Enzymes are the workers in our body that make everything
function, by enabling chemical reactions. All living cells
contain enzymes. They are hard to visualize, since they are not
something tangible, but they are essential to our bodies and our
lives depend on them.

There are many kinds of enzymes, and they do everything from
helping us breath to helping begin life at conception. Eighty
percent of our DNA code relates to enzymes. But the kind of
enzymes discussed here relate to our digestion and the food we
eat.

In the process of digestion, the digestive enzymes in our bodies
break down food into tiny microscopic parts that the body can
use for fuel, growth and repair. One food may take hundreds of
different types of enzymes for the body to digest.

Food is naturally filled with enzymes, called food enzymes,
that help us to digest that food. The problem is that when we
cook or process it, we kill those enzymes. Temperatures over 118
degrees will destroy the enzymes. A good example of this is
pineapple, which has some very powerful digestive enzymes in it.
These enzymes work so well that when added to gelatin (like
Jell-O), the enzymes won't allow the gelatin to thicken. So the
only kind of pineapple you can add to gelatin is canned
pineapple, which has been cooked and processed so that all the
enzymes have been destroyed. It is now safe to add to gelatin,
but not as good for your body.

Our body can manufacture enzymes, called digestive enzymes, in
the pancreas. But when we eat a diet that is filled with mostly
cooked and processed foods, depleted of enzymes, the pancreas is
forced to work much harder than it was meant to, manufacturing
the enzymes the body needs to digest these foods.

So the pancreas ends up overworking, and the body spends much
needed energy and resources on digestion instead of important
things like boosting the immune system, growth, repairs in the
body and fighting disease. Even worse, if the pancreas becomes
so overworked that it shuts down, then bits of undigested food
start floating around the body in the bloodstream, causing all
kinds of trouble.

The pancreas can be healed in time, with a diet of raw foods
filled with enzymes. This same kind of diet, filled with raw
fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts, will keep the pancreas from
getting that bad to begin with, and will enable the body to
spend its energy on more important processes like boosting the
immune system and fighting disease.

This is why it is so vital that we eat a diet containing lots of
fresh enzyme filled raw foods. Especially in the world we live
in today, where we are surrounded by poisons and things that
cause cancer. We need these wholesome foods now more than humans
ever have in the past, to help our bodies stay disease free and
functioning properly.

Dianne Ronnow