People whose digestive impairments limit the use of uncooked food should utilize live foods as much as possible, and to whatever extent they can. Their aim for restoration of normal function should not be with the use of drugs or surgery. Instead they should use rest and short fasts, followed by a gradual implementation of improved eating and living practices, adapted to the limitations of that individual.
Their goal should be the gradual achievement of a diet predominantly consisting of uncooked foods, because the nutrients available in live foods are many times greater than those remaining after food has been cooked or otherwise processed.
Live foods improve the total internal environment. Sluggish bowels begin to move, eventually cleaning out waste that has been lodged in the folds of the intestines for months and even years. The layer of mucous that forms in the intestines when cooked food predominates is removed, greatly increasing efficiency in the absorption of nutrients.
Food wastes do not stay in the bowels long enough to putrefy. The transit time of live food in a healthy body is 20 to 24 hours, while cooked food may take up to three days or longer.
Some scientific researchers and medical doctors now recognize the value of raw food, both in health maintenance and for improvement or remission in chronic illnesses.
In the past is has been believed that it was more difficult for a person with digestive problems to digest raw foods. In reality cooked food takes longer to digest than raw food. Also, raw foods are less stressful on patients with poor digestion. It may be easier for these persons to have their live foods cutup, or chopped up fine. Fresh raw juices may
be the best method to use for a few weeks until digestion gets back to a more normal condition.
ENZYMES – The enzyme is perhaps one of the greatest arguments against the practice of cooking anything that can be suitable eaten raw. Raw foods contain many enzymes essential to health. Enzymes are destroyed by heat over 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Enzymes in fruit and vegetables play a vital role in the metabolic activity of plant cells.
Among other things, they are what cause fruits and vegetables to ripen. Sprouting grains and seeds greatly increase their vitamin content, and so they are most nutritious if eaten raw.
Our bodies contain many enzymes of their own, but the consumption of raw fruits and vegetables enhances the action of the enzymes in our bodies. They are an essential factor in the proper digestion and assimilation offood.
Enzymes play a wide range of essential activities in all of the body’s functions. A diet low in, or devoid of, raw food enzymes can result in an abnormal drain on the body’s own enzymes resulting in poor health and premature aging. This is only a summary. If you study this subject you will understand more details of the vital importance of enzymes, as found in raw fruits and vegetables, and their benefit in the healing process when a person is ill.
Sister Kathleen Ross – Alberta, Canada