Committee on Foods

Abstract

<h3>ACIDOSIS CLAIMS IN LAY ADVERTISING</h3> Acidosis and acid claims, and the words "acidosis," "acidity" and "acid" are frequently used in advertising to play on vague fears of the public. The usual well-balanced diet includes many alkali yielding foods—milk in its various forms, fruits and vegetables. Acid forming diets are not a practical nutritional problem because a good modern mixed diet adequate in minerals and vitamins can scarcely be potentially acid. It is appropriate to call attention to the fact that certain foods are potentially alkaline, or yield alkaline mineral residues in the body. Acidosis is a medical name for a morbid condition of diminution in the reserve supply of fixed alkali in the blood and body fluids. Most people have no conception of the true meaning of the word and are quite likely to confuse it with gastric hyperacidity or "acid stomach," or to conceive of it as "acid blood,"