Every time you eat, you have a choice. 

Do you choose to eat something that is nutritious and healthy for you?

Or do you opt for what tastes good and is convenient?

We all have moments where we indulge in less-than-ideal meals, but on an average daily basis, what are the choices you make when it comes to food?

This is an important question to consider as what we consume plays a vital role in our health, particularly with our immune system, which is a top priority now more than ever.

Protecting and healing us from illness and disease, our immune system is an essential component of our health. As diet-related illness spikes throughout the world, it’s imperative we take care of it as much as it takes care of us.

How can we do that?

Making good decisions about what we choose to consume and how we flavour it makes all the difference in supporting a strong immune system and defending ourselves against harmful bacteria and viruses.

To boost and maintain healthy immune function:

Enjoy vegetables. If you haven’t already, add nutrient-dense produce to your daily diet, such as spinach, broccoli, peppers, and kale. Or consider using a superfood powder to boost your daily intake of these powerhouse foods. 

Eat berries. Berries are loaded with vitamin C. For the greatest impact, choose darkly pigmented ones such as blackberries, blueberries, cherries, and strawberries.

Consume pungent foods. Onions, garlic, and leeks are all highly beneficial immune-boosting foods. Use them as a flavour base for meals and recipes.

Eat citrus. Oranges, grapefruit, lemons, and limes all provide an abundance of the immune system booster vitamin C. 

Add spice and herbs. Spices in general have anti-microbial properties. They add flavour, provide a lot of versatility when added to dishes as well as teas (try adding spices or herbs to tea with a touch of Manuka honey), and provide the potential for great protection. In particular, reach for such spices and herbs as turmeric, horseradish, thyme, oregano, basil, and cinnamon.

Sip soups and broths. Chock full of nutrients, a warm bowl of broth-based soup, or plain bone broth itself, can be beneficial to the gut and in turn supports immunity.

Drink plenty of water. Hydration keeps our oral microbiome defences up, so try to drink at least ½ your weight in ounces of clean water each day.

Avoid empty calories. Say no to refined sugars and carbohydrates like biscuits, cakes, sugary drinks, and processed foods that don’t provide nutritional value and can suppress your immune system.

When eating out, order something cooked. If eating out, opt for cooked foods versus non-cooked cold foods. Heat rather than cold is more likely to kill unwanted bacteria harmful to the immune system.

Keep these tips in mind when it comes to what you shop for, how you cook or order, and what you consume. 

And remember, whether consciously or unconsciously, you make a variety of choices every day when it comes to taking care of your immune system. You can choose to support it, or you can select options that hinder it. 

What will you choose today to keep yourself healthy?

REFERENCES

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/nutrition-and-immunity/
https://www.pcrm.org/news/blog/foods-boost-immune-system

Strengthen your body naturally

Is raw food healthy or just a trend? Many people are sceptical about meals that are prepared with a blender, juicer or spiraliser, and prefer to pull out a frying pan or switch on the oven instead. That being the case, we often overlook the fact that not all foods have to be boiled, fried or baked. We are accustomed to cooking foods at high temperatures to kill parasites and bacteria — and of course this is essential for meat and poultry, for example. Other foods, however, such as certain types of fruit and vegetables, are also completely edible raw. So if we always cook our food without exception, we might be missing out on many of the best nutrients that nature has to offer. As is the case with many other diets, balance is also key for a raw food diet. Eating nothing but raw food is less helpful for health,¹ whereas a mixed, balanced diet with a high proportion of raw food can be a very healthy option. 

What does a raw food diet consist of?

You can turn the cooker off because you won’t be needing it much; food can only be heated up to a maximum temperature of 42 degrees Celsius. Many people who haven’t heard much about the concept of raw food associate it with giving things up. Is that what you think too? The truth is that raw food can be extremely varied. According to the Giessen Raw Food Study, a raw food diet is a diet that largely or solely contains uncooked plant (and sometimes also animal) foods.¹ How strictly you wish to pursue the raw food aspect is entirely up to you.

