Part 25 (2/2)

BABIES WHO ARE NOT BREAST-FED are immediately forced to deal with a lipase and amylase deficiency in their food because they get almost no enzymes at all in pasteurized milk. In a study of more than 20,000 babies, the rate of illness was compared between completely breast-fed babies and bottle-fed babies. Pasteurized milk-fed babies had a mortality rate 56 times greater than breast milk-fed babies. The general rate of sickness was nearly double for the pasteurized milk-fed babies. Although there are other factors involved with breast feeding that make it desirable for health, it is very important to realize that babies who are not fed with breast milk are being short-changed by enzyme-deficient foods. This is probably true for the majority of our children in America who have become addicted to enzyme-less junk and fast foods. We are paying the price for altering the way Mother Nature presents us with her gifts. By cooking food we contribute to the loss of our health at an earlier age.

For diabetics and hypoglycemics, it seems that whether food is cooked or raw is very important for their well-being. In research at George Was.h.i.+ngton University Hospital, when 50 grams of raw starch was administered to patients, the blood sugar only rose 1 mg in one-half hour before it began to decrease. With the cooked starch there was a dramatic average increase of 56 mg in one-half hour and then a 51-mg average drop by one hour. This is quite a significant s.h.i.+ft in blood glucose. The major difference between the raw and cooked is the raw starch came with its own amylase and so was able to be predigested in the food enzyme stomach. Raw food and low-fat diets, with the use of added food enzymes, have been found to be a very effective treatment of adult-onset diabetes. On such a diet, if properly managed by a physician, adult-onset diabetics can actually stop needing insulin injections or oral medications.

How Do We Preserve Our Enzymes?

EATING RAW FOODS IS THE NUMBER-ONE ACTIVITY which preserves enzymes and maximizes health. It is the diet of choice of all the rest of Mother Nature's children that dwell on this planet. Animals that live in the wild do not suffer from chronic degenerative diseases as do humans and domesticated animals. It is a striking fact that all other species, without exception, eat their foods raw, whereas the overwhelming majority of humans do not. When animals are fed cooked foods, they too begin to suffer chronic degenerative diseases.

The foods with the highest amount of live enzymes are biogenic, predigested, and fermented foods. Seeds that have the highest enzyme content are those with a -inch sprout. Some have estimated that the enzyme content is ten times greater at this 1-inch sprouting stage. In Asia, the idea of fermenting soybeans by exposing them to the enzymatic action of fungal plants has been practiced for thousands of years. The fungal plants not only add enzymes to the food, but predigest the protein, carbohydrates, and oils. Miso, a fermented soybean product, and tempeh, a soy product with a cultured fungus, are examples of this. One can also make enzyme-rich, fermented, raw seed and nut cheeses through a fermentation process (see recipes section).

Although all live foods are high in enzymes, there can be a tendency for some people on a live-food diet to become too thin if they eat just vegetables, fruits, and sprouts. Through self-experimentation, I found that on a vegan diet of 99% live fruits, vegetables, seeds, and sprouts, with occasional sprouted or cooked grains, I am able to maintain my weight. By adding certain foods that not only are high in enzymes, but also high in carbohydrates or lipids, I am able to increase my weight at will. These foods primarily are bananas, avocados, and soaked or sprouted raw seeds and nuts. Other foods that are high in enzymes as well as calories are: grapes, mangos, dates, raw honey, raw b.u.t.ter, and unpasteurized milk. Though raw dairy products are high in enzymes, I do not necessarily endorse their consumption.

Fasting is another powerful way to conserve and redirect enzyme potential. During a fast, we stop producing digestive enzymes and the enzyme energy is diverted to the metabolic sphere of operations, which includes an increased rate of autolysis (breakdown of old cells), as well as a breakdown and elimination of fatty deposits, incomplete proteins, and other toxic material in the system. The enzymes become a rejuvenating power for us. Raw-food expert and author of Survival into the 21st Century, Victoras Kulvinskas, suggests that during a fast, our natural body bacteria have an opportunity to add a great deal more of their enzymes to our system and thus increase our total enzyme force. My observation in guiding many individual fasts and running several spiritual fasting retreats per year is that fasting is an incredible way to rejuvenate our total life force and SOEFs. When we fast on water or juices, we are giving a substantial rest to our digestive enzyme systems, and this takes the burden off our enzyme pool.

Not Overeating: The Secret to Health,

Longevity, and Enzyme Preservation.

NOT OVEREATING RAW FOODS is itself another way to conserve enzymes. It is different from an obsessive undereating, which can result in a physical and mental deprivation syndrome. Not overeating is what I call the art of conscious eating. It is learning to take just the right amount of food and drink to support our individual needs on every level of our spiritual and worldly functioning Researchers have shown that not overeating increases longevity. World-famous nutritionist Paavo Airola, Ph.D., has proclaimed that under-eating is the most important health and longevity secret. He believed that overeating of even health foods was one of the main causes of ill health.

