"A new day is dawning. A day of truly holistic health, vitality, and well-being. A time of energizing our very cells, maximizing the life force of our bodies. An era of naturally lean and strong physiques! This book is your key to letting that light into your life. It first helps you understand the revolutionary science I (Rob) call The New Biology, then explains the practical ways to change your diet and unleash the full power of your body to heal itself.

In truth, the light came over the horizon more than a hundred years ago. But the radical work of some great pioneering scientists has been overlooked by a mainstream medical model so deeply involved with its own myths that it was blind to larger truths. Until now. Now we're going to peel off the blinders and look at an entirely new model of human health—and disease. Working from decades of exhaustive research-my own as well as the work of those early (ignored) pioneers—we'll discover the basic pathways to illness and wellness. You'll get the science, of course, but also the practical applications that will allow you to put the science to work for you.

It's all about balance. The universe operates by keeping opposites.in balance, and the universe contained within your body is no exception. When imbalance occurs, we get the signs of disease: low energy, fatigue, poor digestion, excess weight, foggy thinking, aches and pains, as well as major disorders. This book is about reclaiming balance (health): energy, mental clarity, smooth operation of all body systems, clear, bright eyes and skin, and a lean, trim body. With the program in this book, all that will be yours within weeks.

All you have to do is take a look around you to see that most people with our modern lifestyles are suffering from imbalance. They are obese. Tired. Prematurely aging. Perhaps you are too. Chances are at least one person you love is suffering from one of the top three killers in the United States—heart disease, cancer, or diabetes. When I ask the audience at one of my lectures how many of them have a family member with one of these big bad three, 70 to 80 percent raise their hands. In fact, half of us will die from heart disease or diabetes. A third will die from cancer.

If you're like most people in our culture, at this point you're thinking, Well, you have to die of something. We've forgotten that it is natural to die—and to live—healthy! In fact, it is your birthright to live healthy, right up until the day you die. Making that vision a reality is the great gift of this program. And believe me, it has nothing to do with mapping the human genome, cutting-edge medical technologies, or even more powerful—and dangerous—pharmaceuticals. The good news is, the answer is much, much simpler than all that. And available right here and now. Today.

The obvious clue is right there in the top three killers (cancer, heart disease, and diabetes). All are directly linked to diet. In fact, eight of the top ten causes of death in America today are (not to mention that diet is obviously the cause of the obesity of 60 percent of Americans). Eating the proper foods and getting the best nutrients, in balance, will help you avoid all that—along with the misery and poor quality of life that so often precede death, sometimes by decades. The simple secrets to finding the right combinations are what The pH Miracle is all about.

Even mainstream medicine agrees: "Foods contain nutrients essential for normal metabolic function, and when problems arise, they result from imbalances in nutrient intake and from harmful interaction with other factors. For...adult Americans who do not smoke and do not drink excessively, one personal choice seems to influence long-term health prospects more than any other—What We Eat" (from the 1988 "Surgeon General's Report on Health and Nutrition": Emphasis added).

Since that landmark report from C. Everett Koop (and even before, depending on the circles you run in), Americans have been following one diet craze after another not only in an attempt to drop the excess baggage most of us are carrying around but also as a way to find our way back to good health. The result? We (as a country) are fatter than ever. And we're certainly no healthier.

The problem is that while diet is the key not only to slimness but also to overall health and well-being, it has to be a diet that properly balances our body chemistry. But each and every one of the diets Americans have tried—including not just the "average American diet" but also such supposedly healthful regimens as low-fat diets, the food pyramid, and vegetarianism—create wildly imbalanced body chemistry. Even if one way of eating does get rid of extra pounds (usually temporarily) or lower cholesterol levels or lessen digestive trouble for some people, it does not fulfill the promise of simple good health. We're so used to our modern medical machinery, in fact, that good health seems anything but simple. I'm here to tell you: It is simple.

Forget cholesterol counts. Forget calories and fat grams. Forget blood pressure, blood sugar, hormone levels, or any of the other markers of health you're used to at the doctor's office. It turns out that the single measurement most important to your health is the pH of your blood and tissues—how acidic or alkaline it is. Different areas of the body have different ideal pH levels, but blood pH is the most telling of all. Just as your body temperature is rigidly regulated, the blood must be kept in a very narrow pH range—mildly basic or alkaline. The body will go to great lengths to preserve that, including wreaking havoc on other tissues or systems.

The pH level of our internal fluids affects every cell in our bodies. The entire metabolic process depends on an alkaline environment. Chronic overacidity corrodes body tissue, and if left unchecked will interrupt all cellular activities and functions, from the beating of your heart to the neural firing of your brain. In other words, overacidity interferes with life itself. It is (as we'll see in more detail in the next chapter) at the root of all sickness and disease.

If that's not enough to get you interested in balancing your body pH naturally, nondestructively, keep this in mind: Overacidity is also what's keeping you fat (more about that later).

The goal, then—and what this program allows you to do—is to create the proper alkaline balance within your body. The way to do that is by eating the proper balance of alkaline and acid foods. That means 80 percent of your diet must be alkalizing foods, like green vegetables. (That percentage will go down somewhat once you've successfully rebalanced yourself.) That leaves much smaller portions of acid foods (such as meat and grains) on our plates. In addition, carefully chosen, high-quality supplements will help you achieve and maintain pH balance. You'll learn more about all this in detail in later chapters."