Conscious Eating Part 25

Preview of Chapter 26.

ENZYMES ARE ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT health factors in our foods. The preservation of our enzymes is a.s.sociated with better health, vitality, and longevity In this chapter you will learn about food enzymes and how to preserve your own enzyme reserve. If you accept the importance of enzyme preservation, are you ready to change your dietary patterns to conserve them?

I. Enzymes: a secret of health and longevity A. Enzymes are chemical protein complexes and bioenergy reservoirs B. Three main types of enzymes: metabolic, digestive, and food II. Importance of enzyme preservation A. Our bodies only secrete enough enzymes for each food we eat B. Enzyme energy is linked to SOEFs C. Enzymes decrease with age D. Animal research and enzymes III. The role of food enzymes in digestion IV. Enzymes for health V. Enzyme-deficient is a hard way to start life VI. How do we preserve our enzymes?

A. Eating raw foods B. Live enzyme supplements C. Fasting VII. Not overeating A. Animal life extended by underfeeding B. Not overeating results in optimal health VIII. Enzyme supplementation: live plant digestive enzymes IX. Reasons to use enzymes A. Enzymes lost or destroyed in cooked foods B. Enzymes decrease with age C. Enzyme depletion during illness D. Digestive disturbances.

E. Enzymes help detoxify.

X. Food enzymes: a new perspective on food combining.

Enzymes: A Secret of Health and Longevity.

ACCORDING TO MY NEW PARADIGM OF NUTRITION set forth in Spiritual Nutrition and The Rainbow Diet and elaborated in this book, whenever we process foods in any way, we disorganize the SOEFs of the food, and hence, lower the life force. This manifests on the physical plane in a variety of ways. Enzyme destruction is one. According to Dr. Howell, whom many consider the father of food enzyme research in the twentieth century, enzymes are both chemical protein complexes and bioenergy reservoirs. In the physical body, as bioenergy reservoirs, they are a.n.a.logous in their patterning to SOEFs. I think of them as high-energy vortex points which step down the cosmic SOEF energy into the body.

Dr. Robert G. Denkewalter, one of the first to synthesize an enzyme protein, says that enzymes are "embarra.s.sing because they can do at body temperatures and in simple solution what we organic chemists can do only with corrosive agents and at high temperatures and with laborious processes." Dr. Troland, from Harvard University, one of the first scientists to put forth a living theory for enzymes, said, "Life is something which has been built up about the enzyme; it is corollary of enzyme activity." Chemists concede that only the living organism makes active enzymes. Dr. Howell points out that enzymes are not simple chemical catalysts, but have this vital life force that initiates biochemical interactions. He also notes that the capacity of an organism to make active live enzymes depends on the available life force of the organism. The corollary to this is that the enzyme activity of an organism is a way to measure the life force of the organism. Ann Wigmore, the mother of the raw-foods movement in America, says that "enzyme preservation is the secret to health."

Howell taught two key concepts: (1) enzymes are living, biochemical factors that activate and carry out all the biological processes in the body, such as digestion, nerve impulses, the detoxification process, the functioning of RNA/DNA, repairing and healing the body, and even thinking; and (2) the capacity of an organism to make enzymes is exhaustible. Therefore, on the biological level, how we utilize and replenish our enzyme resources will be a measure of our overall health and longevity By understanding how enzymes work, we will understand why it is best to eat a higher percentage of Mother Nature's offering "au naturel."

There are three broad categories of enzymes: metabolic, which activate all our metabolic processes; digestive, for the digestion of food; and a relatively newly conceived category called food enzymes. Food enzymes are present in all live foods and serve the function of specifically activating the digestion of those foods in which they occur. Live foods contain a variety of metabolic enzymes as well, such as superoxide dis.m.u.tase (SOD).

There are an estimated 50,000 enzymes active in the human organism. Approximately 2700-3000 enzymes and their functions have been identified. Each organ has its own set of enzymes. Of the 50,000-plus enzymes, about 24 of them are digestive enzymes. The three main types of digestive enzymes are proteases, which digest proteins; amylases, which digest carbohydrates; and lipases, which digest fats. Mother Nature works in conjunction with us by adding what we call from our human-centered point of view "food enzymes" to each living element of nature. These food enzymes have the exact ratio of proteases, amylases, and lipases required to begin the digestion of the food for the body.

Importance of Enzyme Preservation.