Jesus, in TheEssene Gospel of Peace, Book One (p. 31), said, And when you eat, never eat unto fullness.

Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), one of the most celebrated of all Jewish healers and spiritual teachers, taught in his Mishveh Torah: Overeating is like a deadly poison to any const.i.tution and is the princ.i.p.al cause of all disease.

Animal research by Dr. Clive McKay of Cornell University showed that when food intake was halved, the life span of rats was doubled and they were healthier. The rat's life span increased to the equivalent of approximately 170 human years. At Brown University, 158 animals were overfed and another group was put on a near-starvation diet. Those on the spa.r.s.e diet lived 40% longer. For those who might be concerned that they have been irreversibly overeating to the detriment of their health, research by Roy Wal-ford and Richard Weindruch showed that one could extend the life of even middle-aged animals by underfeeding them. Some of their mice lived 40% longer, and fish lived three times longer, on a spa.r.s.e diet. Researchers also noticed that degenerative diseases such as cancer and heart and kidney disease occurred less frequently, and the onset of these diseases occurred at a later age in the underfed mice. These researchers even discovered that the mice's immune systems were rejuvenated. For example, underfed mice had only 13% spontaneous cancer as compared to 50% for mice on the same type of foods, but with no limits on the food intake. Kidney disease was 25% in underfed mice versus 100% in the mice with an unlimited diet. There was 26% heart disease for the underfed mice versus 96% with heart disease for the overfed. Other animal research has now confirmed these findings. The underfed animals stayed physiologically younger for a longer time.

Animal research in both the US and Germany has also shown that rats fed once per day had higher enzyme concentrations in the pancreas and fat cells and a 17% increased life span over that of frequent eaters. It seems that if the enzymes are only secreted once per day, there will not be as many of them used up as with frequent meals. The evidence of the effects of not overeating is that it is actually a method for life and vitality extension as well as prevention of degenerative disease.

Research suggests that excessive eating causes oxidative stress to the system, which results in free radical damage to the tissues and an increase in cross-linking of the active protein in the tissues and cells so that they no longer function properly (a sign of aging). Free radicals are harmful molecules that can be generated by poor nutrition, emotional and/or physical stress, environmental pollution, surgery, radiation, food irradiation, bacterial and viral illnesses, and the aging process in general. These free radicals have a free electron that disrupts the integrity of cell membranes. They are quenched and neutralized by molecules called antioxidants.

Eating a dietary program that is low in protein and total calories helps the body fully a.s.similate what is eaten. This way of eating creates a minimum of metabolic by-products such as free radicals. Eating less food and increasing the quality of food is something everyone can do if they put their awareness on this aspect of a balanced life. Not only will this approach cut down on the rate of aging, but unlike most medical approaches, this way of living will actually save money by not having medical problems to begin with.

Not overeating results in optimal health and not malnutrition. Not overeating in our society is eating what we need rather than what we desire or that to which we are addicted. This is not so easy for most of us. We live in an environment of excessive stimulation from empty calories and negative thoughts. We are undernourished from the insufficient nutrients in all our processed foods, and we are overfed with junk in an effort to compensate for the lack of true nourishment.

Not overeating is a part of conscious eating. It means eating what is appropriate to our health, vitality, and longevity, and what will bring us into harmony with our body and the planetary body. This understanding of the importance of not overeating has inspired me to switch in my own life to two meals instead of three meals per day.

Historical and Cultural Evidence for the Benefits of Not Overeating.

CULTURAL EVIDENCE SUPPORTS THIS NOT-OVEREATING APPROACH. The cultures in which people live long and healthy lives, such as the Indians of the Vilcabamban region of Ecuador, the Hunzakuts of West Pakistan, the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico, and the Abkhazians of Russia, all consume a low-protein, high-natural-carbohydrate diet that has about one-half to one-third the calories and amount of protein that the average American eats.

Historical cases of longevity have been a.s.sociated with eating less. Saint Paul the Anchorite lived to be 113 on dates and water. Thomas Carn, born in London in 1588, lived to be 207 on two vegetarian meals per day. This health wisdom has been with us for thousands of years, but few really put it into practice. On a 5000-year-old Egyptian pyramid, an inscription of this wisdom was found: ”Man lives on one quarter of what he eats, on the other three quarters, his doctor lives.”

