Enzymes - A Must for Proper Digestion!

Did you know raw foods contain enough digestive enzymes to digest that particular food... which means we should consume a good percentage of raw foods?

But, did you also know that enzymes are destroyed when food reaches 118 degrees? This means that cooked foods contain no digestive enzymes to help digest that food. Consequently, our health suffers when the food we eat is not digested properly. What are we to do?

There are many different kinds of enzymes...but for good digestion, we are concerned with five:

Protease digests protein
Lipase digests fat
Amalyse digests carbohydrates
Disaccharidases - digests sugar
Cellulase - digests fiber

If our diet doesn't contain enough raw foods for pancreatic enzymes... we must supplement with plant enzymes. These plant (or food) enzymes are critical for proper digestion. They work in the mouth and stomach to pre-digest the food we eat... which in turn assists the pancreatic enzymes to do their work.

FYI - although not a topic in this article, enzymes are also critical in acute or chronic situations where they are taken on an empty stomach thereby assisting the immune system by digesting and disposing of toxins... and "eating" the protein coating on specific viruses. Protease, for instance, helps alleviate bacterial and viral infections. You can read more about this use of enzymes in other articles.

Remember that irradiated foods are void of enzymes because radioactive waste material has been used on the food to "keep it fresh"... meaning giving it a longer "shelf life". Many times, we don't even know if our food has been irradiated. Actually... most likely it has been. We need to make a habit of using digestive enzyme supplements with every meal.

Another note regarding irradiation: Did you know that irradiation destroys the nutrients, vitamins, essential amino acids as well as all the enzymes? And also that it kills some - but not all harmful bacteria? The bacteria that causes botulism (the most fatal form of food poisoning) is not killed... but its natural enemies are! Be careful!

A quick look at what happens when our food is not properly digested:

Improperly digested food cannot be absorbed into the intestinal wall... and is acted upon by "unfriendly" bacteria growth. 80% of all the cells in the body are bacteria living in the gastrointestinal tract. The lactobacilli is the "friendly" bacteria, which can also be supplemented. The rest is "unfriendly" bacteria that feeds on food that has not been properly digested... causing putrefaction. Or in other words... it rots. This "rotting" causes chemicals to form that are toxic to our bodies... irritating the intestinal wall. Constipation is one result of this process! We must have frequent bowel movements to eliminate toxic material... and when this doesn't happen... the toxic material is re-absorbed through the colon wall back into our bloodstream. It's a viscous circle that we must break if we are to maintain good health.