Some raw fooders eat nothing but uncooked, raw food, while other people make a step-by-step transition, so that they find a healthy balance between cooked and raw food. One widespread assumption about the raw food diet is that you have to be vegetarian or even vegan.

However, depending on the type of diet, there are three different variations of the raw food diet. There is raw vegan, raw vegetarian and the raw food diet with meat and fish:

• A raw vegan diet is exclusively plant based.
• Raw vegetarians also eat raw milk products and eggs.
• With a raw diet that contains fish and/or meat, items such as tuna, carpaccio and tartar are on the menu. Everything that is air-dried can also be eaten, including ham and salmon.

Because the diet includes food that is either raw or cooked up to a maximum temperature of 42 degrees Celsius, eating raw food means that you are eating whole foods in their natural state.

Raw food versus cooked food — what’s the difference?

In a raw food diet, food is eaten in its natural state, whereas cooked food is first boiled, fried, pasteurised or heated in some other way before it is eaten — pretty clear so far. But to what extent do the two ways of eating impact our bodies differently? What are the health benefits of eating raw food?

At around 40 degrees Celsius, important micronutrients start to change. As such, when boiling or frying food, important nutrients such as vitamins can be destroyed or changed in a way that prevents them being absorbed by the body. When cooking foods at temperatures that are too high, the flavours we want are sometimes also accompanied by unwanted substances. For instance, when frying food, a substance called acrylamide can form.² Chemicals such as this might only be dangerous for us if we consume them in excessive quantities, but we should still try to limit our intake as much as possible. To keep acrylamide formation to a minimum when cooking, always remember the FSA’s health advice and “go for gold” rather than burning your food to a crisp!²

Right now you must be thinking that it sounds like a good idea to give up cooked food entirely and dive into a raw food diet to protect your body against harmful substances. But that is by no means the case — if you did that your diet would be quite one-sided and unbalanced. Instead, aim for a balanced diet that combines both raw and cooked food. By eating a mixed diet, you can help your body find and maintain a balance between nutrients and harmful substances.³

How much raw food is healthy?

The German Nutrition Society recommends eating three portions of vegetables and two portions of fruit a day. The size of one portion is equal to the size of your own hand.⁴ The recommendation is also known as “5 a day” and is indispensable when it comes to a healthy diet. Following up with the “5 a day” recommendation, many raw fooders ask themselves: how much raw food is actually healthy?

As shown by a study by Giessen University in Germany, it is not possible to cover all your nutrient requirements through raw food alone.¹ If you want to provide your body with everything it needs, you should avoid an exclusively raw diet. In the scope of its “5 a day” campaign, the DGE makes the following recommendation: adults should eat around 400 g of vegetables a day, 200 g of which should be cooked, and 200 g raw or as a salad. The remaining daily nutrient requirements can be covered by around 250 g of fruit, which we are accustomed to eating in its natural, uncooked state anyway.⁴ So to ensure that raw food is always beneficial to our health, it should always be integrated into a mixed diet comprising both cooked and uncooked food.

What makes raw food so healthy? Three reasons to include more raw food in your diet

1. Raw food is low in calories but rich in nutrients.

2. Valuable substances such as vitamins, minerals, fibres and secondary plant metabolites are more abundant in raw food than in boiled or cooked food.

3. Healthy raw food also contains fewer free radicals than cooked food.

Raw food quality — quality of foods in their natural state

What makes fruit and vegetables so healthy are all the vitamins, minerals, fibres and secondary plant metabolites that they contain. If you leave the food in its original state and don’t cook it, all of these valuable nutrients remain in the food in high amounts. So by eating raw food, we are giving our body the best that nature has to offer.

Raw food has a high percentage of

• Vitamins, e.g. vitamin C

Vitamin C contributes to a healthy immune system and metabolism, among other things. However, the vitamin is water-soluble.⁵ By cooking foods rich in vitamin C, like spinach or tomatoes,⁶ you can quickly strip the food of its nutrients, and its raw food quality is lost.

