Digestion and Disease Both Begin at Your Mouth

Did you know that disease begins at your mouth because of the choices made in your brain? I am sad to say that most Americans make very poor choices. But what else would we Americans do as we have never been educated properly in how our body works? Specifically, how we digest and assimilate nutrients from our food. The majority of Americans, their physicians, and even nutritionists have not got a clue as to what happens to food when it moves into your body.

This year I sat down to eat a 4th of July barbecue supper with some friends by the swimming pool; there were 3 women and 3 men. I am an observer of people and I couldn't help watching them because I am a naturopath and nutritionist. I watched these people eat nutritionally poor food. If this sounds a little superior, well I am sorry but not too sorry. Sorry, that I not only observed them but now I am writing about what I saw and some of what they said. During the conversation here is what I gathered about their health and the effect of their diet. One woman (sitting across from me with her date) who was suffering from a headache revealed that she had had gastric bypass surgery for obesity. The man she was with was obese and also borderline diabetic plus he was noticing signs of chronic fatigue. The hostess and my date had had her gallbladder removed years ago and now she suffered from thyroid problems and frequent earaches and headaches. The man to my right had a headache and recurring acid reflux, he was also working on an ulcer and could feel that a kidney stone had moved to his bladder which was bothering him at the time; he was also on an antidepressant drug. The woman on my left was not too bad she was only on an antidepressant. This dinner and what I observed really caused me to pause and reflect on how these people are a reflection of the health of the United States.

What was wrong with the food? They were eating barbecued steak, white bread, corn on the cob, with some cooked vegetables and a tossed salad. Before I had cancer I would have said that that was a very excellent meal with lots of nutrition. Well now I know better, that meal was a total disaster. Here is why. The steak was cooked; once you cook any food over 118 degrees Fahrenheit you destroy all the enzymes in it, plus most nutritional value. Then am I saying you should eat meat raw? If you want to gain its full nutritional value, yes you should eat meat raw just like all carnivores and omnivores do. You prepare the meat as you would sushi. Then you will get most of the full nutritional value of the meat. Now the white bread which as common knowledge everyone knows is almost completely worthless. As for the corn on the cob and the cooked vegetables, well, as I said before "cooked food is worthless nutritionally." Tossed salad, now we've got something that is loaded with nutrition, except hardly anyone ate enough to provide ample nutrition to offset the other foods they ate.

What facts do I have that back-up my statement that "the majority of the meal I described is worthless?" I have two very good examples. One, the people who sat at that table with me and their level of health which is a true reflection of the health of American's across the USA. The other example is also very real proof. You cannot put refined or cooked food including meat into a composter because it will just rot not compost. The reason this happens is because the food is dead there is no life or nutritional value in cooked food.

Folks, this is the truth. American food is making Americans sick and no one thinks anything of it. People in America better wake up because doctors, the AMA and the pharmaceutical industry are not going to change the way you eat for you. They are going to treat you with drugs and operate on you so you can continue to eat poor food, get sicker, take more drugs and have more operations. Because this is how the average American eats, my advice is; do not allow yourself to be average.

I would like you to see how the body really works so that you can make an educated decision for yourself. Below, we are just going to follow food as it goes through the digestion tract starting at your mouth. As we make this trip I will point out some violations of digestion that cause the disease problems these people are suffering from.

We Start At The Mouth:

Food is chewed in the mouth and saliva is mixed with the food. This saliva is made up of mucus that serves as a lubricant, an alkaline electrolyte solution that moistens the food; amylase, an enzyme that initiates the digestion of starch; lingual lipase, an enzyme that begins the digestion of fat; and protease, which digests protein.

Most carbohydrates are broken down in the mouth by the process of chewing the food that hopefully had its own viable enzymes to be mixed with the enzymes mentioned above. This is an important point because it is where disease begins.

Why are Enzymes so Important:

Without enzymes we could not digest food, could not breath, could not think; enzymes sustain our life. There are hundreds of thousands of biochemical reactions that take place in our bodies that use enzymes as a catalyst. Without enzymes these reactions would move too slowly to sustain life. The food we eat contains enzymes that assist our digestive processes when we eat that particular food. When you see food decomposing (a banana turning brown) it is the work of the enzymes contained in the food plus those that are brought to the food by insects or airborne spores.

Enzymes in our bodies are divided into two groups and created by our cells: digestive enzymes and metabolic enzymes. There are three types of digestive enzymes amylase, protease and lipase. Amylase, found in saliva, pancreatic and intestinal juices; works great for digesting starches and carbohydrates and may be useful for people with gluten sensitivities. Protease, found in stomach, pancreatic and intestinal juices; helps digest proteins and may be helpful for people with food allergies. Lipase, found in stomach and pancreatic juices also enters the body via the food we eat; digests fats, helping to maintain correct gall bladder function.

Metabolic enzymes catalyze chemical reactions within the cells of the body providing us with energy production and detoxification. These enzymes run all the body's organs, tissues and cells. They build the body from proteins, carbohydrates and fats.

The main areas we need to concern ourselves with are digestive enzymes. We produce less of these enzymes as we get older, plus cooking (over 118 degrees F), pasteurization and irradiation destroy enzymes that come to us in our foods. This is why it is so important that we eat a diet that contains 75% fruit and vegetables (the majority of these should be raw) and about 25% high protein meat, dairy, and whole grain products.

You can also find digestive enzyme complex products that contain a combination of enzymes, herbs, and probiotics that help improve the digestive processes, and can help you get full nutritional value from the food you eat.