Enzymes

[Important note: The following article on the benefits of living enzymes was written several years ago. AIM, the company that introduced Barleygreen® in 1982, has reconstituted its whole food concentrate made from young barley grass. The powdered juice of AIM BarleyLife® is as close to the natural state of young green barley leaves as possible. Unlike any other green juice product, it supplies the leaves' nutrients in natural proportions.

We were blessed to be present when the new product was introduced at the 20th anniversary celebration in Hawaii in July 2002. If you are an AIM member, we encourage you to discover this superior barley grass product. If you are not an AIM member or direct customer, we would be glad to tell you how you can become one and obtain all of AIM's products at wholesale cost. We look forward to your inquiry! We will send a cassette tape about BarleyLife® to those of you who read this message and send us an e-mail with your postal address. Our e-mail address is letsbewellinc@charter.net]

"The digestive system is really a chemical refinery which manufactures its own fuels and delivers energy from the raw materials provided for it: proteins, fats, carbohydrates, (broken down into starches and sugars), vitamins and minerals. The whole process of digestion takes place in the alimentary canal. In an adult, it comprises approximately a thirty-foot long hollow tube which begins in the mouth where food is chewed and acted upon by saliva, and ends at the anus where certain wastes are eliminated by the body. Along this continuous tube, which can be likened to [a] ... conveyor belt, are stations where the microscopic chemists convert foodstuffs for the body's use by breaking down, diluting and dissolving, as well as by adding some chemicals and removing others.

"Some of the foods Americans eat are natural and useful; other elements are useless or downright harmful. In many cases the rugged, resilient digestive system must cope not only with the stressful conditions of modern life but with the staggering amount and variety of foods, beverages, alcohol, caffeine and nicotine--as well as a flood of patent medicines, pills and powders designed for real or imaginary digestive malfunctions, or constipation.

"In the mouth the food particles meet their first digestive enzymes--highly specialized protein particles which act as catalysts in aiding body processes, or in speeding them along. (Metabolism, the sum of the processes by which the body's fuel is converted into energy, relies heavily on enzymes, one of the basic keys of life. If their orderly reactions are interfered with, the cellular enzymes misfire, and illness results.) The stomach secretions, the enzymes from the pancreas, the liver and the glands lining the small intestine all act on the passing food particles." Henry G. Bieler MD Food is Your Best Medicine, 1965.

If you followed that, you will have noticed that Dr Bieler was describing two kinds of enzymes, digestive enzymes and cellular enzymes, that is, enzymes inherent to the body. Ever since I was first introduced to Barleygreen® in 1992, I have been fascinated with enzymes.

When people ask us how I got well from my 22 months of diarrhea, especially after taking such a small amount of a whole food concentrate made from young barleygrass [one caplet a day for a few days], Dick likes to say, "After all that time when her body was not digesting any food, it was so surprised to get some living enzymes, it said, 'Thank you very much', and went back to work."

I suppose that is an oversimplification, but we are simple people. I like Dr Bieler's simple description of how the digestive system works. He continues:

"All of the food that has been subjected to the action of the enzymes...and other agents of reduction in the mouth and stomach is now spread out, as it were, upon a huge carpet, many yards square. This area is the actual lining of the small intestine, which is about 26 feet long and covered with millions of villi, like little fingers in constant motion swinging back and forth, protruding from the mucosa, or lining of the small intestine. Even as the grooves of a long-playing record are more than a mile in length, so the millions of villi enlarge the absorbing surface of the small intestine. Natural sugar, in the form of glucose, as well as unnatural sugar, natural and unnatural minerals, fatty and amino acids (proteins), are spread upon this carpet."

One of the topics that we asked Dr Joel Robbins to address in our 1998 summer seminar at St Olaf was enzymes. One reason is that he does it so well; the other is that as someone who appreciates the benefits of barley grass and thinks that everyone else should too, I want to understand the unique benefits it offers.

When I share BarleyLife® with someone, I try to remember that in our culture, the bottom line is "What's in it for me?"

I need to be able to tell my friends in easy-to-understand language what is unique about BarleyLife®, AIM's flagship product. BarleyLife's distinctive characteristic is its living enzymes.

I like to describe the importance of enzymes this way: A mama cow, a vegetarian animal, can produce a perfect baby calf from just grass. That's because living grass has everything needed to make blood, bones, teeth, skin, muscles for that baby. When I add water to BarleyLife®, I get the equivalent of green grass, without the fiber because I don't have the masticating ability of a cow, or extra stomachs. My body will absorb from the juice in perfect balance, vitamins, minerals, protein, chlorophyll, and whatever else grass has--because the living plant enzymes, which are catalysts [see Dr Bieler above], enable me to absorb the other grass components. When Dr Joel talks about enzymes, he explains how plant enzymes can compensate for digestive enzymes where necessary. Once again, I find it comforting to know that God cared enough about me to send someone to give me a concentrated source of plant enzymes when I had no digestive enzymes of my own.

