Rawdawg Rory

   Before I got hardcore into raw-foods I thought I knew quite a bit about the health benefits of certain foods, which fruits and veggies had high amounts of antioxidants, polyphenols, vitamins, minerals etc, but, I hadn’t bothered to think about enzymes and knew lil’ if anything about what they do or just HOW important they are to our health and well being. I’d like to share a bit of what I’ve learned about enzymes and how this info got me even more geeked up about eating raw “living” foods.

Un-chicken Salad wrap!

  I had understood early on that cooking food can dilute or denature vitamins and minerals as well as changing the molecular structure of the food itself, even creating carcinogenic properties when food is burnt. But when delving into the raw-foods world I learned that one of the biggest things we lose when we cook foods are active enzymes.

  Why are enzymes so freakin’ important?  Well to put it simply our body couldn’t perform any of it’s vital functions without them. Enzymes aid our body in digesting and assimilating our food, some enzymes alert our immune system to the presence of cancerous cells, and without their assistance our DNA couldn’t replicate itself!

  How to they do that voodoo they do so well? Well enzymes are catalysts for every biochemical reaction that takes place in our body! They lower the amount of energy required for a chemical bonding or un-bonding to take place by becoming a lil’ landing platform (of sorts) for the two chemicals about to undergo a change. When these chemicals “land” upon it the enzymes holds them in place and either brings them together or bends them apart causing a physical reaction. These reactions would be impossible for our bodies to perform without the help of enzymes.

  When we constantly eat foods that have had their naturally occurring enzymes denatured by cooking our body must produce it’s own digestive enzymes to pick up the slack. To make the digestive enzymes (the enzymes that enable digestion) it has to use metabolic enzymes (the ones responsible for all those amazing functions that keep us goin’) at a ratio of 10-1. That means it takes up to 10 metabolic enzymes to create one digestive enzyme!! What a bum deal eh?  This is one of the main causes of that energy-drain we feel after eating a heavy cooked meal.

 On the flipside if we we’re to consume more foods with their digestive enzymes intact, such as raw-foods, they pretty much digest themselves! This leaves our body not only with much more energy but, think of all those vital roles that were previously tied up by the need for digestion… How many ailments do we face that could have been caused by our body not having enough of its metabolic enzymes free to do such amazing things as healing, regenerating, fueling our cells and being weapons in the arsenal of our immune system? Then imagine what it could do with an abundance of these helpful lil’ protein catalysts!! They can make us stronger and healthier, they can re-build us, they have the technology. 

  Hope all this science stuff didn’t bore ya too much! Have an awesome weekend. PeAcE! :0)