Learning and Loving Living Foods

How to add Raw and Living Foods and Achieve Optimal Health


"Enzyme" (A living catalyst)

Did you know enzymes help synthesize, join, and duplicate entire chains of amino acids? Breathing, sleeping, eating, digestion, nutrient, absorption, thinking, moving, working, growing, blood coagulation, immunity, thinking, dreaming, sexual activity, excitement, reproduction, and sensory perception are all dependent on enzymes.

Enzymes can be divided into two basic categories: exogenous (introduced from outside the body) and endogenous (produced in the body).

Exogenous Enzymes

In its raw state, each food contains the enzymes needed for its own digestion. These foods are exogenous. They include protease (which breaks protein chains into smaller amino acid chains and finally into individual amino acids), amylase (which breaks carbohydrates into into simple sugars), lipase (which breaks fats into fatty acids and glycerol), lactase (which breaks down milk sugars), and cellulase (which breaks down the bonds in fibrous foods).

Endogenous Enzymes- Digestive and Metabolic

Digestive enzymes are endogenous, being produced mainly in the pancreas and to some degree in the stomach and small intestines. They include trypsin, chymotrypsin, and pepsin. Their function is to break down carbohydrates, fats, and proteins into nutrients that are more readily available to the body.
These enogenous enzymes affect the tissues and organs of the body, facilitating functions such as movement and speech. Metabolic enzymes use the nutrients absorbed from the food for important bodily processes including tissue repair and regeneration.

Why Go Raw?

Losing Weight

When trying to lose weight a diet of raw foods can certainly help. In general you'll be consuming fewer fats and starches, which are the main culprits in weight gain, and you'll have more energy, so it will be easier to exercise. Exercise can improve posture, circulation, elimination, and oxygen intake, and is absolutely essential in any weight loss program. Exercise also helps the body produce more endorphins, which can improve mental outlook.

Tip

If weight loss is your goal eat less of the sweet foods (such as bananas and dates) and more of the cleansing foods (such as apples and carrots) in the Raw form.

Gaining Weight

Some people who begin a totally raw diet become thin enough to concern their families and friends. Although this may happen initially, you should then gain some weight back over the course of a few months.

Tip

Try drinking a smoothie or two between meals, and incorporate foods that encourage weight gain such as avocados, bananas, dried fruits, pumkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and nut butters into smoothies. Eventually, your weight should find its balance.

Achieving True Health
In the typical Western lifestyle, we get in the way of our own health by conjusting our cells and ourselves with the processed and hard-to-digest food. Live food infuses ones being with fresh, vibrant energy, helping us feel invigorated and revitalizing our capability to resist disease. When we become ill, we must first recognize our illness as a sign that the body is trying to heal itself. Most often disease results from the building up of imbalance or daily "wrongs" against nature. Disease is the method of cleansing, repairing, and restoring itself.

Tip

Good health is not simply freedom from disease but is also physical, mental, and emotional vitality.
These four facets of good health are supported and strengthened by the raw foods way of eating.


I hope you found this information valuable. Have a healthy and happy day!

By, Natalie Pyles

Fitness & Nutrition Expert, Medical Exercise Specialist, Author, & NSA Speaker