• Minerals, e.g. calcium

Calcium contributes to the maintenance of bones and teeth, among other things, and is the most important mineral in our body in terms of quantity.⁷ As such, a diet that is rich in calcium is important to many people. This nutrient is found in green vegetables such as broccoli and kale.⁷ To fully utilise the potential of the vegetables, it is smart to vary the way you eat them between raw and cooked.

• Fibres

Dietary fibres—whether cooked or uncooked—ensure that we have a lasting feeling of fullness. With this one fact, the myth that raw food doesn’t make you full is blown clean out of the water. You can contribute to your daily fibre requirements by eating raw carrots and raw kohlrabi, for example.⁸

• Secondary plant metabolites, e.g. carotenoids

Secondary plant metabolites can have a positive influence on numerous metabolic processes. In order to consume as many of these antioxidative substances as possible, the German Nutrition Society (DGE) recommends integrating more vegetables, fruit and nuts into your meals — all foods that can be enjoyed raw. If possible, combine these with seeds, pulses, potatoes and various wholegrain products for a balanced, mixed diet.⁹

Raw food to protect against oxidative stress

Cooking food can release free radicals. These highly reactive metabolic intermediates can damage the cells in our body, and are being increasingly linked to disease.¹⁰ If you leave raw foods such as fruit and vegetables in their natural state and don’t cook them, you can help limit an excessive intake of free radicals.

To protect your body, you can make sure to increase your intake of antioxidative nutrients. Zinc, selenium and vitamin C, for instance, contribute to cell protection against oxidative stress. Whether you are a raw fooder or not only plays a role in the extent to which your body absorbs nutrients. 

Raw and delicious — intense, sweet and above all natural

We usually choose our favourite meals based on their taste. Pasta with tomato sauce, curry with rice or a colourful vegetable stir fry — even the thought of some of these dishes makes our mouths water. Many of these recipes, which we make for ourselves week after week, include instructions for boiling, frying or baking after the ingredients have been prepared. Is it still possible to integrate raw food into our diet to change things up and not sacrifice the delicious taste?

Of course — raw food can taste delicious too. The world of raw food has more to offer than you might think. On your next trip to the supermarket, pick up various types of vegetables and leave the cooker off for a change. You will see for yourself — nothing tastes as good as the natural sweetness of a crunchy carrot or pepper. Fresh celery sticks are also delicious. Try them with a salad and a wild herb dip — you probably can’t remember the last time you prepared a meal so quickly. And you did it with no cooking at all.

There are plenty of other delicious recipes online for integrating raw food into your diet. For instance, have you ever heard of kohlrabi tortellini? You are probably thinking that tortellini have to be cooked. But for this recipe, kohlrabi is not used as a filling for pasta made of wheat or similar. By cutting the kohlrabi into very thin slices, you can make tortellini that can be enjoyed raw. Choose any filling you like and then fold the kohlrabi slices together to make your tortellini. Served on a plate, this raw food meal doesn’t just look great, it is also extremely tasty. If you give raw food a try, you will quickly be just as convinced as we are that taste and health go hand in hand with a raw food diet.

What foods shouldn’t be eaten raw?

So you’ve acquired a taste for raw food, and now you want to freshen up your favourite dishes with raw components bit by bit? Then you’re sure to bring new energy to your cooking. However, you should first always check to see whether the ingredients can really be eaten raw. Pulses, grains and potatoes, for instance, should not be served raw.

Pulses contain lectins, which are plant ingredients that are only destroyed when cooked.¹¹ Beans, soybeans, chickpeas and lentils should therefore always be cooked before eating. The same goes for soybean and mung bean sprouts. Although peas contain fewer lectins than other pulses, they still shouldn’t be eaten raw due to the indigestible fibres they contain.¹¹

Raw fooders should also avoid eating grains without due preparation. Why? Grains contain phytin, a substance that impairs the absorption of minerals in the body.¹² Grains are more digestible if they are ground or soaked for several hours.

