Thursday, March 25, 2010
Once enzymes are exposed to heat, they can no longer able to provide the function for which they were designed. Cooked foods contribute to chronic illness, because their enzyme content is damaged and thus requires us to make our own enzymes to process the food. The digestion of cooked food uses valuable metabolic enzymes in order to help digest your food. Digestion of cooked food demands much more energy than the digestion of raw food. Thus, raw food is much more easily digested that it passes through the digestive tract in 1/2 to 1/3 of the time it takes for cooked food.
Eating enzyme-dead foods places a burden on your pancreas and other organs and overworks them, which eventually exhausts these organs. Many people gradually impair their pancreas and progressively lose the ability to digest their food after a lifetime of ingesting processed foods.
The effect of raw food versus cooked food on the immune system
| It was found that after a person eats cooked food, his/her blood responds immediately by increasing the number of white blood cells. This is a famous phenomena called 'digestive leukocytosis', where there is a rise in the number of leukocytes - white blood cells - after eating. |  |
Since digestive leukocytosis was observed after a meal, it was considered to be a normal physiological response to eating. No one knew why the number of white cells rises after eating, since this appeared to be a stress response, as if the body was somehow reacting to something harmful such as infection, exposure to toxic chemicals or trauma.
In 1930, the Swiss researchers at the institute of Chemical Chemistry made a remarkable discovery. They found that eating raw, unaltered food did not cause a reaction in the blood. Also, they found that if a food had been heated beyond a certain temperature (unique to each food), if the food was processed, this always caused a rise in the number of white cells in the blood.
The researchers renamed this reaction 'pathological leukocytosis', since the body was reacting to highly altered food. They tested many different types of foods and found that if the foods were not refined or overheated, they caused no reaction. The body saw them as 'friendly foods'. However, these foods, if heated at too high a temperature, caused a negative reaction in the blood, a reaction found only when the body is invaded by a dangerous pathogen or trauma.The worst offenders of all, whether heated or not, were processed foods which had been refined (such as white flour and white rice), or pasteurized (a process in which milk is flash-heated to high temperatures to kill bacteria), or homogenized (also seen in milk where the fat in milk is subjected to artificial suspension), or preserved (chemicals are added to food to delay spoilage or to enhance texture or taste).
Raw foods and digestive enzymes
Raw foods are rich in enzymes. Enzymes are needed for the digestive system to work. They are needed to break down food particles so they can be utilized for energy. The human body makes approximately 22 different digestive enzymes which are capable of digesting carbohydrates, protein and fats. Raw vegetables and raw fruit are rich sources of enzymes.
Lack of digestive enzymes can be a factor in food allergies. Symptoms of digestive enzymes depletion are bloating, bowel disorders, abdominal cramping and heartburn. All of us lose our ability to produce concentrated digestive enzymes as we grow older.
The more food that you can eat raw, the better.
If you do cook your food, the best way to cook food is to lightly steam, stew, or use a slow crock cooker. Eat as few over-processed and over-cooked foods as possible. The body has a difficult time digesting fried, pasteurized, barbecued, dried, and other over-processed and over-cooked foods which you find in boxed and processed foods.
Raw eggs are an important part of the raw food approach. If you are healthy, salmonella is not going to be an issue, especially if the eggs are organic and free range.
+ [ written by SEOWHWEE ] + 2:07 AM