If you were to take an inventory of all your preparedness supplies, would you feel quite confident that you are in fact “ready”? Your supplies might include a good, well thought out long-term, food storage program, complete with a variety of dehydrated and freeze-dried legumes, grains, vegetable, fruits, dairy and meats. If you’ve gotten this far, you are to be commended for taking two giant steps toward emergency preparedness. But have you also considered the very process by which these foods are preserved to give you the benefit of long-term food storage? Did you know that both the dehydrating and freeze dried process destroys the essential enzymes your body needs to utilize the nutrients in the food itself? That’s what may keep the food from spoiling thereby giving you the benefit of long-term storage, but your body still needs these essential enzymes.
To give you an example of how enzymes work and why they are so important for your health, consider this: Have you ever dropped an apple and noticed a bruise form? Have you ever watched what happens to that bruise over time? Underneath the skin, enzymes are busy at work breaking down that apple until there is nothing left. The exact same thing happens with the enzymes in your digestive tract: These mighty, enzymatic “powerhouses” perform their magic – breaking down the food to its constituent parts – vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates and protein – so the body can ultimately use it for life and vitality. Without them, we are borrowing from our body what it was never designed to do. To use the old adage, if I may, we are “robbing Peter to pay Paul”.
Yes, the body is thankfully equipped with the means to also digest these essential nutrients with a flood of digestive enzymes, from amylase in your saliva, to gastric lipase, pepsin and rennin in your stomach mixed with hydrochloric acid. The partially digested food (chyme) then empties into your small intestine where liver bile and pancreatic enzymes continue to breakdown the food so the nutrients can be absorbed. There is a kink in this unreliable system, however. Over time and with abuse, when the body is forced to pump out all the enzymes needed for digestion, eventually the body breaks down. Hence, we see the rise of all these horrific, degenerative disease like diabetes, coronary heart disease and cancer – to name a few. Instead of the food enzymes breaking down our vital nutrients, our bodies are breaking down and we wonder why.
Although this article cannot possibly cover the scope of the need for enzymes incorporated into our everyday lives, it must cover the inevitable concerns we face in preparedness. We know the time is near and we need to prepare. One only has to watch the “real” news to realize we’re headed for some tumultuous times. And for many of you who read and support SurvivalBlog, you already are prepared and continue to prepare. But now you’re faced with this dilemma: Your long term food storage is depleted of enzymes. It contains all the necessary nutrients, but nothing to deliver them to your body. Now what?
That was a question we faced as individuals, and as a self reliant, emergency preparedness business: We sell good, wholesome dehydrated and freeze-dried food products from some of the best companies out there with all the necessary nutrients for survival but void of the enzymes needed to break it down. So, from our personal interest in nutrition, to my naturopathic studies, to the realization that Americans are in imminent danger with their casual approach to health, we decided to take that leap of faith. We had to do something that would not only provide the enzymes needed for everyday living, but for our long-term food storage as well. So we made a drastic shift in the way we eat now by choosing healthy, unprocessed food and incorporate a lot of whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables in our diets, including sprouts.
Did I say sprouts? Could it really be that simple that we could live off our food storage and enjoy good health with the simple usage of sprouts? Sprouts are living foods packed with living enzymes ready to take food to its next level. In fact, alfalfa sprouts are one of the healthiest foods available to man with such vital nutrients as calcium, copper, folate, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium silicon, zinc, vitamins B, C, D, E and K. Not only does it possess all these nutrients, it’s alive and full of enzymes. By the simple application of sprouts in your long term food storage, you too can not only enjoy the fresh crisp taste of vegetables but employ every nutrient for the health of your body from otherwise, “dead” food.
Sprouting is so easy, anyone can do it. It requires no special knowledge or complicated equipment, just the seeds, a sprouter kit, some moisture, warmth, darkness and maybe ten minutes of your time daily. They not only store well, but a little goes a long way! In fact, just one pound of alfalfa seeds can produce 10-14 pounds of sprouts. Just simply soak the seeds in water overnight, drain them and lightly water for a few days. Then watch them grow! Soon you will have a bountiful crop of healthy sprouts to incorporate into your long-term food storage plan. – Roxanne L. Griswold, Ready Made Resources