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Why Cell-Building Salads Are So Important

Many people consider a salad to be an optional or less important part of their evening meal somewhat of an appetizer before the "main course." This popular belief is wrong because a good salad has all the nutritional components required by our body, and that is a claim that can't be made for the cooked "main course" or any other food group.

When planning your evening meal, there are a lot of things you could - and should - skip but a salad isn't one of them. For example, you could omit the bread and the cooked food without creating any nutritional deficiency. You could - and should - skip the meat and dairy products (even though these are two of the four traditional basic food groups), and your health will benefit greatly from their absence. The same is true for dessert. But if you want all the essential nutrients needed by your body, you cannot omit a good, raw salad full of fresh, living vegetables.

Vitamins minerals amino acids (protein), enzymes, carbohydrates fats water and fiber are all essential components of a healthy diet, and every one of these essential components can be found in raw fruits and vegetables. This is a claim that can be made for no other type of food other than raw fruit and vegetables. The bottom line is that, based on everything known by modern medical science and nutritionists, not one single substance has been found, manufactured, synthesized or advertised that can even come close to the nutritional value for mankind as the original diet handed down by God in the first chapter of Genesis. As our world suffers painfully and needlessly from disease, malnutrition and premature degeneration, let us not lose sight of the significance of this realization.

As we begin to nourish our bodies with the foods God intended, many people enjoy coming to learn and appreciate more about the way our body uses the nutrients we consume to carry out several million functions and actually build a new body, cell by cell, all at the same time. This appreciation and reverence for God's wonderful plan for nourishing and creating our bodies can be understood and expressed on a simple, childlike level, or a more complex, scientific level. On a simple level, we can understand that our bodies are made up of living cells that need to be nourished by living (raw) foods, which God has provided for us in abundance in the form of raw fruits and vegetables. Childlike faith can be used to give thanks for this wonderful provision and accept the fact that these delicious fruits and vegetables offered by our Creator in Genesis 1:29 are exactly what is needed to nourish and sustain us in perfect health. A preschooler can understand the difference between a fresh, living, raw carrot or apple made by God and a tin can full of dead, devitalized food and chemical preservatives manufactured by man.

If you want to go beyond this simple understanding, we can take a more scientific approach to understanding the complexities of how nutrients work in our body. But despite everything modern science knows about how dozens of vitamins, minerals and amino acids, thousands of enzymes, along with carbohydrates, fats, water and fiber all work together in our body, there is much still to be learned and even more that will never be known about the marvelous and intricate workings of our body. For example, scientists have concluded that just one strand of DNA in just one of our hundred trillion microscopic cells contains so much information that, if it were decoded, this information would not begin to fit in an entire volume of encyclopedias.

With this understanding, it is fun to learn more about what makes our body work, but all the more important to realize that we must combine this knowledge with a childlike faith in the wisdom of God's plans... including his plans for nourishing our body.

More and more studies are concluding that processed foods and vitamin supplementation do not offer the same nutritional value as raw foods. Somehow it is not too surprising that what man would manufacture would fall woefully short of the nutritional value of what God has created, in the form that he created it, which is raw. The more you learn, the more you will see the nutritional advantage of raw fruits and vegetables over cooked and processed foods. Heat from cooking destroys all enzymes and most vitamins, while protein and minerals are altered by heat to a form that is not usable by the human body.

Raw fruits and vegetables are also a good source of water, considering that they are composed of between 70 and 90-percent water. (Our bodies lose almost a gallon of water a day which must be replaced, and the water from raw fruits and vegetables should account for a large part of this replacement.)

Raw vegetables are an ideal source of protein, partly because this protein has not been altered by heat, and also because this protein is not in an excessive amount. Heat from cooking alters amino acids (protein) into a non-living form, unusable by our body. You have seen this immediate change with your own eyes if you have ever fried an egg. The instant that the protein in the clear, runny (albumen) portion of the egg hits the hot frying pan, its form is immediately changed from clear and runny to white and rubbery.

