The Truth About Cooked Foods

 

The purpose of our digestive tract is to extract and absorb the essential nutrients contained in our food. Consuming cooked foods can cause our body to take enzymes from the liver, pancreas, and other organs to use in the digestion process. Over time, this can cause these organs to be stressed, which can weaken our immune system and slow down our metabolism.

When we consume enzyme-deficient food, the food sits in the upper portion of the stomach putrefying instead of being predigested (due to a lack of enzymes). The body reacts by increasing the white blood cell count as the immune system begins to treat the undigested food as a foreign substance. The body further stresses itself to produce extra digestive enzymes to digest this putrefying material, reducing its ability to produce metabolic enzymes for cellular activity. If stomach acids are not able to complete their work before the food moves into the small intestine, the food particles can enter the blood system undigested!

This putrefied material coats the small and large intestines, reducing the absorption of nutrients and hindering the expulsion of toxins through the intestinal wall. Bacteria and viruses feed and multiply, causing the body to become susceptible to infection, fatigue, and degenerative disease.

 

The harmful side of Cooking

It is true that when food is baked at high temperatures—and especially when it is fried or barbecued—toxic compounds are formed and important nutrients are lost. Many vitamins are water-soluble, and a significant percent can be lost with cooking, especially overcooking. Similarly, many plant enzymes function as phytochemical nutrients in our body and can be useful to maximize health. They, too, can be destroyed by overcooking.

Enzymes are proteins that work to speed up or “catalyze” chemical reactions. Every living cell makes enzymes for its own activities. Human cells are no exception. Our glands secrete enzymes into the digestive tract to aid in the digestion of food. However, after they are ingested, the enzymes contained in plants do not function as enhancements or replacements for human digestive enzymes. These molecules exist to serve the plant’s purpose, not ours. The plant enzymes get digested by our own digestive juices along with the rest of the food and are absorbed and utilized as nutrients.

Contrary to what many raw-food web sites claim, the enzymes contained in the plants we eat do not catalyze chemical reactions that occur in humans. The plant enzymes merely are broken down into simpler molecules by our own powerful digestive juices. Even when the food is consumed raw, plant enzymes do not aid in their own digestion inside the human body. It is not true that eating raw food demands less enzyme production by your body, and dietary enzymes inactivated by cooking have an insignificant effect on your health and your body’s enzymes.

 

The benefits of Cooking

In many cases, cooking destroys some of the harmful anti-nutrients that bind minerals in the gut and interfere with the utilization of nutrients. Destruction of these anti-nutrients increases absorption. Steaming vegetables and making vegetable soups breaks down cellulose and alters the plants’ cell structures so that fewer of your own enzymes are needed to digest the food, not more. The point is that this “cooked food is dead food” enzyme argument does not hold water. On the other hand, the roasting of nuts and the baking of cereals does reduce availability and absorbability of protein.

 

Low-temperature cooking

When food is steamed or made into a soup, the temperature is fixed at 100 degrees Celsius or 212 Fahrenheit—the temperature of boiling water. This moisture-based cooking prevents food from browning and forming toxic compounds. Acrylamides, the most generally recognized of the heat-created toxins, are not formed with boiling or steaming. They are formed only with dry cooking. Most essential nutrients in vegetables are more absorbable after being cooked in a soup, not less absorbable. Recent studies confirm that the body absorbs much more of the beneficial anti-cancer compounds (carotenoids and phytochemicals—especially lutein and lycopene) from cooked vegetables compared with raw. The Institute of Food Research in Norwich reported their recent findings in New Scientist magazine: about 3 to 4 percent of the carotenoids were absorbed from raw carrots compared with about 15 to 20 percent from cooked and mashed carrots. The team also found that we absorb these critical anti-cancer nutrients more effectively from vegetables than we do from supplements.

Multiple studies have demonstrated that the beneficial antioxidant activity of cooked tomatoes is significantly higher than from uncooked tomatoes. Scientists speculate that the increase in absorption of antioxidants after cooking may be attributed to the destruction of the cell matrix (connective bands) to which the valuable compounds are bound.

 

Loss of nutrients

It is true that vitamin C, folate, B vitamins, and certain minerals are water-soluble and can be destroyed by cooking; but vitamin C contributes less than one percent to the total antioxidant activity of fruits and vegetables. For example, the main antioxidant activity in apples is provided by classes of chemicals called phenolics and flavonoids, both of which are made more available by cooking.

If you compare raw broccoli to steamed or frozen broccoli, about 25 percent of the vitamin C and about 20 percent of the selenium is lost during cooking, but the other 20 commonly-measured nutrients show only an insignificant change. Raw-food advocates are not accurate when they claim that 50 percent of nutrients are lost with steaming. A closer estimate would be 10 percent.

