The Top Five Factors that Affect the Quality of Your Digestion
By James Jordan, J.D., C.N.C.
The Top Five Factors that Affect the Quality of Your Digestion
Remember: Our health starts in our intestines. So what are the most important factors that affect our digestion? Here's my top-five list:
Levels of beneficial bacteria in your intestines. From my last newsletter I emphasized the importance of high levels of beneficial bacteria (known as probiotics). Sources include cultured foods like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut and miso soup and probiotic supplements.
Levels of enzymatic activity of your food. Foods that are cooked at temperatures above 118 degrees F will start to lose enzymes. I recommend that my clients eat at least 50 percent of their foods raw, and as high as 90 percent, and for short periods of time, such as one day a week or one week every two months, eat 100 percent raw, especially while doing a detoxification program. When eating cooked foods I highly recommend taking a plant-based enzyme supplement that is individualized for your enzyme deficiencies. See the questionnaire later in this newsletter for more on this.
Our state of mind while eating and how thoroughly our food is chewed and broken down. Yes, our mothers always said to chew our food and no fighting at the dinner table--what wisdom they had! Being relaxed while eating and chewing your food well will maximize your bodies own digestive enzyme secretions and enhance nutrient absorption.
How we combine foods at meals is especially important when eating cooked foods. The basic rules are:
When eating foods that are cooked it is best to:
- Eat meats, poultry, fish and dairy separate from cooked grains and high-starch vegetables because the protein foods need a high-acid environment to digest properly and the starchy foods require a high-alkaline environment. Because of this they tend to neutralize each other and lead to poor digestion, putrefaction and fermentation.
- Eat protein-dense foods with low-starch vegetables and high-quality fats.
- Eat high-starch foods (grains, potatoes, squash, yams, etc.) with low-starch vegetables, beans and/or legumes and high-quality fats.
When eating raw foods:
Raw fruits combine well with raw nuts, seeds and nut/seed butters or with raw dairy like milk or cheese.
Raw protein foods like eggs, milk and fish combine well with raw fats like butter, avocado, cream, cold-pressed oils as well as low starch vegetables. Certain fruits help digestion of raw proteins like pineapple and papaya.
Fresh vegetable juices can be combined well with raw fats like cold-pressed oil, cream, butter or some raw nuts or seeds but are not ideal with raw eggs or fish because they tend to dilute the stomach acids needed to digest animal protein. For those who want more information on the safety and health benefits of raw animal protein go to www.primaldiet.com.
Drinking cold beverages or desserts with or after a meal will impair digestion by damaging and paralyzing enzymes in the foods and neutralizing acids in the stomach. It is best to eat or drink cold foods and beverages alone with no other foods or with some raw foods that are easily digested like yogurt or fruit. I like to drink beverages at room temperature or slightly warmer especially with cooked foods.
The Importance of Enzymes in your Diet and How to Increase Your Enzyme Reserves
"If the world was created by divine power, one realizes that life on it was created through enzymes, the elemental energy source or basic life force."
--Dr. D.A. Lopez, M.D., author of Enzymes the Fountain of Life
When the question comes up how I got into the natural health care field I start by telling people my story of how I was sick for five years and got my health better around 1990. When I go into the long version of all the things I did to get my health better sometimes I realize that I could just as easily say enzymes got my health better.
In fact enzymes are by far the most overlooked and necessary "nutrient" for health. Prior to 1989 I ate a reasonably healthy diet yet my health was miserable. In 1989 I started eating and drinking large amounts of raw foods and juices loaded with enzymes and other important nutrients and my health rebounded to excellent levels.
What are enzymes?
Enzymes are energized protein molecules necessary for life. They catalyze and regulate all biochemical reactions that occur within every cell in the human body. Our bodies naturally produce both digestive and metabolic enzymes as they are needed. Surplus enzymes can be stored by some organs for later use or used as fuel for the brain. We can add to this reserve of enzymes and spare our own metabolic and digestive enzymes from becoming depleted by adding into our body through diet and supplementation additional food enzymes.
The three categories of enzymes are:
- Metabolic enzymes, which are produced by all living cells and either speed up or slow down all chemical reactions within cells for detoxification and energy production. Metabolic enzymes enable us to see, hear, feel, move and think.
- Life literally cannot exist without enzymes.
- Digestive Enzymes are secreted along the digestive tract to break down foods into nutrients and waste. Digestive enzymes are produced primarily by the pancreas, but also by the liver, gallbladder, small intestine, stomach and colon. Human digestive enzymes include: ptyalin, pepsin, trypsin, lipase, protease, and amylase.
- Food Enzymes are introduced into the body through the raw and fermented foods that we eat and the consumption of enzyme supplements. Raw foods naturally contain the enzymes necessary to digest that particular food. For example a raw avocado has enough of the fat digesting enzyme called lipase to digest the fat in the avocado, but no additional enzymes that your body can place into reserve or use for processes other than digestion. This is true for all raw foods other than pineapple, papaya and unheated raw honey which all have more enzymes in them than are needed to break down those particular foods.
Since most of the foods people eat are either cooked and/or processed in some way and raw foods (other than the three exceptions listed above) contain only enough enzymes to digest the food itself our bodies must produce the majority of digestive enzymes we require unless we supplement with enzymes to digest our foods and build our metabolic enzyme reserves.
For more information, please visit James Jordan’s Web site, www.createvibranthealth.com.
By James Jordan, J.D., C.N.C.
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