THE RELEVANCE OF THIS GIFT OF MOTHER NATURE becomes more obvious when we explore what Dr. Howell called the Law of Adaptive Secretion of Digestive Enzymes. Based on research at Northwestern University and confirmed by many other researchers, the Law of Adaptive Secretion proposes that the living organism will secrete no more enzymes than are needed for digestion of a particular food. This means that if a food from Mother Nature comes into our system in its live form, filled with exactly the right proportion of food enzymes to begin digestion, then it will result in less digestive enzymes being secreted by our organism for the digestive process. Researchers found that when dogs were given cooked foods, after a week the enzyme content of the saliva greatly increased in order to digest the cooked foods. When the dogs were put back on their normal diet of raw foods, within a week the enzyme content of the saliva went back to its normally low level. The implication of these studies is that since the raw food contained the self-digesting food enzymes, the dogs did not have to use up their own enzyme reserves to digest it as they did with the cooked food.

Human research as far back as 1907 has shown that the type of enzymes secreted in the human system also depend on the type of diet. In that year Simon showed that the starch-digesting enzyme amylase in human saliva increased with a high-starch diet and decreased with a high-protein, low-starch diet. In 1927, Goldstein showed that the content of fat-digesting lipase, protein-digesting trypsin, and starch-digesting amylase in the pancreatic secretions of humans varied in direct relation to the amount of fats, protein, or complex carbohydrates in the diet. The implication of this and the dog research is that by taking in foods high in live enzymes, less of our own digestive enzymes need to be used, so we are able to conserve enzyme energy. Enzyme energy is linked to our vital force and therefore the energy of our SOEFs. The higher our vital force, or SOEFs, the better our health.

The significance of enzyme preservation and the Law of Adaptive Secretion becomes even clearer when we see how much our enzyme level is linked to chronological age and disease. For example, Dr. Meyer and his a.s.sociates at Chicago's Michael Reese Hospital found that the amylase in the saliva of young adults was thirty times greater than in people with a chronological age of 69. Dr. Eckardt in Germany found that young people had 25 units of amylase in their urine as compared to 14 in older people. Other researchers have found that the amount of SOD in an 80-year-old person is 57% of that of a newborn and 61% of that of a 10-year-old child. In a 40-year-old person, the SOD was found to be 84% of a newborn and 87% of a 10-year-old child. Individuals 27 years of age have been found to have twice the amount of lipase as 77-year-old people. A lower enzyme content is also found in people with chronic diseases. In in j.a.panese patients with tuberculosis, 82% had lower enzyme contents than normal. In 40 patients with liver diseases, all had lower levels of amylase. In diabetes, it has been found that 86% are lower in amylase. Researchers have also found a lowered lipase level in people with obesity, arteriosclerosis, and high blood pressure. Directly and indirectly, we can see how important enzyme preservation and harmonious utilization are to health and vitality.

This same sort of enzyme decrease with chronological age happens in the animal kingdom. Researchers have found the enzyme content of younger Daphnia insects, potato beetles, gra.s.shoppers, fruit flies, fire flies, and rats to be significantly greater than for their older counterparts.

The above findings may be connected with the research of Dr. Kollath of the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, who found that when he put animals on a diet of cooked and processed foods similar to the regular Western diet, they initially appeared to be as healthy as animals on live foods. As the animals reached adulthood, those on the cooked and processed foods began to age more quickly. They also developed chronic degenerative disease processes at an earlier age. The animals' degenerative diseases resembled the very human diseases common in the Western industrialized world, such as osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, and constipation, et cetera. He called the state of health of these animals "meso-health," a sort of half-health. Those animals raised on raw foods did not suffer from these problems.

The good news was that the meso-health of these animals could be reversed. It couldn't be done with megadoses of vitamin or mineral supplementation, however. The only thing that worked to reverse the aging process and bring the animals back to a normal state of health was to give them raw foods. Dr. Kollath called these heat-sensitive, unknown factors in the raw food "auxones." Most likely what he termed auxones were enzymes. There are many other factors in raw foods that also support health, but the enzymes are probably the most significant.

Similar animal research was done over a ten-year period by Francis Pot-tenger, M.D., using 900 cats. He gave half of the cats raw milk and raw meat and the other half pasteurized milk and cooked meat. In the first generation, the cats on the cooked food developed a pattern of degenerative disease similar to what we see in humans. In the second and third generations of cooked-food-eating cats, he observed the onset of congenital bone deformities, hyperactivity, and sterility The cats became so dysfunctional that plants would not even grow on their manure. The conclusion he made was that some critical, heat-sensitive factor was missing from the cooked food. The main factors known to be completely destroyed by heat are enzymes. The Pottenger Cat Study is discussed in detail in Chapter 8, "Deficient Diet: A Cause of Physical and Mental Degeneration."