Cooking corn also has been shown to significantly boost its antioxidant activity, despite reduction in vitamin C.When the ability to quench free radicals was measured, cooked corn outperformed raw corn by between 25 to 50 percent. Cooking corn releases a compound called ferulic acid, which provides anti-cancer health benefits. Ferulic acid, a phytochemical, is unique in that it is found only in very low amounts in fruits and vegetables, but is found in very high amounts in corn. The availability to the body of ferulic acid can be increased 500 to 900 percent by cooking the corn.

 

Benefits of raw food

Certainly, there are benefits to consuming plenty of raw fruits and vegetables. These foods supply us with high nutrient levels and the smallest number of calories. But the question we are looking at is this—Are there advantages to eating a diet of all raw foods and excluding

all cooked foods?

Clearly, the answer is a resounding “No.” In fact, eating an exclusively raw-food diet is a disadvantage. To exclude all steamed vegetables and vegetable soups from your diet narrows the nutrient diversity of your diet and has a tendency to reduce the percentage of calories from vegetables, in favor of nuts and fruit, which are lower in nutrients per calorie.

Unfortunately, sloppy science prevails in the raw-food movement. Rawfood advocates mistakenly conclude that since eating processed and cooked carbohydrates is harmful for us, all cooked foods are harmful.

To eat the most healthful diet on earth, include a sufficient quantity of raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. If you are not very overweight or diabetic, add a glass of freshly squeezed raw vegetables to your diet. Try one of the following combinations beet/carrot/cabbage/apple; kale/parsley/carrot/apple; or beet/carrot/celery/cucumber. Have a blended salad a few times a week.

Dr. Otto Warberg Study on Cancer Cells

As you read this lecture I want you to realize that Otto Warburg is talking about an enzyme deficiency with cooked foods. What basically happens when cooked foods which are enzyme destroyed are eaten is that it causes the red blood cells to cluster together.

Red blood cells are 7 microns in diameter. When you feed your family enzyme deficient foods the red blood cells are weakened and stick together in groups and cannot travel through the smaller veins. This causes the body to have many anaerobic (low or no oxygen areas within the body) that allows cancer to develop. But then, if the body is towards an alkaline state then the cancer cannot continue to survive because your body is basically more oxygenated.

Cancer is a perfectly natural process. A very small percentage of cells in every person will at some point in their lives turn cancerous, however the body usually can eliminate cancerous cells before they can increase and do harm, so it often passes unnoticed. This process has been going on for eons. It is only when the Cancer cells multiply faster than the body can get rid of them that our health is threatened. Our immune systems have become significantly overworked and weakened by increased exposure to toxins, pesticides, viruses, carcinogens, etc. This unhealthy environment has compromised our body's defenses resulting in Cancer cells to thrive. Once you learn the causes for Cancer development, you will better understand how to support your body's defenses so that it may more effectively fight Cancer. As long as you are still breathing, it is possible to get healthy again!

The Human body was designed to heal itself. Cut your finger, and your body immediately responds by clotting the flow of blood to close the wound, fighting the bacteria and repairing the tissue. The healthier the body, the better it will be able to heal itself. Therefore, in order to surmount illness, one must endeavor to improve one's state of health. This can be done by removing the internal toxins and carcinogens from the blood, and creating oxygen rich and alkaline system in which disease cannot exist. The question is not of what we should add to our bodies to treat disease, but rather what we need to take out. Sickening the body further should never be an answer to seeking a cure.

Scientists have proven that by raising the body's alkalinity and oxygen content it can eliminate cancer. This simple method is a logical and safe way of returning the body to its original state. Remove external carcinogens and toxins from your food, air and water by seeking out non-toxic alternatives to dangerous pesticides, consuming only organic food and installing filters to purify your indoor air and water. Common sense is not a very common practice in our world. Always think forward first before you act. Fight Cancer with all that you have!

You must realize that the word disease lets you see at least part of the problem - "dis- ease" or "not at ease". Maintain your ease, learn to relax, forgive, laugh and be content. Your focus determines your reality, always think and act positively. Become mentally strong. Learn patience and take time to find proper rest. Be at ease with yourself!

Just as a prize fighter would not go into the ring and only throw one type of punch to beat his opponent; you must learn how to use many different complementary therapies to beat your enemy and win the battle. Boxers do not enter the ring until their health is in peak condition. In order to defeat your opponent, Cancer, you need to become healthy again. Eat properly, use the right supplements and exercise regularly. Many current Cancer 'treatments' actually depend on weakening the body and its immune system. We feel this is a negative approach to healing the body of disease.

The Digestive System