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Increasing Enzymes For Health And Long Life!
June 17, 2010

Superfood Evolution Ezine -- Issue #006

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Table of Contents:

  1. Why Enzymes Are Important For Your Health
  2. Top Enzyme Rich Foods!
  3. Turkish Towel Seaweed
  4. BOOK REVIEW: Enzyme Nutrition
  5. Recipe of the Month
  6. Announcements
  7. DVD of the Month

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Hello friends,

Welcome again to Superfood Evolution! A big thank you to all my Superfoods-for-Superhealth site visitors for your attention and support! Here we go with my monthly newsletter #6. Many of you expressed great interest in learning more about superfoods, superhealth and achieving optimal states of aliveness! So, here it is by popular demand! It is my intent to uplift and empower your true health potential to create the best life ever for you and your family. "You are what you eat" is the first rule of thumb here, the rest just falls into place!


Why Enzymes Are Important For Your Health

Remember: "You are what you digest and assimilate", not just what you eat!

Like we have mentioned many times, we promote a life path that is dedicated to the best possible health potential. But, if you want a high level of health throughout your lifetime, you must have high levels of enzymes to go along with it. The lack of enzymes causes your food to be only partially digested. This leaves undigested food in the digestive tract, causing toxic particles to enter the bloodstream, which results in rapid aging, disease and symptoms such as allergies and weight issues.

Supplying the body with needed enzymes creates less stress on the organs, including your liver that has to deal with the intense toxic overload. And this, most importantly, gives you more energy to live your life to the fullest in the highest, healthiest way possible!

A REVIEW:

Digestive enzymes are needed to thoroughly digest all the foods we eat. There are enzymes contained in all raw foods, and that is one of the reasons why we love to eat them. All food cooked over approximately 118 degrees is devoid of enzymes. So if you eat cooked food, it is essential to replace the enzymes that have been destroyed.

Metabolic enzymes are intimately involved within a cell or organism to produce energy and repair any damage to continue the life processes. They are important for we do not have an unlimited supply as they are depleted considerably when the body is recovering from stress, unhealthy diet, lifestyle habits or environmental toxins. In a nutshell, we tend to use more that we can replenish and as we age we naturally produce less.

ENZYME SUPPLEMENTATION

When you take enzyme supplements you preserve your precious metabolic enzyme reserves. Results prove that enzymes taken on an empty stomach do indeed assist the metabolic functions of our body, including the miraculous repair of any damage sustained. This translates to more energy for a long life as we age more slowly. Enzymes significantly increase the absorption, assimilation, and utilization of food and other supplements taken with them and they help to nutritionally support increased levels of metabolic antioxidants.


Top Enzyme Rich Foods!

1) Cultured Vegetables - these are not only delicious, but an effective way to help digest your meals.

2) Raw Foods - cooking our foods destroys the necessary enzymes are body needs to help the digestive process. Some foods are especially enzyme-dense such as sprouts, raw vegetable juices, and other raw superfood concentrations.

3) Other Fermented Foods - the idea behind eating food ferments is that they are packed with naturally occurring cultures that are rich in enzymes that help promote better assimilation of the food.

4) Wild foods - wild greens and wild, fresh picked fruits and nuts are incredibly high in enzymes, often more than commercially grown food.

5) Vitamineral Green - in addition to Healthforce Nutritionals Digestive Enzyme supplementation, this is also an excellent choice for a powered green enzyme rich product you can add to smoothies and shakes easily.


Turkish Towel Seaweed

My love for the seaweed called Turkish towel (Chondracanthus exasperatus) has been ongoing for many years. For some reason, this particular seaweed has become sort of my "totem" seaweed plant. It is a common variety found along many sea side shores of the Western U.S., but kind of an unusual one to adopt as a favorite.

Like the name implies, turkish "towel" has a towel-like, rough texture and appearance compared to the smooth nature of many other seaweeds. It does make a nice facial cloth by the way, but more importantly it has a great taste, similar to dulse. It is a red seaweed variety that is identifiable by its tiny bumps that make it visibly different that other types.

You can grind it up and add it to foods or your can use whole pieces in sauerkraut recipes. *See the recipe below*


BOOK REVIEW:

Enzyme Nutrition, The Food Enzyme Concept

by Dr. Edward Howell

This is one of the classics by a scientist whose life long mission involved researching the role that food enzymes play in human digestion.

Dr. Howell explores this concept in scientific terms that are easy to read and understand. It is an excellent look at why it is good to include as many fresh, natural, living whole foods into ones daily diet.

Highly recommended for anyone wanting to learn more about the "science" behind "enzyme nutrition".

Enzyme Nutrition


Recipe of the Month:

Spicy And Wild Sauerkraut

A great way to enjoy sauerkraut or cultured veggies is to utilize some of the wild edibles you may have growing near by. Wild greens like dandelion, chicory, violet leaves and grape leaves are some great greens to use. You want to select ones that have thick leaves that can hold up to fermentation.

Grape leaves are traditionally fermented, but you might want to stay away from more mucilaginous greens, like purslane or mallow for example, for they tend to break down easily and don't work well in fermented veggies.

  • 2 heads green cabbage
  • 3 cups chopped wild leaves of choice
  • 1/2 cup chopped wild onion bulbs
  • diced wild ginger root
  • lemon
  • sea salt

This is a lovely way to experience your wild greens by culturing them! Turkish towel is a great sea vegetable for pickling because of it's thick rough type texture that softens up when fermented.

Include all types of cultured vegetables in your diet to help provide powerful enzymatic actions.


SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  1. This year is a great time to check out the 6th annual Raw Spirit Festival in Prescott, Arizona. The "world's leading raw vegan-eco-peace celebrations". Check them out at: http://www.rawspirit.com
  2. Visit our Superfoods Blog with weekly posts and links to new pages. Bookmark them using the orange RSS feed button on any page to get instant updates.


DVD of the Month:

Raw Vegan Cultured Creations

by Elaina Love

I have had the delight of meeting Elaina in person at one of her raw food talks. She has a great way of delivering her raw health wisdom in a clear and concise manner. Truly an expert in her field, this DVD is a great one to add to any raw food recipe collection.

Focused on raw fermented foods, she shows you exactly how to prepare: coconut yogurt, coconut kefir, rejuvalac, almond feta cheese, cultured seed cheese, sauerkraut and sourdough seed crackers. I really love this DVD, not only for all the great recipes, but for Elaina's vibrant energy and motivation that supports improving health and enzyme nutrition in a delicious way!

For a preview of the DVD and how to make coconut yogurt, go check it out at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUHpBOpWspE




Thanks for joining me on my sixth edition of Superfood Evolution. If you would like to subscribe or tell a friend click here.

Until next month...

Here's to your Superhealth!

Much love,

Shira

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