The Miracle of Enzymes - What are Enzymes?

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Food Enzyme
Nature has placed enzymes in food to digest everything you eat starches, fat, protein, fiber, sugars and daily foods instead of forcing the enzymes secreted in our bodies to do all of the work.
Eating raw fruits and vegetables because they are "live foods"; that is, foods in which the enzymes are active. The more enzymes you get, the healthier you are. And the more raw foods you eat, the more enzymes you get. When we eat cooked or processed foods we're eating dead or denatured foods. Dead foods have no living enzymes and most nutrients are diminished significantly.

There are seven categories of food enzymes:
1. Lipase -->break down fat
2. Protease -->break down protein
3. Cellulase -->break down fiber
4. Amylase --> break down starch
5. Lactase --> break down dairy foods
6. Sucrase --> break down sugars
7. Maltase --> break down grains

In humans, the upper portion of the stomach is in fact a food-enzyme stomach. This part secretes no enzymes. In fact, the digestion of the protein, carbohydrate, and fat in raw food begins in the mouth the very moment the plant cell walls are ruptured, releasing the food enzymes during the act of mastification (chewing). Proper digestion occurs when a good portion of the food is broken down within the first 45 to 60 minutes after swallowing.

Every time we put dead food in our body, the body must deal with digesting 100% of the food instead of 50%. This means you are doubling the body’s work every time you eat dead food.

Digestive Enzyme:
As we get older, there is a definite decline in the level of digestive enzymes produced in stomach, pancreas and small intestine usually after age 30-35. Though the reason for this is not clear, it is an established medical fact.

When the nutrients within the food are complete digested the stool will be light and fluffy and will float. With a good enzyme product most people will see their stool float within a couple of weeks to a month. It may take a little longer for some. Floating stool is a good sign!

Your pancreas manufacture these enzymes and you also obtain some of them from your food. Unfortunately, since so much of our diet is processed foods and contains very little enzyme activity, the pancreas has to work extra hard to try and keep up with the demand for enzymes that are not present in your food.

The two most important digestive enzymes secreted by the human body are amylase and protease. They help with the digestion of carbohydrates and proteins. Saliva supplies a high concentration of amylase, while stomach juice contains protease, The pancreas secretes both in high concentrations along with the enzyme lipase. Lipase deals with fats. The pancreas also secretes maltase, which reduces maltose to dextrose.

Digestive Enzymes are secreted along the gastrointestinal tract and break down foods, enabling the nutrients to be absorbed into the bloodstream for use in various bodily functions.

IMPORTANT: Digestive enzymes and food enzymes basically serve the same function, that is to digest our food so it can be absorbed through the walls of the small intestine into the blood stream. From this viewpoint the only real difference between food enzymes and digestive enzymes is where they come from - from inside our body or from the food we eat.

Although enzymes are found in small quantities, they are extremely powerful - 30 grams of pure crystalline pepsin would digest nearly 2 metric tons of egg white in a matter of hours.

The second category of enzymes is comprised of digestive enzymes, which can be separated into intrinsic and extrinsic digestive enzymes. Intrinsic digestive enzymes are those that the body manufactures and secretes to break down food. The salivary glands in the stomach and specific cells in the pancreas secrete the enzymes that work to digest the proteins, fats and sugars present in any food that is eaten. Examples of digestive enzymes are protease, which digests protein; amylase which digests starch; and lipase, which digests fat. Since protein conversion is necessary for glucose in the body, a problem with protein digestion can lead to hypoglycemia, irritability as well as mood swings.

Health Risk:
Unfortunately, few food enzymes available in fresh, raw foods are still alive when we finally eat our food. We kill these enzymes with cooking, chemical preservatives, irradiation, and other processing and preservation methods.

The result? Many of the foods (and even nutrition supplements) that we eat pass through and out of our bodies not fully digested. Our bodies do not get many of the nutrients they offer. Thus, we literally "starve" ourselves for wholesome nutrition, even while we're engorging our bodies.

Our foods are processed, canned, pasteurized, baked, roasted, stewed, boiled, broiled, fried, cooked, dried, burned, chemicalized, embalmed, preserved and microwaved. All of these things kill all enzyme activity in the foods, making these foods indigestible, ready to rot and turn poisonous.

The source of most health problems can be traced directly back to improperly digested foods.

What is "autointoxication"?
When food remains undigested in the colon for over 6 hours, it begins to putrefy. In other words, germs invade the food and it begins to rot within us. This purification process results in the production of toxic and poisonous waste in the colon. The blood capillaries to the colon pick up the toxins, poisons and debris ass it sweeps through the bowel wall and delivers it to the bloodstream, which delivers it to every organ in the body. This simply means that constipation is actually a process of self-poisoning the entire body. In medical terms, this is called "autointoxication".

Why are enzymes better for the human body than animal enzymes?
Enzymes from animals like trypsin, pepsin and pancreatin work in a very narrow pH range and work to a limited degree in the stomach and small intestines, but don’t do anything for digestion in the upper part of the stomach when the pH is too high, they are inactive. Papaya produces an enzymes are much more effective in the pH and temperature range of the body and they help digest the cooked and raw foods in the upper part of the stomach. These helps decrease and conserve the digestive enzyme secretion from body needed for digestion.

What happens when you are protease deficient?
Protease digests protein. You will have protein deficiency symptoms, depending on how deficient you are in protease. Protease deficiency creates alkaline excess in the blood.

Because protein is converted to glucose upon demand, inadequate protein digestion leads to hypoglycemia, resulting in moodiness, mood swings and irritability.

Protease also has an ability to digest unwanted debris in the blood including certain bacteria and viruses. Therefore, protease deficient people are immune compromised, making them susceptible to bacterial, viral and yeast infections and a general decrease in immunity.

Another of the most common results of protein maldigestion is chronic ear infections and fluid in the ears, especially in children. This is a protease calcium deficiency. To drain fluids from the middle ear, you must increase protease in the blood.

All pathogens (virus, fungus and bacteria) are made up of protein, or use a protein coating to protect themselves (as virus does). The enzyme protease breaks down proteins, and since the invaders of our blood system are protein, it makes sense that ingesting protease could break down the protein invaders.

Protease, the enzyme that digests proteins, has a very different and powerful function when on an empty stomach. It is a tremendous all natural blood enhancer, able to break down protein invaders in the blood supply, so that your natural immune system can destroy them.