Potatoes contain a bitter, poisonous substance called solanine. This substance is mostly found in the skin, but can also move into the tuber itself if the potatoes are stored for too long and in too warm conditions. The solanine can only be removed if the potatoes are cooked in hot water.¹³

Recipe ideas with raw food

We all have a lot keeping us busy. Our hectic day-to-day lives don’t always give us the liberty of preparing nourishing meals from scratch. On a stressful day, we might catch ourselves putting a frozen pizza in the oven or heating up a ready-made meal in the microwave. The next time you find yourself with no time to cook a proper meal, just try raw food instead. Raw food is quick to prepare, so that you can serve up a healthy, nutritious meal or snack in the blink of an eye.

To help raw food newbies in particular, we have compiled a menu with recipe ideas that are both raw and delicious. Feel inspired.

Recipes with a high proportion of raw food:

• How about a delicious smoothie and fruit for breakfast? One bite into a ripe, juicy peach and you are guaranteed to have a great start to the day. Smoothies and whole fruit can also easily be combined to create smoothie bowls. They don’t just look good, they taste amazing too. Have a look through our smoothie recipes.
• For lunch, we suggest a raw food classic — a salad. Seasoned with raw ingredients such as red cabbage, mushrooms and nuts, you can prepare a delicious meal in no time.
• Feel like an afternoon snack? As tempting as chocolate is, why not try a pepper with a guacamole dip?
• Who doesn’t love spaghetti? But have you heard of courgetti? For dinner, we recommend pasta made of courgette. For this, all you need is a spiraliser — which is already a good investment for anyone who wants to integrate more raw food into their diet. When choosing the sauce, you can be as flexible here as you are with regular pasta. Salmon, pesto or more vegetables — try it all.

Tips for raw food newbies

• Don’t transition to raw food all at once
• Wash raw food thoroughly before eating it
• Eat raw food slowly and chew thoroughly

Would you like to do your health a favour with raw food and are you enthusiastic about making the swap? So that you don’t shock your body by taking away its usual food too quickly, it can be beneficial to replace cooked food with raw food slowly or add raw components to your meals bit by bit. Maybe we have already been able to inspire you a little with our recipe ideas.

You should also make sure to wash vegetables and other raw foods thoroughly before eating them. Because it’s not just nutrients that are retained by eating raw, bacteria are too. And they really shouldn’t end up on your plate.

Eating slowly and chewing thoroughly is not just important for kids; we should take this to heart ourselves if we start eating more raw food. Because otherwise the food won’t digest properly.¹⁴

Balance is key — combining raw and cooked food

Variety in a healthy diet is key. How you eat is a decision that has to fit your lifestyle. Whether you eat meat, fish and/or dairy products or opt for a vegetarian or vegan diet, a higher proportion of raw food is always a good idea and lets you eat delicious meals full of diverse nutrients which you need to stay healthy. Anyone starting out into the world of raw food will quickly discover that raw food is not only healthy, it is also delicious and absolutely rawtastic!

1. https://www.uni-giessen.de/fbz/fb09/institute/ernaehrungswissenschaft/prof/nutr-ecol/forsch/forsch-epid/gi-rohkost-studie [↩] [↩] [↩]
2. https://www.bmel.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Broschueren/ErhitzenUnerwuenschteStoffe.pdf [↩] [↩]
3. https://www.bzfe.de/inhalt/schadstoffe-im-essen-vermeiden-1887.html [↩]
4. https://www.dge.de/ernaehrungspraxis/vollwertige-ernaehrung/5-am-tag/ [↩] [↩]
5. https://www.gesundheit.gv.at/leben/ernaehrung/info/vitamine-mineralstoffe/wasserloesliche-vitamine/vitamin-c [↩]
6. https://www.dge.de/wissenschaft/weitere-publikationen/faqs/vitamin-c/ [↩]
7. https://www.dge.de/wissenschaft/weitere-publikationen/faqs/calcium/ [↩] [↩]
8. https://www.dge.de/presse/pm/mehr-ballaststoffe-bitte/ [↩]
9. https://www.dge.de/presse/pm/sekundaere-pflanzenstoffe-und-ihre-wirkungen-auf-die-gesundheit-farbenfrohe-vielfalt-mit-potenzial/ [↩]
10. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7704185 [↩]
11. https://www.dge.de/presse/pm/ein-hoch-auf-huelsenfruechte/ [↩] [↩]
12. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4325021/ [↩]
13. https://www.dge.de/wissenschaft/weitere-publikationen/fachinformationen/solanin-in-kartoffeln/ [↩]
14. https://www.daab.de/ernaehrung/darm-im-fokus/wie-funktioniert-verdauung/ [↩]

