Cider vinegar. acid vs. alkaline digestion.

[epicuric]

I was watching a TV program on Monday night called "Food Unwrapped", which goes behind the scenes of food production and looks into common food myths. They ran a piece about cider vinegar and it's ability to prevent weight gain in some people, which it would seem is scientifically proven. I was under the impression that a healthy digestion system was best maintained under alkaline conditions, promoted by consuming lots of vegetables. So how does the regular daily consumption of a dose of acidic vinegar figure in the equation? Does it somehow hinder digestion by preventing the absorption of food calories? I would be grateful if anyone here shed any light on this. In the meantime I shall sit here contemplating ditching the vegetables and returning to the pork pie diet with the aid of a bottle of Aspinall's finest

 

[Morning Glory]

Not sure what the evidence is that it works. I'd seriously doubt it. There is an American article here which says not:

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/apple-cider-vinegar

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I suspect it is simply increasing the acidity of the stomach which is a very acidic environment. It is composed of hydrochloric acid (HCl) potassium chloride (KCl) and sodium chloride (NaCl) and is key in activating the enzymes needed to digesting food in particular digesting protein to get at the key amino acids the body must have to survive. The acidic environment does not get neutralised until the duodenum.

To put it into context add to how acidic it is, on the pH scale which runs from 0 to 14 with 7 bring pure water and neutral, stomach acid falls in the range of 1 to 3.5 and this is why ulcers can occur and be so painful and also why stabbing someone in the stomach is one of the most painful ways to die: think internal acid burns that you can't really neutralise and your stomach continues to produce acid...

An informative link is this wiki article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric_acid

One about the pH scale as well with a few comparisons for reference for those knowing nothing about the pH scale.
http://chemistry.elmhurst.edu/vchembook/184ph.html