There are still unknowns though - like the rate of enzymatic activity in 
non-chilled food and the period of time between when the food is in your 
mouth until it gets into the lower stomach.  I can see what you are saying 
about meats though... For vegetables it still doesn't strike me that enzymes 
could have any beneficial effect as the period is too fast (I assume a 
couple of hours for that time period)....  However I just don't know enough 
about this....

Marilyn

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Geoffrey Purcell" <[log in to unmask]>

That said, many cultures, such as the Eskimoes, would deliberately age their 
meats so as to increase the rate at which enzymes predigested the raw meats, 
thus making digestion for them  even easier than with just raw, fresh 
meats - a  number of RVAFers who go in for aged, raw meats have similiarly 
noticed that such foods are more easily/quickly digested than others.

(Incidentally, I do not claim that fresh, raw foods necessarily contain all 
the enzymes necessary to predigest them as otherwise there would be no 
reason for us or other wild animals to have any  digestive-enzyme-producing 
capability at all, but it's clear that enzymes in raw foods do help ease the 
burden on the body re predigestion of (raw) foods).

Geoff