The word “acidic” got its bad rep from its derivation from malum, the Greek word for APPLE, in Latin Pyrus malus, the forbidden fruit that got Eve in so much deep doo-doo …

… eternally assigning both “malic acid” and “malate” to the same category as “malady,” “malaise,” “malaria,” “malcontent,” “malediction,” “malefaction,” “maleficent,” “malevolent,” “malformed,” “malfunction,” “malicious,” “malign,” “malignant,” “malnutrition,” “malpractice,” etc., including the Inquisition’s Malleus Maleficarum.

The folk motto “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” is derived from medieval witchcraft’s use of the apple as a counter-spell.

The apple was the sacred fruit of the ancient Druids, and the “Sacred Isle of Avalon” (renamed Glastonbury by the Saxons) owes its name to Aval, the Celtic word for “apple.”

Most bacterial infections are an alkaline pathology.

In the words of …

Thomas Edward Thorpe, A Dictionary of Applied Chemistry, 1921, “An acid medium is unfavourable to the growth of most bacteria, and acids generally possess considerable disinfectant power.”

D.C. Jarvis, M.D., Folk Medicine, 1958, “It becomes apparent, as one studies this list [of bacteria that grow optimally on alkaline media of pH 7.4 and above], that microorganisms harmful to the human body grow on an alkaline soil. This is particularly interesting in the light of the evidence that in dairy cows and human beings alike, an instinct exists which leads them to seek an acid intake. In the light of the above evidence [‘Most Favorable Reaction of Media for Growing Pathogenic Bacteria’], it seems reasonable to suspect that pathogenic bacteria which are harmful to the body are in the world for another purpose than to cause sickness in human beings. Nature has spread acid vegetation about with a lavish hand, apparently to prevent infestation of the body with pathogenic microorganisms, turning into infection of the body by these same microorganisms. The instinct leading animals and humans to seek acid vegetation and acid liquids has been given as a protection.”

Bernard Jensen & Mark Anderson, Empty Harvest: Understanding the Link Between Our Food, Our Immunity, and Our Planet, 1990, “Why are there periodic reports of plain ascorbic acid helping to fight various colds and infections? The answer probably lies more in ascorbic acid’s pH balance influence (acid/alkaline balance) than any other factor. True to its namesake, ascorbic acid lowers the pH to the acid side of the pH scale. Most infectious pathogenic bacteria thrive in an alkaline pH.”

PS: I first read Folk Medicine (by Dr. Jarvis) and started monitoring my urine pH while in high school in 1958, and was privileged to attend Dr. Jensen’s final seminar a few months before he went on his cosmic vacation in 2001.