According to Dr. Howell, temperatures of 118 F applied for one-half hour will destroy all the food enzymes in a particular food. This is a temperature that is sensed as warm to the hand. One can see that any kind of cooking, boiling, baking, or frying destroys essentially 100% of the enzymes, as does canning, food irradiation, and microwave cooking. Dr. Howell points out that boiling food for three minutes will kill all the enzymes. His research shows that at 145 F, the temperature for pasteurization, 80-95% of the enzymes are destroyed after one-half hour.

The Role of Food Enzymes in Digestion.

TO DEVELOP AN OVERVIEW, we need to dissolve some false concepts about the process of digestion and understand how food enzymes work in our total organism. Contrary to the myth that our stomach is simply one big container for the digestion of protein, researchers have conclusively shown that there are two distinctly different digestive sections of the stomach. There is an upper part which retains food for 30-60 minutes while salivary digestion continues. There is no peristaltic action in this part of the stomach, and there are no enzymes secreted from its walls. The second part of the stomach is the lower part, called the pyloric stomach. This is where the hydrochloric acid and pepsin are secreted and considerably more protein digestion carried on. During the first 30-60 minutes in the upper stomach, digestion takes place primarily by the food enzymes released from the raw foods. The digestive process actually starts in the mouth, where the ptyalin in the saliva begins to digest the carbohydrates. In the process of chewing, the cell walls of the plant food are broken down and the food enzymes begin to get released. Most green foods are covered by a thin layer of cellulose for which humans have no digestive enzymes. For this reason, it is important to chew our food well, because when the cell walls of the plant are opened up by the action of chewing they release cellulase in the food itself, which helps to digest this cellulose. It is my impression that some of the green plants that are more difficult to digest in their raw form, such as broccoli, have a thicker layer of cellulose, and the problem is that we do not chew it well enough to break open the cell walls and release the plant cellulase.

Given this new perspective on the upper part of the stomach, which is anatomically known as the cardiac area, we will now call this the "food enzyme stomach." A food enzyme stomach is found in many animals. Cattle, sheep, whales, dolphins, and chickens all have them, although often called by different names, such as the rumen in cows and crop in chickens. Support for this idea of two distinct parts of the stomach is also found in one of the medical school anatomical cla.s.sics, Gray's Anatomy, which terms the first part the upper, or cardiac portion. The lower, "pyloric stomach" has a pH of 1.6-2.4. The upper stomach has a pH that ranges from 5 to 6. This is important because the food enzymes are still active in this 5 to 6 pH range. They are temporarily inactivated in the 2.4 or lower range. A number of researchers show that the food enzymes again become active in the alkaline pH of the small intestine, where they complete their work.

Although this seems like a new concept, research by a variety of people shows that digestion does occur in the food enzyme stomach. Dr. Beazell reported in the Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine that 20% of starch was digested in the stomach, and only 3% of protein, in this first hour of digestion. Olaf Berglim, a professor of physiology at the Illinois College of Medicine, found that 45 minutes after giving his subjects mashed potatoes and bread, 76% of the starch in the mashed potatoes and 59% in the bread was digested. Other researchers have found similar results. This research was most likely done with cooked foods and so probably only the ptyalin (amylase) from the saliva was active in the food enzyme stomach. Dr. Howard Loomis, who is considered to be Dr. Howell's successor, estimates that an average of 60% of starches, 30% of protein, and 10% of fat are digested in the food enzyme stomach. We can only a.s.sume that considerably more would be digested if it were raw food because the raw food would have its own digestive enzymes that would be released. The point is, as with the rest of nature's animals, the food enzyme stomach is where all the food enzymes in the raw foods are engaged in active digestion, along with our own ptyalin and amylase secretions from our saliva.

The result of this digestion in the food enzyme stomach is that the pancreas is not forced to work so hard to secrete so many enzymes. This conserves the body's enzymes for use toward nondigestive, metabolic purposes such as detoxification, repair, and the health and proper functioning of the endocrine glands and other vital organs. Because eating raw foods liberates enzymes for use in other parts of the body, the importance of making a high percentage of our diet biogenic and bioactive is obvious.