In "Green Foods: Splendor in the Grasses," Let's Live, Sept 1995, Betty Kamen, PhD, says, "A young grass plant has a higher nutrient value than the grain it eventually becomes. The nutrients in the leaves of a grain reach maximum concentration just before the stem begins to develop. Then the chlorophyll, protein, and vitamin contents decline; the fiber content increases. By the time the plant matures and becomes a grain, most of the best nutrients have been utilized in the plant's seed production--to propagate the next generation. Consequently, the grains of the grass family are far more valuable in their leafy green stage of growth as a vegetable, than they are in the seed stage as a source of flour for baked goods and pasta. The dark green leafy part of the young grain plant rivals any vegetable for nutritive value."

More than 30 years ago, a Japanese medical doctor and research scientist, himself in poor health, was excited to learn that young barley grass contained more then 20 naturally-occurring enzymes such as catalase, superoxide dismutase [SOD], transhydrogenase, and perosidase. Those are the scientific names for some hard-working proteins that act as catalysts to break food down into elements the body can use for energy and to perform its lifegiving functions. Unfortunately, few delicate enzymes like these remain in most frozen, canned or heated foods.

Superoxide dismutase [SOD], in particular, has been extensively researched. It has been shown to work in conjunction with catalase to act as an antioxidant defense against free radicals [unstable molecules that attack and destroy the body's cells and tissue].

Studies conducted at Loma Linda University Medical School, Duke University Medical Center, and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine demonstrate that SOD accelerated both internal and external wound healing, and very significantly so. Other studies, conducted at the Department of Medicine at St Louis University, the University of South Alabama, St Thomas Hospital in London, and Johns Hopkins University, reveal the protective and healing properties SOD exhibits on the heart. A normal healthy body produces prodigious amounts of SOD, but this production significantly dwindles with age, at the same time that free radicals increase. So it is obviously important to supply the body with this vital enzyme through dietary sources as we get older. BarleyLife® is an extraordinarily rich source of superoxide dismutase.

Many people who used to take antacids tell me that they no longer use them. That's because they found a whole green that can compensate for abnormal amounts of gastric juice in the body (often caused by stress and acid-forming foods such as meat, eggs, and sugars of all kinds). It's a natural "antacid" that brings the pH balance--the natural ratio between acids and alkalines in the body's fluids--back to the optimum range of 7.35 to 7.45 required by healthy cells.

Since studies show that improperly balanced pH levels result in the body's inability to absorb nutrients it needs for peak performance, people with stressful lives are wise to use an alkaline whole food concentrate to avoid contracting illnesses, including cancer, that are known to flourish in acid environments.

The answer lies in what we have allowed ourselves to accept as food--which has no food value at all. Our culture runs on advertising. Only 20-some cents of the price of what is marketed as "food" on TV is for the edible portion; the rest is for packaging, advertising, and other non-food-related expenses.

Dr Joel Robbins points out that life dies at 107 degrees, and that is the temperature at which enzymes begin to be destroyed. The barley used for AIM's BarleyLife® is harvested with state-of-the-art equipment when the nutrients are the most potent and alive. The leaves are then juiced (never milled, as some other barley grass products are), and then processed using the most advanced cold-processing method for maximum freshness and nutrition. The juice is spray-dried using a proprietary low temperature process. This entire process preserves the delicate balnace of nutrients and phytochemicals.

The plant kingdom is unique in its ability to utilize sunshine, carbon dioxide, oxygen, water, and inorganic materials to produce food. Through the process of photosynthesis, a plant can change inorganic minerals into organic minerals, which it then uses to feed itself and grow. Unprocessed food from a living plant contains glucose, protein, fatty acids, organic minerals, organic vitamins, and pure water.

The animal kingdom does not possess the ability to perform photosynthesis, and so we must rely on the plant kingdom for our food. But any form of processing of what nature provides for us (e.g. pasteurizing, cooking, microwaving, adding preservatives) breaks down the bond between the food components and their attached enzymes. The results are denatured food components, or dead food.

An enzyme must be alive and attached to the minerals/vitamins in order for the body to utilize them. The enzyme acts as a "passport" to get nutrients into the cell of the body, and aids in the cell's utilization of those nutrients. Iron pills, anyone? Dolomite? Oscal®? Not for me. My body can't use shale or limestone or oyster shells. I used to find calcium pills whole in the toilet.

The research of Edward Howell, MD, a pioneer in studies on enzymes, showed that a diet of cooked food causes rapid, premature death in mice. Any kind of heating of a food destroys 100% of its enzymes. We need living food.

To review, only raw food is living, and only raw food can produce life in the body, because the enzymes are still intact. Enzymes are a key to life, because they are catalysts which help the body work more efficiently in using food for life-maintaining purposes.

Remember, every cell in our bodies is an enzyme factory. As we abuse our bodies with unhealthy lifestyles, we may lose our ability to produce them, and deficiencies may occur. That is apparently what happened to me. To prevent a shortage of enzymes, we need to tap into the other source. Thank God for plants, which can provide us with living, organic food to nourish us at the cellular level.

Barleygreen® is a registered trademark of Y.H. Products, Inc. in the United States and worldwide.

BarleyLife® is a registered trademark of AIM International.

AIM products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, mitigate, or prevent a disease or illness. Results may vary per person.

Enzymes: A Key to Life