Written by Tonye R. Crooks

In the June/July issue of the PWJ I discussed the three natural cycles that make up the circadian rhythms your body goes through each day: elimination, appropriation, and assimilation. The cycle enjoyable to most people is the appropriation cycle – eating! So, what food should be eaten during appropriation that helps the body to achieve optimal health? It’s a lot easier to discuss foods to eat rather than foods to avoid, and once this principle is understood, planning your meals is simple. It all comes down to my favorite quote from Harvey Diamond’s book Fit for Life – Not Fat for Life: “Eat more living food than dead food.” It’s that simple. The closer to the vine, the closer to the earth, the closer you will come to achieving optimal health. The average American today goes 7 to 14 days without eating any raw fruits or vegetables (live foods), and prefers the comforting cooked foods (dead foods). Cooked foods are lacking three important things – 1) enzymes, 2) alkalinity, and 3) nutrients. Is the food you are eating mostly dead or alive?

I like to describe enzymes like those critters in the video game called “Pac-Man.” They exist in all living foods and once you eat something alive, the Pac-Men enter your body and search for diseased, damaged and dead cells to eat. Enzymes are protein chemicals and act as spark plugs, providing energy to your body. There are two types of enzymes: 1) metabolic enzymes found in humans and animals, and 2) plant enzymes. We continually use our own metabolic enzymes to keep our bodies running and can make more live enzymes from live food that our bodies then convert into metabolic enzymes. So, how does one know if a food is dead or alive? A living food is one that still has its enzymes intact. A dead food is one that has its enzymes destroyed by heat - 118° degrees or more. So, if you’ve decided to eat cooked vegetables thinking they are living food and have heated them 118° degrees or more, you’ve “killed” the enzymes. The more heated, processed, and preserved the food, the more “dead” it is. Every time we eat cooked foods, we are using up our enzyme power. So, whenever you are planning your meal, try to have at least 60% living food, and 40% dead food. The more living food you have, the more enzymes you’ll be putting into your body. The live enzymes on your plate will help you to digest the dead food on your plate. If one of your goals is to lose weight, try increasing the percentage of living food and decreasing the percentage of dead food that you eat. Thus, you’ll have enzymes helping to digest the dead food, and some left over to help work on cleansing, healing, and digesting fat reserves in your body.

All foods burn down to either alkaline or acid as a result of digestion. Foods that have been cooked or heat processed are acid-producing foods. A raw carrot produces alkaline, however, once cooked, it is an acid-producing food. The standard American diet is more cooked than raw and contributes to acidic conditions in the body. Along with that, every cell in our bodies produces acid as a normal by-product of energy production. The end result is an acidic internal environment. The healthiest environment for the body is an alkaline environment, and that can be obtained through a primarily raw food diet.

Besides the fact that heat kills live enzymes, it also destroys nutrients in the food. In thoroughly cooked food, 85 percent of the nutritional value has been destroyed – the vitamins, minerals, and proteins. Where nutrients are reduced in the diet, so is the power of the body to maintain optimal health.

The moment you begin to introduce more living food into your system, your body will begin to make improvements, producing improved health. Living bodies require living food, so take a look at your plate today and do the math. Is it mostly dead or alive?

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