With many fruits and vegetables available year-round it’s easy to forget that nature knows best, and that the foods it provides us with do in fact have an optimal eating time.¹ Seasonal fruits and vegetables not only support our nutritional needs more efficiently, but they taste better too! These are just a couple of the reasons why seasonal fruits and vegetables should feature regularly in your diet.

They really do taste better

It’s not a marketing ploy – there’s a fundamental reason why seasonal produce is far better tasting. In-season fruits and vegetables are fresher, sweeter and perfectly ripe. This is because they’ve been picked or harvested at the right time after they’ve naturally ripened in the ground, or on the vine or tree – allowing them to retain greater flavour. When we eat foods that are out of season, they will have been harvested early and undergone a process of refrigeration to keep them from spoiling during transportation. Fridges are beneficial for preservation, but they’re the enemy to flavour, and chilling will always diminish that perfectly-ripe, sweet taste. Often, products will have to undergo extra heating to artificially ripen them once they reach their intended destination too. This greatly reduces the flavour and removes that lovely sweetness that you only get with freshly picked produce. Out-of-season foods can taste floury, fibrous or even flavourless in comparison to their seasonal counterparts.

Benefit from a higher nutritional value

It’s not just the flavour that’s retained in seasonally ripened fruits and vegetables, but the nutritional value is far greater too. Eating produce closer to harvesting ensures better retention of nutrients, as many nutrients will start to decrease in foods stored for longer periods of time. Vitamin C, folate and carotenes in particular will rapidly decline in produce that are not consumed soon after harvesting. Larger suppliers may even stock out-of-season fruits and vegetables that have been gassed, irradiated (through radiation) to kill germs and preserved in wax to keep them looking fresh and extend their shelf life. It goes without saying that none of this will be beneficial to our health.

Support your body’s natural requirements

Eating foods that are in season will better support your body’s natural healing and cleaning abilities. In winter, for example, nature provides us with an abundance of citrus fruits which are high in Vitamin C and help to protect against the cold and flu viruses, and many varieties of squash, which contain Vitamin A to strengthen our immune systems ahead of the change in weather. Seasonal changes are always a key time for picking up viruses. So wild garlic, chives and leeks, which all contain natural antibiotics, are great to eat as it moves into the Spring. By contrast, summer brings with it lots of stone fruits that offer extra beta-carotenes and other carotenoids to help protect against sun damage.

Support the environment and the local economy

Purchasing more locally grown fruits and vegetables protects small, local farmland from being financially pressured into expanding and developing for industrial or commercial use. Preserving this farmland also provides animals, insects and birds with a place to live and thrive.² ‘Food miles’ are reduced with less travel, meaning less consumption of fossil fuels and fewer carbon emissions and greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, because local farmers don’t have the inflated transportation and distribution costs that large agricultural businesses do, they’re able to retain more of their profits. Helping small, local businesses to become even more successful.

Eating a variety of healthy, nutrient-filled fruits and vegetables is always going to be beneficial to our health and is certainly a giant leap up from processed foods and artificial colours and flavourings. But for the greatest benefits of all, try to keep seasonal fruits and vegetables at the forefront of your shopping list. 

