> Eating digestive enzymes may be great (to aid in digestion), but any other
> enzymes are unlikely to make it through the gut undigested (and hence
> denatured) and into the blood.  How many digestive enzymes do you really
> think you'll find in raw meat?  If there were such enzymes in the flesh of
> an animal wouldn't they break down the animal's muscle tissue during life?

Yes, this is why I asked.  I seem to recall reading more than once on this
list that cooking meat destroys its enzymes.  The stomach secretes large
amounts of hydrochloric acid, and pepsin.  These prepare the protein in
the food for digestion in the small intestine.  There, proteases, produced
by the pancreas, complete the process.

> The list of enzymes in wikipedia sounds great, but taking almost any of
> them
> (any but the ones that are active in the stomach) should be no more
> beneficial than taking an equivalent amount of any other protein.

It seems so to me, too.  The pancreas produces its own proteases, lipases,
and amylases, so that we don't need to get our digestive enzymes from
food.  Whether any of the enzymes we eat survive the stomach is an open
question, but we don't depend upon them.

Interestingly, animal flesh is not considered meat until it has undergone
a process in which most of the glycogen stored in the muscle is converted
to lactic acid.  This is an enzyme-driven process.  When the animal dies,
and its cells cease normal functioning, these enzymes are released, and
within 24 hours it's complete, after rigor mortis has gone away.  If you
really want to make a point of eating animal tissue with its enzymes
intact, then raw wouldn't be good enough.  You'd need to eat freshly
killed flesh (pre-meat).  Perhaps this is how our paleolithic ancestors
did it.

Todd Moody


  Taking
> great pains to "preserve" such enzymes in food just so that they can be
> digested in the gut seems like a waste of energy.
>
> On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 1:02 PM, Geoffrey Purcell
> <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>
>> There are, indeed, enzymes in raw foods, but no enzymes in cooked foods,
>> due to the excess heat destorying them.
>>
>> This gives an idea of the various classes of different enzymes that
>> exist:-
>>
>> http://www.healthboosters.com/archive/digestive_enzymes.htm
>>
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_enzymes
>>
>> re enzymes/hot weather in other post:- Like I said, enzymes only start
>> getting
>> damaged at c.40 degrees celcius, and completely destroyed at c.60
>> degrees
>> celsius. So, on most hot days, enzymes would be unaffected.
>>
>> Geoff
>>
>
>
>
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