When protein is heated or consumed in excess, it is harmful to the body and must be eliminated. Excess protein feeds cancer cells, burdens the liver, is stored as fat, and causes numerous other problems. Many Americans consume in excess of 100 grams of protein a day, even though nutritional experts now agree that only 20 to 25 grams a day are necessary. In the past, the amount of protein we need has been greatly exaggerated in "nutritional education" funded by the meat and dairy industries to encourage the myth that consumption of animal products is necessary for protein. The truth is that the calorie content of human breast milk is only about 5 percent protein, and this is the perfect food designed by God to meet all nutritional needs during the fastest stage of human growth. Most fruits have approximately the same protein content as human breast milk, and this level is exceeded by vegetables. Modern nutritional experts are in near unanimous agreement that a person with a healthy vegetarian diet should have no reason to be concerned about a protein deficiency, despite what we have been told in the past about needing meat for protein. And there is no need to worry about "proper combining" of amino acids for "complete protein." (Even Frances Moore Lappe', who helped to popularize the idea of proper combining for complete protein in her book Diet for a Small Planet, now acknowledges this combining is completely unnecessary. The body stores amino acids from food to manufacture its own "complete protein.")

According to Dr. N. W. Walker in his book, Diet and Salad, "All vegetables and fruits contain the necessary atoms from which amino acids are formed in the system. The human body cannot utilize for constructive purposes flesh products of any kind in the form of 'complete proteins' but it can gather from the fresh vegetables and their juices, when they are fresh and properly made, the finest atoms from which to construct its own vital amino acids and protein."

Historically, protein has been America's number one nutritional concern, but most Americans are much more likely to have a deficiency of vitamins, minerals and enzymes than they are to have a protein deficiency. The reason for an enzyme deficiency is simply that enzymes are only in living (raw) food and most Americans eat very little living food.

As for vitamins and minerals, there are three major obstacles we must overcome to avoid a deficiency in these areas:

1) There are over 100 different essential vitamins, minerals and trace minerals, and you have to obtain sufficient amounts of every single one of them in your diet to avoid having a vitamin or mineral deficiency of some kind;

2) Most vitamins and minerals consumed by Americans are not in a form that can be used by our bodies to build vital, healthy, new, living cells; and

3) Trace minerals are especially scarce in the American diet because they are scarce in American topsoil, much of which has eroded into the ocean. These three obstacles can make it difficult to avoid some vitamin or mineral deficiency, even for people who try to eat what they believe to be a healthy diet.

The solution to avoiding any of these deficiencies is to consume a broad variety of raw fruits, vegetables and fresh vegetable juices, especially dark green and deeply-colored vegetables, organic whenever possible, and some sea vegetable, such as kelp. With this type of diet, not only will you get every vitamin, mineral and trace mineral you need, but you will also be well-supplied with amino acids (protein), enzymes, carbohydrates, fats, water and fiber.

By eating several servings of the following foods daily, you can ensure that your family is receiving all of the vitamins, minerals and trace minerals required: Barleygreen powder with kelp, raw carrots (including plenty of carrot juice), raw green veggies such as broccoli, spinach and leaf lettuce, raw beets, raw cabbage, cucumbers, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, watercress and fruit with a high water content.

The reason Barleygreen with kelp is so important is that when all of the sources of nutrition are compared, green vegetables rank the highest, and the young leaves of barley contain the highest amount and broadest spectrum of all the vitamins, minerals, enzymes and amino acids needed by the human body. And with kelp added, we are assured of getting a substantial dose of all the trace minerals that have eroded from our topsoil into the ocean, because kelp is grown in the ocean. And because Barleygreen is not processed with heat higher than body temperature, we know that its nutrients are in a raw, living form.

Certain trace elements are also available in many other foods, but in smaller quantities. Trace minerals are so minute they are invisible except when extremely powerful microscopes are used; however, the body cannot function without them. The body requires at least 59 trace minerals to function properly. Maintaining a diet of fresh raw vegetables, fruits, freshly-extracted juices and Barleygreen with kelp assures a person that they are doing everything they can to receive the full complement of all nutrients (in a natural form) required to maintain optimum health.

Enzymes are another extremely important element of nutrition ... perhaps the most fragile and least understood of all. The reason I say enzymes are perhaps the most fragile of all nutrients is that they are the first to be destroyed by heat or lengthy time of storage. Enzymes can be lost even in raw foods that lose their freshness after several weeks or months elapse from the time the food is harvested and transported to various warehouses, trucking companies, then to your local grocer, then to your house before it is served.

Enzymes are the first nutrients to be lost in the cooking process because they begin to die at 107 degrees, and are completely destroyed at 122 degrees. Water boils at 212 degrees and baking begins at about 250 degrees, so that means all enzymes are lost almost immediately from the start of any cooking process, even in steaming vegetables.

