Benefits of mineral-rich foods and water

bibing

The mineral-rich foods are not new to us. They are the raw vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, whole grains that we frequently discuss in this column.

They are the components of the Genesis 1, 29 Diet. To discuss their benefits, I intend to compare them with our usual over-cooked ‘dead’ food that is common with us.

In doing so I shall be presenting the processing of food through the gastrointestinal tract (the GIT).

The GIT extends from the mouth to the anus and along that path you have the eosophagus, the stomach, small intestine, large intestine, which opens to the outside at the anus.

The pancreas is an endocrine organ, which is attached to the GIT at the duodenum, the first part of the small intestine that is attached to the stomach.

Apart from the insulin that it secretes, the pancreas also produces and releases an aqueous buffer solution into the intestine. Generally, the structure of the GIT is more complicated than I have shown but I believe that this will suffice for our discussion.

When food is chewed in the mouth, it is mixed with the enzyme ptyalin in the saliva. Ptyalin is an enzyme in the saliva that breaks down starch to sugars.

Therefore, the digestion of the carbohydrates that we eat begins in the mouth. Whatever amount of carbohydrates is left after cooking or that which comes from the components of our mineral-rich Genesis 1, 29 Diet.

The difference here is that the raw vegetables, unlike the cooked food have enzymes in them that aid and speed up the digestion of carbohydrates in them.

This is an advantage over the cooked food. Digestion of the raw food becomes faster and is more complete than the cooked food. That being the case, acid formation and accumulation is less with the raw food than with cooked food.

Further churning of the food and mixing with acid occurs in the stomach from where they are passed to the small intestine.

In the duodenum, the acid food mix from the stomach, known as chyme, is acted upon by the aqueous alkaline buffer solution from the

pancreas. More digestive juices, containing enzymes such as amylase, lipase and protease are introduced at this point.

More digestion takes place here and this is further enhanced by the enzymes in the raw food, unlike the cooked food. This is the reason why digestion of the raw vegetables and fruits etc is more complete than that of the cooked food.

After the digestion of the chyme, absorption takes place also in the small intestine.

Absorption is the movement of the digested food through the wall of the intestine into the circulatory system.
The water-soluble food matter are then transported to the liver where they are detoxified.

Undigested food matter and waste products are then moved into the large intestine. Here the fibre content of the food plays a very significant role.

Cooked foods are usually devoid of fibre while the fibre content of the raw foods is very high.

Movement of digested, undigested and waste matter is dependent on the fibre content of the food.

Raw vegetables and fruits are usually loaded with fibre and such foods move faster into and in the large intestine.

On the contrary, cooked food that lack fibre move slowly in the large intestine. In fact, cooked food with animal protein and a lot of starch tend to cause constipation because they lack fibre.

Apart from increasing the movement of colonic contents, fibre also cleanses the colon. Increased rate of movement of faecal matter and cleansing of the colon, reduce the amount of acid that is produced and released from the colon.

Taking this further still, acid accumulation, which we know is a cause of cancer is reduced to the barest minimum with the raw foods because acid production is low with such foods. On the contrary, because there is no fibre in the cooked food, movement of faecal matter is very slow, causing constipation.

The longer the faecal matter remains in the colon, the more acid produced and released into the system. This is a risk factor for cancer of the colon and possibly, cancer in more distant parts of the body from the colon.

To summarize, the benefits of the mineral-dense raw vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts and whole grains include speeding up digestion of food and taking such to a completion and the role of fibre in preventing acid formation and accumulation.

Source: TheGuardian