Review Summary
If you’re just starting to explore how food might be affecting your reflux, Dropping Acid: The Reflux Diet Cookbook & Cure could be a helpful entry point. It’s got some useful tools — like acidity charts and recipes that work for many — but it’s not without its flaws. The tone can feel alarmist, and the structure is a bit all over the place. Still, if you read it with a filter and pull out what resonates, there are nuggets that might support you on your healing journey. I’ll walk you through what to keep and what to leave behind.
✅ Pros
- Comprehensive food acidity charts
- Clear two-phase diet structure
- Creative, “reflux-friendly” recipes
❌ Cons
- Disorganized and hard to follow
- Heavy use of fear-based messaging
- Some outdated or mixed advice
Table of Contents
My Full Review
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by reflux advice, Dropping Acid: The Reflux Diet Cookbook & Cure might catch your attention. It promises a structured approach to managing symptoms through diet, with an emphasis on acid reduction.
Many people genuinely love this book—as evidenced by the thousands of positive reviews online. And for good reason: if it helps ease symptoms, that’s a big win. But it’s worth noting that for many, symptom relief is where it stops. That falls short of the promise implied by the book’s bold title. Even the author admits that results vary widely and that only some people will find lasting control through diet alone—something we’ll explore more deeply later in this review.
So before you get swept up in the claims, let’s take a closer look. Having spent years finding my way through reflux and finally recovering, I want to help you separate what’s truly helpful from what’s just hype.
The Big Idea Behind the Book
The authors, Dr. Jamie Koufman and Dr. Jordan Stern, center their approach on one bold claim: acid reflux is an epidemic, and the main culprit is too much acid in our diets. The book lays out a two-phase diet—an induction and maintenance plan—designed to “wash out” the enzyme pepsin, which they argue is the real villain behind ongoing damage.
Pepsin, they explain, lingers in your upper digestive tract and gets reactivated by acidic foods—even mildly acidic ones. Their approach is to cut out anything below pH 5 for at least two weeks, then follow a gentler low-acid diet long-term.
There’s some solid reasoning here, particularly their focus on pepsin and the damage it can do even at higher pH levels (up to 6!).
The science may sound compelling at first, but it’s one-dimensional, focusing almost entirely on food and drink acidity while overlooking the deeper root causes of reflux. And on top of that, the delivery is scattered and hard to follow.
What’s Actually Useful
Let’s start with the good stuff. If you’re just getting started with diet-based reflux management, here are some valuable tools the Dropping Acid reflux book provides:
✅ Comprehensive Acidity Charts
The standout feature is the exhaustive Dropping Acid diet food list. It gives you a clear sense of what foods to avoid because the acidity can activate digestive enzymes called pepsins that can become embedded in the soft tissues of your throat.
✅ Structured Plan
The two-phase system—”induction” followed by “maintenance”—is simple enough in theory. The induction diet cuts all foods below pH 5 (including most fruits, vinegars, and sauces), and the maintenance plan allows for slightly more flexibility.
✅ Creative Recipes
Chef Marc Bauer’s recipes add life to the Dropping Acid cookbook. They’re “low in fat,” “low in acid,” and often quite tasty—though some rely a bit too much on sweeteners and “just a little” of the bad stuff.
Where the Book Misses the Mark
But let’s be real—there are some glaring issues.
❌ Fear-Based Messaging
The tone often feels alarmist. Statements like “this diet just might save your life” and repeated references to esophageal cancer can leave you feeling panicked rather than empowered.
❌ Disorganized Structure
The Dropping Acid reflux cookbook often reads like a jumble of blog posts stitched together—tangents on bread history, miracle-cure anecdotes, and loosely connected science, much of it seemingly pulled from Dr. Jamie Koufman’s blog or Jonathan Aviv’s book by someone with only a surface-level understanding. In sharp contrast, the final quarter—titled “Science You Can Digest”—is far more structured and thoughtful, though still incomplete.
❌ Mixed and Outdated Advice
Low-fat everything? Endorsing artificial sweeteners but telling you to eat clean? The inconsistencies can confuse readers who are already feeling unsure of what’s safe to eat. Not only that, but the premise of intentionally including trigger foods in the recipes, “for flavor,” but in “limited amounts” is fundamentally flawed.
Let’s Talk Science (And What You Should Know)
The strongest contribution this book makes is its emphasis on pepsin—not acid—as the real danger. While acid gets the blame, pepsin causes the damage. And it only needs a little acid to reactivate and start chewing away at your throat and esophagus. That’s why foods like vinegar, citrus, or even coffee can cause flare-ups long after your last reflux episode.
This is a key insight many reflux books miss. But that doesn’t mean this book has all the answers.