1. https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/seasonal-calendar [↩]
2. https://www.gdrc.org/uem/footprints/food-miles.html [↩]

Famous as a Japanese cuisine, sushi has amassed an equally strong following in the West.

In recent years, Japanese restaurants have been popping up in capital cities to small towns across the globe. Interestingly, sushi actually originated in China, where farmers first began fermenting fish with the rice from their paddy fields, rice vinegar and salt. That specific dish is known today as narezushi. It was introduced in Japan during the Yayoi period, dating from 300BC to 300AD, and has since become synonymous with Japanese culture. The version we know today however, has been around for only about 200 years.

What if you don’t like fish?

It’s a misconception that sushi has to contain fish! Most people know it as chunks of raw fish, either on their own or wrapped in or presented on rice. Sushi is actually the generic term for a dish containing rice that is seasoned with vinegar and topped with raw fish or vegetables – not necessarily both. If you are not a lover of fish, or are a vegetarian, you can therefore still eat sushi. What’s more, the Western world has adapted sushi to suit a wider-ranging palette, and it’s not uncommon to see duck, chicken or even beef in sushi now.

But is it healthy?

It certainly can be. Like most cuisines, there are ways to lessen or increase the health benefits. If you opt for overly processed varieties, you might end up consuming more sugar and empty calories than you planned. If you season your sushi with too much soy sauce you may also find yourself consuming more than the recommended daily salt allowance, as soy sauce is particularly high in sodium. That being said, there are ways to make sushi a very healthy snack or even a meal:

• Opt for sashimi. Sashimi is literally just the fish without the rice or extra sauces, meaning you won’t be consuming the extra salt and sugar.

• Focus on the vegetables and ginger. Ginger has been shown to be anti-inflammatory and have strong healing properties,¹ and it tastes delicious with sushi!

• Go for brown rice instead of white. Brown rice is higher in nutrients and lower in refined carbs.

The specific health benefits of sushi

As well as tasting delicious, there may be some specific benefits of making sushi a part of your healthy living diet.

Assists with hormone balance

Sushi rolls wrapped in seaweed are high in iodine, which is fantastic at helping to maintain the body’s hormonal balance.² This is particularly beneficial for people going through the menopause who may have fluctuating hormone levels. In addition, people going through the menopause often have problems with their thyroid function, and iodine can help regulate this.³

Good for the skin

Sushi is packed full of ingredients that naturally contain antioxidants, which reduce cell growth and slow down cell damage,⁴ making your skin look younger, fresher and more radiant.

Improves brain activity

The fish in sushi is naturally high in Omega 3 fatty acids that have been shown to be beneficial to brain function, noticeably improving your ability to concentrate and enhancing cognition.⁵ Omega 3s may also reduce high cholesterol levels and lower blood pressure.

Helps to repair muscles

Eating sushi may help to replenish fatigued muscles. This is because it is packed full of protein, which has been proven to aid muscle repair significantly.⁶

Guards against osteoporosis

Sushi contains height levels of calcium, which is important for keeping your bones healthy and free from osteoporosis.⁷

Enhances immunity

Sushi is packed with vitamins, minerals and nutrients including zinc and calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, and iron, which are all necessary for a healthy immune system.⁸

Reduces sugar cravings

Protein is known to balance blood sugar which keeps your energy levels stable and reduces food cravings – particularly for sugar.⁹

If you haven’t tried sushi or were put off by the thought of eating raw fish, it might be time to give it a try. There are many different varieties, both with and without fish and there are a wide range of tasty fillings and toppings to choose from including avocado, tofu, chicken and vegetables. If you like your food with a bit of a heat-kick, try it with wasabi, the green paste that often accompanies a sushi dish. It’s fiery, delicious and comes with health benefits of its own, including reducing the risk of foodborne illness and bacteria¹⁰ making your sushi dish even healthier!

1. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/jmf.2005.8.125 [↩]
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3063534/ [↩]
3. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13697137.2013.838554 [↩]
4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3249911/ [↩]
5. http://www.bourre.fr/pdf/251_Bourre_2004_The_Journal_of_Nutrition_Health_and_Agein.pdf [↩]
6. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20048505/ [↩]
7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2621390/ [↩]
8. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2906676/ [↩]
9. https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article-abstract/2/7/421/2722546 [↩]
10. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2016.01403/full [↩]

Don’t we all wish there was a magic button that made our day-to-day tasks go twice as fast, so that we had more time to do the things we actually want to do?

Until we discover some magic technique or device, doing the laundry is always going to take time. Perhaps we can take comfort in the fact that our bodies do have little helpers that keep all our internal chores ticking along…

They’re called enzymes – pretty amazing proteins that act as catalysts, enabling and accelerating many chemical processes. Take the laundry we mentioned: Enzymes allow washing powder to clean clothes at low temperatures, by breaking up the proteins in tough food stains.

Despite their importance, enzymes seldom share the same spotlight as other nutrients such as vitamins or minerals. While everyone has heard of Vitamin C and Magnesium, hardly anyone knows what trypsin does.

The Discovery and Function of Enzymes

The modern understanding of enzymes came through ground breaking chemistry research.  Eduard Buchner¹, a German scientist discovered that yeast ferments even if all living yeast cells had been removed. He concluded that enzymes were the active ingredient in fermentation. Since then, enzyme research has been essential in understanding the human body.

Enzymes act as catalysts, transforming energy that is not yet available to an organism into a useful form. Some do this with the help of other substances, called co-enzymes, which specifically bind to ‘their’ enzyme and act as an enabler. And just as co-enzymes only work with a specific enzyme, each enzyme is responsible for one precise task. While enzymes are involved in many metabolic processes, we’ll focus on the role of digestive enzymes in this article.

Digestive enzymes² are produced in various organs: in the salivary glands (amylase, lipase), in the stomach (pepsin), or in the pancreas (trypsin). For example pepsin and trypsin break down proteins, amylase works on carbohydrates, and lipase targets fats. By breaking down these macronutrients, they allow micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals to diffuse through the intestinal walls into our blood. Without enzymes, these micronutrients would simply pass through our system, without being absorbed. Enzymes are therefore essential for our nutritional balance.

Essential Enzymes

Today, less nutritious, often processed food, stress, a sedentary lifestyle, and also chronic worrying have been linked to a potential increase of inflammatory stress in our bodies. Enzymes can help to lessen this inflammatory stress and, for example, have been credited to reduce Osteoarthritis-related pain³. Furthermore, enzymes are powerful antioxidants, reducing the level of tissue damage caused by free radicals.

A growing body of research suggests that as we age, enzymes can begin to malfunction, especially if we suffer from a chronic disease⁴. A well-balanced diet that includes all necessary vitamins and nutrients helps enzymes to work efficiently.

While digestive-related symptoms such as gas or bloating are sometimes related to an enzyme deficiency, the research on this correlation is as of yet inconclusive. Such symptoms can be associated with a pancreatic insufficiency, but they may also be caused by food intolerances or an unbalanced diet. It may be worth considering to change ones diet, and if that doesn’t seem to bring any relief you can increase your enzymes with a few simple steps.

Increasing your Enzymes

If you want to get more of these hidden heroes into your system, there are a variety of enzyme-rich foods to choose from. It’s best to select raw or fermented foods – enzymes are very heat-sensitive and destroyed in cooked foods.

Fruits are always good. Papaya and pineapple contain the enzymes papain and bromelain respectively, which can act as anti-inflammatory agents in the body. Fermented foods feature lots of active enzymes: pickles, traditional Asian Kimchi salad, drinks such as Kombucha and Kefir, as well as yoghurts are great sources. Try combining fermented beverages with fruits in a smoothie – it’s a refreshing drink that provides you with many vitamins on top of valuable enzymes.

