Favoring The Gastric Ferments

Gastric ferments–otherwise known as digestive enzymes–are cleavage (splitting) factors which strike through the biochemical bonds of our complex food particles and break them down into similar substances. These can then be absorbed through the intestinal wall and enter the bloodstream where they may act to regulate body processes, build and repair tissues, and provide heat production for temperature control and energy. Without the gastric ferments, even the best diet would be of little benefit and we would literally “starve to death in the midst of plenty.” Yet, in spite of their importance to the human economy, search of the medical literature shows many theories, but few facts regarding their functions. Why?

Enzyme Mystery

The fact is that while we understand what enzymes do, we do not understand what enzymes are! This is because the nature of enzymes is structural, i.e., the way they are put together–not chemical, i.e., what they are composed of, and man’s studies of the human mechanism to date has been largely limited to chemical studies. And since man has been described as “a bundle of enzymes”–life itself–we can understand how really little we know about the complexities of his structural components.

Scientific Stalemate

Does this mean that we are at a scientific stalemate in so far as study of enzymes are concerned? Not at all! It simply means that we must apply our knowledge to how enzymatic activity may be favored (and there are many ways), instead of coming to an impasse because of inability to measure them by present laboratory methods. Electricity, for example, was widely used and its principles applied before it was understood (and this has yet to be explained satisfactorily).

Enzymatic Principles

Just as growing seeds need sunshine, moisture and air, so enzymes demand certain environmental conditions for their optimum activity. For example, it is known that enzymes are reactive to the acidity or alkalinity of the media in which they find themselves. Pepsin, an enzyme secreted in the stomach, acts best in an acid medium and nature provides hydrochloric acid for this purpose. On the other hand, pancreatic enzymes perform best in an alkaline medium and these secretions are alkaline for this purpose. Tampering with this delicate balance by the use of “soda-mint alkalizers” thus becomes a serious matter and they are not the innocuous “blessed relief-giving” substances their vendors would have us believe. Such alkalizers interfere with enzyme activity and inhibit, rather than contribute to the digestive processes. (What is needed in most of these cases, we feel, are “anti-alkalizers,” not antacids!)

Surface Area

Electro-chemical activity (in which enzymes are active participants) is most active when surface area is increased. For example, linseed oil remains fluid in bulk form, but when spread thinly on a surface, quickly dries–the surface area increase activating the potential properties. We postulate that bulk in the diet contributes in a similar manner to enzymatic activity, materially increasing enzymatic potentialities. This is one of the seldom used points in favor of a raw food diet; yet, in our opinion, it is one which favors its logical application more than any other previously mentioned. We can thus see the logic of eating a reasonable amount of raw food with every cooked meal as the bulk particles of raw food may contribute to increasing the surface area thus aiding enzymatic activity and promoting digestion, absorption and promoting digestion, absorption and assimilation of even the cooked food particles. It is interesting also to learn that recent experiments show that no bulk in food causes diverticulosis (an inflamed pouch in the colon–Dr. Carlson).

Enzyme Tampering

What are the results of poisons in your foods upon these enzyme structures? (Read The Poisons in Your Food, by William Longgood.) We can only postulate the totality of their deleterious effects. But, one striking example may be cited: we have all read about “nerve gasses” or poisons that by a “thimbleful” can obliterate the entire world’s population. Frightening as this is, few persons realize that these poisons perform, by enzyme-blocking effects, to paralyze the victim, and that our most potent insecticides contain these same enzyme-blocking ingredients.

What effect do these poisons have on our national health? The terrifying fact is that we do not know! We can’t because we have no way of measuring enzymatic activity. We can only look at the dead insect and think! What about the mystery diseases–muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, paralysis, cancer and others? Are these diseases in which enzyme-blocking poisons take a part?

Lesson to be learned

The lesson to be learned is clear! Raw, organically-grown foods are our best protective foods–counterfeit foods our greatest threat! There is no substitute for live foods; no way to beat nature at her own game! The rules are set by Providence and cannot be changed–only interpreted–by man’s intellect. The only referee in life’s battle is the Almighty!