One of the most famous of the ”non-overeaters” was Luigi Cornaro, a Venetian n.o.bleman who lived from 1464 to 1566. By his late forties, he had become deathly sick from overeating. A doctor, Father Benedict, who had been trained in the Essene health philosophy, explained to him about eating less. Cornaro simplified his diet to 12 ounces of solid and 14 ounces of liquid food per day and recovered to live to be 102. He went on to teach many people about this Essene way of health, including the Pope. His writings on not overeating are summed up in two statements: The less I ate, the better I felt.

Not to satiate oneself with food is the science of health.

From what we now know about the importance of enzyme preservation, not overeating, especially of raw foods, less frequent meals, no snack-ing between meals, and fasting are effective ways to conserve enzymes and thus build and maintain a high quality of vitality and healthy longevity. The idea of not overeating may be threatening in the US, where we have more than 80 million people who are considered overweight. We are a country of overabundance in which overeating has become a major way of avoiding unwanted feelings such as intimacy, s.e.xual desire, loneliness, feeling unloved, and anger. It can also be a form of self-sabotage and self-abuse, as well as a slow form of suicide. Overeating food has become one of America's most serious addictions.

Enzyme Supplementation.

IN ADDITION TO EATING LIVE FOOD and not overeating, the use of exogenous enzyme supplementation is another way to build up enzyme reserve. Since 1949, enough research has thoroughly doc.u.mented that these enzymes are not only active in the digestive system but will increase in concentration in the blood after being taken orally For example, researchers who fed raw soybean lipase to rabbits demonstrated that the blood serum lipase was elevated in response to the oral administration of lipase. Work by Peter Rothchild, M.D., Ph.D., found that in a double blind study using the antioxidant enzymes from a wheat sprout matrix, there was a 70-90% increase in blood levels of serum glutathione peroxidase after giving these oral wheat sprout concentrates. In another similar wheat sprout enzyme study, he found a 40% increase in SOD and a 60% increase in serum catalase. The fact that we can absorb these enzymes through our digestive tract is important because it means we have a way of correcting some enzyme deficiencies. Of course, it is a lot easier and less expensive if we do not create the deficiencies by not eating cooked foods in the first place.

Live plant digestive enzymes may be the best source of enzyme supplementation. They seem to be active at a much fuller pH range than animal enzymes. These plant enzymes show some activity in the stomach, especially the enzyme stomach, and become immediately active in the small intestine. One study, reported in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that 70% of plant amylase is active in the small intestine after being ingested orally. Because of these facts, I recommend that people consider using plant digestive enzymes for their digestive supplementation. They are actually concentrated food enzymes from nature. This is welcome news to those who feel they need digestive enzymes but who do not like to eat animal pancreas products taken from slaughterhouses.

Animal enzymes, such as pepsin, only work in a moderately strong acid environment such as the stomach. Trypsin only works in a slightly alkaline environment, such as in the small intestine where it is secreted. Because of the versatility of its activity, plant digestive enzyme supplementation can take the stress off the entire digestive enzyme system. Some pancreatic animal enzyme tablets have an enteric coating which protects them from inac-tivation in the stomach. These enzymes require the pancreas to secrete enough enzymes to digest their enteric coating before they start to operate. Thus, they do not give the pancreas a chance to conserve its digestive enzyme power for use in other places in the body like the plant enzymes do.

Another form of enzyme supplementation is produced by growing and harvesting wheat berries that are specifically cultured to be high in antioxidant enzymes. These antioxidant enzymes neutralize free radicals throughout the system at the cellular level. In addition to the medical use of these enzymes, we live in such a toxic environment that most everyone needs to maintain proper antioxidant enzyme levels as a critical protection barrier. Preliminary research has suggested that once optimal blood levels of these antioxidant enzymes are obtained, they do not go any higher by increasing the dosage. This suggests the possibility that some of these live enzymes might be converted to other types of metabolic enzymes in the system. Thus, the use of these enzymes affords an opportunity to protect against free radicals as well as to increase general enzyme reserves.

Reasons to Use Enzymes.

Anyone eating cooked, microwaved, or irradiated food should take food enzyme supplements to compensate for the lost and destroyed naturally occurring food enzymes that were previously in the food. This approach is still not the same as eating the food in its active, live state. Even if a person eats 90% live food, if they still have imbalances in their health, they would do well to take enzyme supplements.

Since age correlates with a decreasing enzyme reserve, enzyme supplementation should theoretically slow down the aging process by building up the enzymes and quenching free radicals. For this reason, I now recommend that everyone use enzyme supplementation, including those who are eating 100% live foods. These live food enzymes can be found in any health food store.

During acute and chronic illnesses, there is often an enzyme depletion that can be alleviated by enzyme supplementation. In my clinical observations as well as those of others, enzyme supplementation seems to increase the rate of recovery.

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