I just bought some ph strips to check it out. There is standard litmus paper for urine that comes in a roll at the health food store and I found some two color tests online that help me see finer gradations.
I’m having fun with it, but it says that my alkalinity is a bit too high. It might be b/c of my high fruit diet these days, but more likely I’m taking too many mineral supplements.
fwiw, my sweat is only a tiny bit stinky these days but I went on a strict steak, liquor, and cigarette fast this weekend and on Sunday I began to be very stinky.
I had to dig up some antiperspirant so I’d still be allowed to play in all the reindeer games.
But my ph stays still quite high after all that.
Overall, sattvic diet enhancement is reducing my stinkiness.
btw, Great book: The China Study. A diet book by an actual diet researcher making a great case for a vegan diet for health reasons. He says that going low fat vegan dramatically improves blood circulation which I believe may be helpful for us yoga types.
This doesn’t seem to apply to Jim’s situation, but I just read in Dr McDougall’s “Digestive Tune Up” that a primary source of body odor and bad breath are foods that are high in sulfur, ie all animal products and some plant products like garlic and onions.
Here’s some information directly from my Human Anatomy class…
There are two types of sweat glands: apocrine and eccrine. Apocrine are in your armpits and pubic regions, and they produce a viscous cloudy solution which reacts with bacteria to produce an odor. Eccrine are all over the rest of your body, and they secrete something very close to urine (which is probably why it’s recommended to rub the perpiration back into your body in some yogic texts…to produce the amaroli effect). Note that apocrine sweat glands don’t actually produce sweat…it’s a different secretion than the rest of the body.
Apocrine glands aren’t turned on until hormones activate them, around puberty.
Yoga is thought to slow down the metabolism (which means less chemical reactions taking place in your body). Perhaps the hormones which activate the apocrine sweat glands are shut off, with a low enough metabolism?
That would explain the odorless sweat…but sweet smelling sweat, I don’t know about.
Enjoy.
Years later, much more open and flowing and less blocked, roaring kundalini accommodated with poise…I smell awful. Especially when exercising, or stressed.
That’s how this stuff works. Forward and back, forward and back. We read those fawning spiritual books where people talk about “clearing” karma and resolving issues and achieving enduring levels of purification. Super humanity! It’s all bullshit. We all have SO much cleaning to be done. Any notion of an “arrival point” is sheer delusion. We never arrive. There’s only process.
We do have little plateaus en route (e.g. my temporarily sweet sweat), but don’t worry, that which is momentarily clear will soon cloud over. That which has arrived will soon depart again. That which is high will lower. And just let it. And just be with the mantra in your practice. The practice is what matters.
You know you’re into the good stuff when you have no freaking idea what’s going on. If you think you understand it and mentally “own” it, you’re just doing more mind stuff. Ah, I’m so pure, my sweat is so sweet…I’m so purified. Ha, superman, see what happens next month!
Nothing to do but yield.
Heh, good to hear Jim. I was concerned that something was wrong with me because after all these years of practice my sweat still smelled bad when I was stressed and I have no idea whhat is going on with my process. I guess those are now good signs 
Neither good nor bad. Just stuff!
And if you ever have an idea what’s going on with your process, you’re just on a mind trip. Cuz it ain’t your process. “Your process” learns French or ballroom dancing. This is the universe’s process, and you have nothing to do with it. Just let the cosmic barber trim your hair. I haven’t the slightest freakin’ idea what he’s got going on. The stuff I can conceive of is inherently limited, finite, and flawed.
Nice update. Thanks 