My Online Health Articles and Healthy Recipes

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You cook healthy recipes, take a multi-vitamin, eat enough vegetables to stock a small produce stand (or so it seems) and drink plenty of water. You also make sure you get enough sleep, and you rarely skip a day at the gym. Still, you have low energy and are frequently sick. What’s the problem?

It might be your enzyme levels.

Enzymes help the body with a number of specific tasks — digesting food, stimulating the brain, providing cellular energy, and repairing all tissues, organs, and cells. Our bodies get these valuable enzymes by naturally producing them and by receiving them through food. As we age, however, it becomes increasingly difficult for our bodies to manufacture all the enzymes necessary for proper functioning.  Additionally, enzymes are destroyed by certain cooking processes and chemical additives in food, as well as when we expose our bodies to pollution and environmental toxins. And when our enzyme levels run low, our risk of illness increases.

Home Off the Range

Almost all food today is cooked and processed. When food is cooked, however, many of the vital enzymes are destroyed by heat, as they are by the chemicals in processed foods. This places a burden on our digestive systems because when enzymes aren’t received through the food we eat, our bodies are responsible for manufacturing the enzymes necessary for digestion. And as the body directs all its attention to digesting food, other organ systems are compromised — vital enzymes that could be used for keeping our bodies healthy are diverted to the digestive system. The result? Illness and chronic disease.

One logical solution to this problem is to eat more raw foods. Food enzymes are destroyed at temperatures above 118 F, whether the food is baked, broiled, steamed or microwaved. When we eat a diet that consists mainly of cooked and processed foods (as many of us do), we’re setting ourselves up for health problems.

Foods in their natural uncooked state contain all the enzymes necessary for their own digestion, and that, in turn, makes it easier for us to assimilate the nutrients. The more raw foods we eat, the more enzymes we get; and the more enzymes we get, the healthier we are.

A Simple Solution

Of course, what’s good in theory isn’t always practical — or palatable. Some of us can’t imagine eating a raw potato or an uncooked ear of corn; some of us just like cooked vegetables. But the choice doesn’t have to be to either eat “rabbit food” or compromise our health. Besides which, while most fruits and vegetables have enough enzymes to digest themselves, they don’t contain the necessary extra enzymes for helping to replenish the body’s enzymes supplies that are depleted by eating cooked food. Unless we eat a totally raw diet, we need help, and enzyme supplements are a simple solution to the cooked food vs. raw food dilemma. Enzyme supplements not only assist the digestive process, they ensure our bodies have enough enzymes to enhance our immune systems, help prevent and reverse disease processes, and give us energy and vitality.  And we can still bake those potatoes.

You might also be interested in these healthy recipes:

• Asparagus Recipes
• Blueberry Recipes with Antioxidant Power
• Broccoli Recipes
• Garlic Recipes with Antiviral Power
• Pasta Recipes to Boost Your Immune System
• Recipes to Control Blood Sugar
• Recipes to Help Your Vision
• Recipes to Keep Anemia at Bay

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