicked thinking that I was dying, so I had to go back to cooked foods which made my arthritis return. When I started drinking green smoothies, my weight stabilized! I have been raw now for six months and keep my normal weight of 155 lbs. Thank you!” (N. H., Canada)

I have already witnessed many cases in which people with digestive problems were able to greatly improve their assimilation by adding blended greens to their diets. While cooking makes the food softer and easier to digest, in the process of heating, most essential vitamins and enzymes in the food get destroyed. Blending is a lot less harmful than cooking because it saves all the vital nutrients in the food.

There are numerous conditions that are associated with low stomach acidity. These are just some of them: bacteri­al overgrowth, chronic candidacies, parasites, Addison's dis­ease, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, asthma, auto immune dis­orders, celiac disease, stomach carcinoma, depression, dermatitis, diabetes, eczema, flatulence, gall bladder disease, gastric polyps, gastritis, hepatitis, hyperthyroidism, myas­thenia gravis, osteoporosis, psoriasis, rosacea, ulcerative colitis, urticaria, and vitiligo. This is why the famous researcher, Dr. Theodore A. Baroody, stated in his wonderful book Alkalize or Die, "Hydrochloric acid is absolutely essen­tial for life.” In other words, no one can be completely healthy without normal hydrochloric acid.

Please do not confuse acidity in the stomach with alka­linity of the blood. Our blood must he slightly alkaline and we will discuss it in up-coming chapters. "Hydrochloric acid is the only acid that our body produces. All other acids are by-products of metabolism and are eliminated as soon as possible."

(From the book “Green for Life” by Victoria Boutenko, Raw Family Publishing (rawfamily.com)