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To cook or not to cook, there’s the question

Connie Ricotta, Breckenridge

The reason we eat is to fuel the living cells in our body. The word “diet” comes from the ancient word: deity. The ancients believed our body is a temple and to respect the fuel we put in it. If we put bad fuel in our car it will begin to lose power, the same is true for putting junk in our body.

We know that heating living plants over 120 degrees will kill the plant. It may taste like a wonderful gourmet meal, however the enzymes are destroyed. Enzymes are the catalysts for hundreds of thousands of chemical reactions that occur throughout our body.

Cooked foods and dry convenient diets have been denatured and are devoid of enzymes – life-promoting elements. While they may maintain life they do not promote optimum health or longevity. So says expert Alicia McWatters, Ph.D., C.N.C



Our body is made of living cells. The process of digestion is to assimilate fuel, metabolize the nutrients at the cellular level, and vent the waste from the body – thus the term: orevention. If the foundation of our fuel is cooked foods, we satisfy our hunger but do little to nourish our live cells.

Statistics show that 70 percent of Americans are malnourished. Over 40 percent of cancer patients die of malnutrition.



Many believe that chronic degenerative diseases are connected to digestive problems. After the most extensive study on nutrition ever undertaken by the government, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs concluded in its 1978 report entitled “Diet and Killer Diseases,” that the average American diet is responsible for the development of chronic degenerative diseases such as heart disease, atherosclerosis, cancer, diabetes, stroke, etc.

Many of the most common health complaints revolve around a 20-foot, mucus-lined tube known as the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The job of the GI is to alchemically transmute the food we eat into our flesh, blood, actions, thoughts and feelings S

Professor Jackson of the Department of Anatomy at the University of Minnesota has shown that rats fed for 135 days on an 80 percent cooked food diet resulted in an increased pancreatic weight of 20 to 30 percent. What this means is that the pancreas is forced to work harder with a cooked food diet.

Enzymes are destroyed by heat over 118 F (some as little as 105 F), which means they may not survive even light steaming.

According to Dr. Edward Howell MD, author of “Enzyme Nutrition,” enzymes are the catalyst for hundreds of thousands of chemical reactions that occur throughout the body; they are essential for the digestion and absorption of foods as well as for the production of cellular energy.

Enzymes are essential for most of the building and rebuilding that goes on constantly in our bodies. Among the many thousands of species living on this earth, only humans and some of their domesticated animals try to live without enzymes.

Every day we make choices. Exercise, drinking water, fresh air, sunshine, avoiding stress and toxins along with fueling our body with living food can reward us with long-term optimal health.


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