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Enzymes: |
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The Difference Between Raw and Cooked Foods
by: Emily Kane ND*
Published by American Association of Naturopathic Physicians
ENZYMES: The tiny and enormous difference between raw and cooked
foods
Virtually all chronic degenerative diseases are caused or aggravated
by digestive problems. After the most extensive study on nutrition
ever undertaken by the government, the U.S. Senate Select Committee
on Nutrition and Human Needs concluded in its 1978 report entitled
"Diet and Killer Diseases," that the average American diet is
responsible for the development of chronic degenerative diseases
such as heart disease, atherosclerosis, cancer, diabetes, stroke,
etc. Many of the most common health complaints revolve around a
20-foot, mucus-lined tube that directly interfaces us with our
environment. This is no mystery: This is the gastro-intestinal
tract, affectionately abbreviated "GI." The job of the GI is to
alchemically transmute the food we eat into our flesh, blood,
actions, thoughts and feelings... with a little help from our
friends the salivary glands, the pancreas, the liver, and most
importantly RAW FOOD -- all of which provide (now we're getting to
the point) ENZYMES.
Enzymes are delicate dynamos. Delicate because they are destroyed by
temperatures over 118 degrees (some by as little as 105 degrees),
which means that they may not survive even light steaming. Dynamos
because they are powerful biochemical catalysts; they speed burning
or building reactions in the body according to need. They are
specialized proteins, often with long complicated names ending in -ase.
The three primary digestive enzymes are protease, lipase and amylase
which digest, respectively, protein, fat (lipids), and carbohydrates
(which includes sugars). Amylase comes from the salivary glands:
carbohydrates start digesting right in our mouth. Have you ever
chewed a piece of bread or potato for an extra moment before
swallowing, and tasted how sweet it is? (It is a good idea to chew
our foods thoroughly; literally making juice in our mouths before
swallowing.) Lipase is synthesized principally in the liver and
protease comes from the pancreas.
Although the enzyme-producing organs continue to function over the
entire course of a healthy life, they eventually wear down,
especially with the "standard American diet" (which, in the
naturopathic community, we call SAD.) Dr. Francis M. Pottenger's
nutritional studies have shown that a regular diet of cooked or
canned foods causes the development of chronic degenerative diseases
and premature mortality. Professor Jackson of the Dept. of Anatomy,
University of Minnesota, has shown that rats fed for 135 days on an
80 percent cooked food diet resulted in an increase pancreatic
weight of 20 to 30 percent. What this means is that the pancreas is
forced to work harder with a cooked food diet. "Although the body
can manufacture enzymes, the more you use your enzyme potential, the
faster it is going to run out..." wrote Dr. Edward Howell, who
pioneered research in the benefits of food enzymes. A youth of 18
may produce amylase levels 30 times greater than those of an 85 year
old person.
Enzymes are what make seeds sprout. Sprouts are, in fact, one of the
richest sources of enzymes. Other excellent sources are papaya,
pineapple and the aspergillus plant. Science cannot duplicate
enzymes, because they are the stuff of life itself. Only raw food
has functional "live" enzymes. Therefore the liver, pancreas,
stomach and intestines must come to the rescue and furnish the
requisite digestive enzymes to the individual nourished solely on a
cooked food diet.
This extra activity can be detrimental to health and longevity
because it continually taxes the reserve energy of our organs.
Furthermore, cooked food passes through the digestive tract more
slowly than raw food, tends to ferment, and throws poisons back into
the body. Colon cancer is second only to lung cancer as a killer in
America and is related, in various ways, to eating enzyme-deficient
cooked food. Prolonged intestinal toxemia may manifest the following
symptoms: Fatigue, nervousness, gasto-intestinal discomfort,
recurrent infections, skin eruptions, hormonal disturbances,
headaches, arthritis, sciatica, low back pain, allergies, asthma,
eye, ear, nose and throat disorders, cardiac irregularities,
pathological changes in the breasts, and so forth. All of these
conditions have been shown to respond to therapy directed to
correcting the bowel toxemia. Of course, it is important to have
fiber in the diet to scrub the colon walls clean, but even more
important are the enzymes which will allow proper digestion and
assimilation of vital nutrients. Cooked food often passes into the
bloodstream as unsplit molecules that are deposited, as waste, in
various parts of the body. If it is a fat molecule we know it as
cholesterol plaque; if calcium, arthritis; if sugar, diabetes. White
blood cell count rises dramatically after ingesting a meal of canned
or cooked foods ("digestive leukocytosis"). Elevated WBCs are
correlated to bacterial infection, inflammation and depressed
immunity. Raw foods do not produce this reaction. All raw foods
contain exactly the right enzymes required to split every last
molecule into the basic building blocks of metabolism: Amino acids
(from protein), glucose (from complex carbohydrates) and essential
fatty acids (from unsaturated vegetable fats).
You are what you ate: Eat living foods (at least once daily!).
*Dr. Emily Kane practices in Juneau, Alaska |
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