A question of enzymes

[Guest guest]

I'm hearing all over the place that you can't heat beyond a certain point in

order to keep the enzymes intact.

 

But what enzymes are folks talking about. (I understand the heat thing, but

Fred is wondering which enzymes).

 

Thanks,

 

Rose

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

rawfood , " Rose Lieberman " <pyrite@c...> wrote:

> I'm hearing all over the place that you can't heat beyond a

certain point in order to keep the enzymes intact.

>

> But what enzymes are folks talking about. (I understand the heat

thing, but Fred is wondering which enzymes).

 

Enzymes are proteins, which are catalysts in the body. Food enzymes

catalyze the breakdown of food by the body, splitting the complex

biochemical compounds, into simpler ones to be re-combined by the

body as needed. All foods have in them the enzymes sufficient to

break them down, unless they are destroyed by heating or freezing.

They may be more sensitive to heat than to freezing, but extremes of

temperature destroy enzymes, according to Dr. Edwin Howell.

 

There are also enzymes which the body makes. There are two types:

metabolic and digestive. When we eat raw foods, with enzymes intact,

the enzymes necessary for their digestion come with the food. But if

we eat food in which the enzymes have been destroyed, then the body

must draw on its digestive enzymes to break it down. The more cooked

or frozen food people eat, in which the enzymes have been destroyed,

the more the digestive enzymes become depleted. In that case, the

body must draw on the store of metabolic enzymes to do the normal

work of the digestive enzymes, as well as of the food enzymes.

Depletion of metabolic enzymes shortens life.

 

" It seems that we inherit a certain enzyme potential at birth.

This limited supply of activity factors or life force must last us a

lifetime. It's just as if you inherited a certain amount of money.

If the movement is all one way -- all spending and no income -- you

will run out of money.

Likewise, the faster you use up your supply of enzyme activity, the

quicker you will run out...the faster the metabolic rate, the

shorter the lifespan.

Other things being equal, you live as long as your body has enzyme

activity factors to make enzymes from. When it gets to the point

that you can't make certain enzymes, then your life ends. "

 

Dr. Howell's work is generally interpreted as saying that we have a

limited number of digestive and metabolic enzymes, which we have had

since birth, and that must last us our entire lifetime. However, in

the quote above, if one reads it closely, what he is actually saying

is that it is not the enzymes that are set at birth, but " enzyme

activity factors " , which make enzymes throughout our lives. He seems

to equate the " activity factors " with life force. Indeed, in most

people life force is finite because they just keep using it up and

never replenishing it. But life force can be restored by rest and

sleep. Adult animals in Nature do not squander energy, but instead

rest and sleep whenever possible. It is cooked and frozen foods

which waste enzymes. And when people eat toxic things, it destroys

their life energy, their vitality, which impairs their body

functions, including making enzymes.

 

Zsuzsa