It talks a lot about triggers, but most of the focus is shallow: acidic foods, spicy meals, overeating. It doesn’t go deep on the root causes like:
- Low stomach acid and poor digestion (which create gas, fermentation, and upward pressure)
- Gut imbalance from antibiotics, sugar, and processed foods
- Long-term inflammation from unresolved dietary damage
And while it offers symptom relief, it’s not really designed to heal the root of reflux. In fact, they admit it may take a year or more to learn your triggers, manage your diet, and feel better.
That’s a long time to be “trying” something that may or may not work.
A Word on “Cures”
Despite the title, this isn’t a cure. It’s a management tool, and even the authors acknowledge that many patients will need medications or other interventions. Only about a third of their patients, they admit, get complete symptom control with diet alone. That’s not nothing—but it’s also not a guarantee.
The Dropping Acid Diet Food List
If you’re wondering what’s actually on the Dropping Acid diet food list, think mild, soothing, and low-acid: bananas, melons, root vegetables, oatmeal, fish, and lean poultry. Some surprising items like red apples and even caramel are marked “limit,” which can feel a little inconsistent.
The Dropping Acid cookbook recipes lean on herbs, root veggies, and creative cooking techniques to add flavor without flare-ups. Many include “small amounts” of higher-risk ingredients “for taste,” so it’s worth reading carefully if they include your trigger foods.
And while there’s no official Dropping Acid pdf offered by the authors, you’ll find food charts and recipe previews on blogs, forums, and Amazon reviews—though results vary depending on what version or edition you’re looking at.
Dropping Acid Quotes (The Good, The Bad, & The Contradictory)
As I have mentioned, one of the more disorienting parts of Dropping Acid: The Reflux Diet Cookbook & Cure is how often the messaging contradicts itself—or just feels oddly disconnected from the reader’s experience.
The book opens with a bold and bizarre statement:
“Acid reflux is epidemic, and you probably don’t even know you have it.”
That line alone makes it feel like the authors aren’t quite in touch with who’s picking up the book—most readers are painfully aware that they have reflux. It’s why the picked up the book in the first place!
Throughout the book, quotes swing wildly between extremes.
At one point, the authors state:
“Almost everything we recommend is going to be bad for someone, somewhere.”
That’s not exactly the kind of clarity or encouragement someone managing reflux is hoping for. They also claim:
“It may take a year or more for you to acquire an understanding of all the variables that make your reflux better or worse.”
Only to immediately follow that with the word “cure” in a story (and in the book title) about a schoolteacher who became “completely symptom-free” after just two weeks.
There are plenty more mixed signals:
- 95% of patients reportedly improved on the Induction Reflux Diet, but they admit there are no long-term studies to back it up.
- They present healing as both a slow learning process and something that can happen instantly with a few simple changes.
- Many stories read like oversimplified success tales—like Felicia, who was “completely cured” by changing her snack schedule and switching apple colors.
Even the advice itself flips between helpful and outdated. You’re told to avoid tight clothing like corsets (who’s still wearing those?), while serious symptoms like globus are brushed off with, “Ask your doctor.”
“Incidentally, if you cannot eat dry bread because it sticks or you find it hard to swallow, you might have another problem in addition to reflux, and you should ask your doctor about it.”
And let’s not forget the long stretch of vague motivational anecdotes, which drag on before they even explain what the pH scale means—a key concept that appears many times before it is finally explained, albeit briefly.
Finally, there are recurring oddities, like a fixation on lobsters, or sweeping claims like:
“The Reflux Diet Cookbook & Cure offers one of the healthiest sustainable diets in the world.”
It’s not that there’s nothing helpful here—it’s that the delivery is chaotic, self-promotional, and at times oddly self-contradictory. You’re left wondering who exactly this book is for, and how much of it is actually grounded in results versus theory.
Having spoken to several of her former patients, I have some thoughts on that but those are stories for another day.
Final Thoughts on Dropping Acid
If you’re early in your reflux journey and want a place to start, Dropping Acid by Dr. Jamie Koufman has its merits. The food charts alone are worth referencing. Some of the recipes are winners but you’re going to have to thread the needle or modify recipes that include your triggers. And the focus on low-acid eating can be a helpful shift, especially if your throat or vocal cords are affected. It can even help minimize the severity and intensity of your reflux cycles.
But read it with a filter. Skip the scare tactics, avoid the contradictions, and don’t take every story at face value. Healing reflux takes more than swapping your chocolate cake for oatmeal-crusted salmon. It takes understanding your body, digging into root causes, and building a long-term plan you can actually live with.
Bottom line: This book might be one stepping stone—but it’s not the whole path. If you’re looking for a good reflux book to help you with practical understanding of reflux, then check out my reflux book reviews page.
This content is for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. Consult your physician for personalized care.
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