Stomach Acid Is Not Your Enemy

Pizza. Spicy Food. Pasta Sauce. Coffee. Chocolate. Orange Juice. If you fear these foods, you are most likely suffering from what we call “heart burn”. And as we’ve been told by Doctors, from commercials, and from our friends and family, heart burn is caused by too much stomach acid. But what would you say if I told you that heart burn has nothing to do with too much stomach acid…?


Here’s the scoop. Pictured below are 2 different kinds of stomachs. The one on the left is a healthy one with a valve that closes at the bottom of the esophaugus once food is swallowed. This valve keeps stomach acid and food from exiting the stomach back up into the throat or mouth. When we vomit, this valve opens so that the contents that are causing us to feel ill can exit.

The stomach on the right is one of a heartburn sufferer. The valve between the stomach and the esophagus becomes weak, allowing the stomach contents to leak into the place where we feel “heart” burn. Our stomach acid is literally burning our esophagus and tissues. This is also known as GERD.



So you can see, it’s really more of a structural issue than it is of making too much stomach acid. In fact, by the time we reach 40 years old, the amount of stomach acid we naturally produce begins to decline quite a bit. It’s the case, more often than not, that we actually don’t have enough stomach acid.




When our stomach acid is low, we:

Can’t digest our food, especially fats and proteins like meat (look for undigested particles in your waste).
Can’t kill the parasites and bacteria that we are so often exposed to (like h. pylori, yeasts, and worms) can’t break down our food so it remains in the stomach too long, fermenting and causing bloating, indigestion, and sour stomach can’t signal to the valve between our stomach and small intestine to open allowing the stomach contents to move to the next phase in the digestive process, keeping our food in our stomach for far too long without digesting it When visiting your Doctor, they may actually prescribe an acid blocker to “help” you to stop producing so much stomach acid (even though you’re not).

These medicines can cause you to produce around 10% of the typical amount of stomach acid needed for a healthy digestive tract. So when medicine forces you not to make stomach acid, but your body needs it for regular processes, digestive issues and infections begin to show up beyond the original “heart burn” complaint.


So if it’s not that you are making too much, but that the stomach acid is escaping from your stomach, what can you do? Follow these tips:

Eat smaller meals that take less time to digest which allows less stomach acid to be produced. Smaller meals also stretch the stomach much LESS which keeps a heavier, larger stomach from pulling on the esophageal valve chew your food thoroughly. Saliva is alkaline and helps to naturally neutralize excess stomach acid from being produced. you will also save your digestive system some work. the more you can chew your food, the less your body has to try to break down what you just ate.  Stay away from foods that weaken the valve: coffee and caffeine, chocolate, alcohol, and white sugar/flour weaken the valve to the esophagus causing it to leak if you are overweight, lose some weight. the less extra weight you have pulling down the stomach and weakening the esophageal valve, the better.

Extra weight also squeezes the esophagus.  keep upright after eating. don’t eat a late dinner and lay down. give yourself 2 hours before laying down to properly digest and move your food from your stomach to the lower organs.

You NEED stomach acid. keep away from the things that neutralize it. don’t drink water with meals, have it 1 hour before or after you eat. reduce or eliminate soft drinks. the phosphorus in soda can neutralize stomach acid eat alkaline (opposite of acidic) foods to keep your blood pH a healthy neutral. the more acidic your body, the more problems you will have overall Still, heartburn can happen. Two wonderful natural remedies during an acute attack to use that won’t hurt your body’s natural processes are:

Drink a glass of water when heartburn occurs. water will dilute your stomach acid that is currently backing up into the oesophagus
take a tablespoon of raw apple cider vinegar (can be mixed in water). the vinegar is alkaline forming and will actually reduce the high acid pH of your body and stomach contents.

Lastly, try taking a stomach acid and digestive enzyme supplement at meal times. This can help to properly breakdown your food so that it doesn’t rise back up, undigested, into places it doesn’t belong.

Root Wellnes