It’s important to balance this with a healthy vitamin intake – many co-enzymes are actually derived from vitamins. A diet based on organic whole-foods, including all essential macro- and micronutrients and as little processed components as possible, will help boost your enzyme levels and eventually your overall wellbeing.

1. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1907/buchner/facts/ [↩]
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digestive_enzyme [↩]
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4089899/ [↩]
4. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210833515000672 [↩]

Small, shiny, tasty – and good for you too, no wonder cherries are a firm favourite for so many.

In fact, cherries are beloved in countries around the world, with National Cherry Day¹ in the UK, and whole festivals dedicated to them in the USA. We just can’t seem to get enough of this small red fruit and its firm texture and delicious sweetness or tartness (depending on your preference).

Not only this; cherries have been used medicinally for many years due to the perceived health punch they can provide as they are packed with nutrients, vitamins and minerals.

The Science of Cherries

The deep red pigmented flesh of the fruit contains polyphenolic flavonoid compounds known as anthocyanin glycosides. Anthocyanins are the red, purple or blue pigments that are found in many fruits and vegetables. The anthocyanins are largely concentrated in the skin and are known to provide a number of powerful antioxidant properties.

Some recent studies have looked at this quite closely; researchers focusing on Montmorency cherries have discovered a number of potential benefits associated with tart juice concentrate from this particular type².

Suggested benefit: exercise recovery

Cyclists who are preparing for a race day may find a new kind of sports drink – tart cherry juice – beneficial to help with their post-exercise recovery. A study found Montmorency cherry juice helped to accelerate recovery, maintain muscle function³ and reduce certain markers of exercise-induced inflammation among a group of cyclists competing in a simulated road race.

16 well-trained male cyclists who were divided into two groups. One group consumed Montmorency tart cherry juice, while the other group were given a placebo drink that contained an equal amount of carbohydrates. Researchers found the cyclists in the Montmorency tart cherry group maintained muscle function and experienced a reduction in certain inflammatory responses, compared to those consuming the placebo drink.

Interestingly, the tart cherry juice also appeared to maintain exercise efficiency, reducing the amount of oxygen muscles needed to do work. The juice group’s maximum oxygen consumption values were lower after 24 hours, compared to the placebo group.

Suggested benefit: improved sleep

Research suggests having a daily ritual of drinking tart cherry juice in the morning and evening may help you to sleep better at night⁴. Montmorency tart cherries are a natural source of melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate the sleep-wake cycle.

Researchers found drinking Montmorency tart cherry juice twice a day for two weeks helped to increase sleep duration by nearly 90 minutes among older adults with insomnia.

Those that drank tart cherry juice twice a day were able to sleep in a controlled setting more than an hour longer each night (on average 84 minutes).

The research suggests that cherry concentrate could even be beneficial for those that have difficulty sleeping such as people affected by insomnia, shift work or jet lag.

Suggested benefit: gout relief  

Researchers have found⁵ that after drinking Montmorency cherry juice concentrate, uric acid levels in the bodies of an experimental sample group reduced significantly, in just a few hours. This is of potential interest, as high levels of uric acid can lead to gout. Not particularly glamourous, perhaps, but yet another demonstration of the wide variety of ways in which a simple cherry may help support our bodies’ functions.

Small…but packing a punch

Those are just some of the more recent findings on the potential for this small yet powerful stone fruit.  With no sign that their popularity will fade anytime soon, it looks like there’s even more reason to add them to your diet – and perhaps next time you enjoy a sweet dessert with a cherry on top, you needn’t feel quite so guilty…

1. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pip-pip-hooray-its-national-cherry-day [↩]
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5872786/ [↩]
3. https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/research/research-impact-at-northumbria/economic-impact/studies-on-cherry-juice-unravel-a-multitude-of-health-benefits/ [↩]
4. https://blog.euromonitor.com/cherries-more-than-just-antioxidants/ [↩]
5. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-08/wsc-ner080618.php [↩]