Evidence compiled by Dr. Howell strongly suggests that eating foods devoid of enzymes as a result of cooking, food irradiation, and microwaving causes an enlargement of the pancreas and also stresses a.s.sociated endocrine glands, such as the adrenals, pituitary, ovaries, and testes. In all of nature, the human pancreas is three times larger, as compared to total body weight, than that of any other animal. What is interesting is that when mice are fed cooked foods, the ratio of their pancreas weight to total body weight becomes approximately that of a human's. When they are switched back to a raw-food diet, their pancreas shrinks back to normal size. The most obvious conclusion is that the pancreas becomes hypertrophied, or enlarged, because it is forced to keep up a high digestive enzyme output.

A great deal of the body energy goes into the process of digestion. Sometimes so much energy is needed for digestion that we tend to become sleepy after a meal. This increased amount of energy implies that a large input of enzymes is used up in the digestive process. Some theorize that in order to keep this enzyme production up, the pancreas has to draw enzymes from other bodily glands. This forces these other glands to overwork and eventually enlarge to compensate for the demand. This hypertrophy primarily starts with the endocrine glands. Hypertrophy of a gland eventually leads to its early exhaustion.

Perhaps a.s.sociated with the phenomenon of increased enzyme secretion by the pancreas due to cooked-food eating are the startling findings mentioned earlier of a Swiss physician, Paul Kouchakoff. In 1930, he showed that the eating of cooked foods caused leucocytosis, which is an increase in white blood cells. This even occurred when water was heated above 191 F. There are two hypotheses to explain this. One is that the white blood cells, which have a similar lipase, protease, and amylase ratio as the pancreas, are actually taking enzymes to the pancreas to boost its supply The second explanation is that when food is cooked and water boiled, the body recognizes it as foreign and has an immune response to it. Both explanations may be true simultaneously. In any case, the repeated leucocytosis with every meal certainly puts a strain on the immune system. Kouchakoff also found that when subjects started a meal with raw foods which equaled more than half of the meal, they were able to have some cooked foods and not produce a leucocytosis. When people ate biocidic, highly processed, or junk foods, not only did they get leucocytosis, but the normal white blood cell ratios became deranged to the extent that they resembled the pattern one sees with blood poisoning from contaminated meat. From the point of view of the SOEFs, one can see how eating biogenic and bioactive foods brings SOEF and enzyme energy into the system, and eating biostatic (cooked foods) or biocidic foods requires SOEF and enzyme energy to complete the digestion, and therefore depletes the SOEFs and enzyme reserves.

Enzymes for Health.

IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE of enzymes for our health, it would be useful to understand how they specifically affect our health. For example, a doctor at Tufts Medical School found that in 100% of the cases of obesity he studied, all had lipase deficiencies. The implication was that these people had a decreased ability to a.s.similate fat properly. The fat ended up being stored as fatty tissue rather than being broken down.

Cooked food seems to stimulate the craving for food because the organs are not getting the nutrients they would normally get in uncooked food. The body naturally craves more nutrients, which may translate into an uncontrollable appet.i.te and lack of willpower. Farmers have long known that if you give raw potatoes to hogs they will not gain weight, but if you give them cooked potatoes they gain weight. In my clinical practice, I often see people lose weight readily when they go on a raw-food diet. Many times this is all that is needed to help people lose weight.

As pointed out in an earlier chapter, cooked fats are missing lipase and have significantly less biologically active cis fatty acids. The difference in the digestive pattern of the raw versus cooked fat may also be important. The raw fat begins its digestion with its own lipase in the food enzyme stomach under slightly acid conditions. The cooked fat, without its own lipase, doesn't begin a significant digestive transformation until it is in the highly alkaline pH of the small intestine. When they both reach the small intestine, the predigested raw fats or oils are already beginning the next step in the digestion, while the undigested cooked fats are just starting their digestion. This may result in a slight s.h.i.+ft in how the fat is metabolized and could cause some altering of the cholesterol. This interference with the fat digestion sequence may be another reason a high cooked fat intake is so deleterious to our health. The other reason is that eating cooked fats or oils causes an eventual lipase deficiency in the system. For these reasons, a deficiency of lipase may have a profound metabolic effect on both obesity and cholesterol disorders. It will be interesting to see what the researchers discover in the next few years about this important health question.

Enzyme-Deficient Is a Hard Way to Start Life.

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.