But that's worse than you may realize. Because when you lose all the enzymes in a food that has been cooked, you are losing more than just enzymes. Among the seemingly infinite roles played by enzymes, they are involved in a synergistic sort of way in helping all vitamins, minerals and amino acids (protein) to be absorbed - as living, vital nutrients - into our living cells in a way that allows these nutrients to be used to build new living cells in our body. Loss of enzymes in food will have an impact on the vitality and absorbability of all other major nutrients in that food.

The importance of enzymes cannot be overemphasized because enzymes are the life-energy of everything that is living. Every living thing - plant or animal - has enzymes, and if it didn't, it wouldn't be alive. In his book, Food Enzymes: The Missing Link to Radiant Health, Humbart Santillo compares enzymes to electrical energy in a light bulb, writing, "The current is the life force of the bulb. Without electricity we would have no light, just a light bulb, a physical object without light. ... The same situation exists when trying to describe what an enzyme is within our body structure. A protein molecule is a carrier of the enzyme activity, much like the light bulb is the carrier for an electrical current.

Enzymes are found in every live atom and cell in our body. Every bodily function from moving a muscle to thinking a thought requires enzymes. Most people would be amazed at the number (like I said, "seemingly infinite") of everyday life processes that would not be possible without enzymes. For example, the endocrine glands manufacture hormones that seep directly into the bloodstream through osmosis, which would not be possible if it weren't for enzymes. These hormones are not only comprised of enzymes, but also dozens of other invaluable trace elements that are required for life.

Enzymes are also required to digest food, and if you eat dead (cooked) food without enzymes, this means that because the food you are eating does not have enzymes, the process of digestion robs your body of its collected pool of enzymes. In other words, you are robbing your body of enzymes - its vital life energy - by eating cooked food. This makes it all the more important to make sure you eat a fresh, raw salad before eating any cooked meal. A raw salad will supply enzymes necessary to help with the body's more difficult task of digesting the cooked portion of the meal. Fiber is another essential ingredient to health that will be lacking in the diet of anyone who relies on processed foods and vitamin supplements for nutrition. There are no nutrients in fiber that can be assimilated by the human body, yet fiber is an essential element of a healthy diet. All of the other elements of nutrition discussed in the chapter are absorbed and metabolized by the body, but the importance of fiber is that it is not absorbed or metabolized. Instead of being absorbed by the body, fiber acts as an intestinal broom to help move food and waste through the small and large intestines and out of the body. Fiber increases the water content of waste passing through the intestines, making stools softer, better formed and faster moving. A soft, moist, steady-moving stool is better able to absorb toxins and waste from the entire body for more efficient removal. On the other hand, a stool that is hard, dry and slow-moving through the intestines creates more toxins for the body to deal with. So, although fiber itself provides no nutrients, it maximizes our absorption of nutrients, prevents fermentation and infection in the digestive tract, and helps to improve detoxification with more effective waste removal.

And, like all the other elements of nutrition, the best place to get fiber is from raw fruits and vegetables. The reason that most Americans have problems with constipation, digestion and toxicity is that they do not eat enough fiber. There is zero fiber in all animal products - including meat, dairy and eggs - and practically no fiber in any processed foods. White flour has had all fiber removed, and the fiber in cooked vegetables is mushy and lifeless, without the electromagnetic current that exists in living food.

With this understanding, it becomes more and more apparent that the importance of daily consumption of raw fruits and vegetables cannot be overstated. Not only does the Genesis 1:29 diet of raw fruits and vegetables provide every single type of nutrient needed by your body, but it also helps with assimilation of these nutrients and with the smooth flow of waste through and out of your body for healthy detoxification.

This has been an incredibly brief summary of the way vital nutrients are used by our body to function and re-create a new body. This is all very complex, yet it is also incredibly simple. It is complex because the nutrients we consume are necessary to help our body perform such a wide variety of functions that these could not be thoroughly listed and explained even in a full volume of encyclopedias. Yet this is all so incredibly simple because eating a good variety of fresh, raw fruits and vegetables furnishes our body with everything it needs to do everything it does without the unnecessary sickness, degeneration, pain and premature death that has become so prevalent in our world. Learning more about the complexities of the human body and the rest of God's creation is made all the sweeter when we return to our childlike faith and say thanks to the Lord for the delicious assortment of fruits and vegetables He has offered for our nutrition.