Act 1 - Scene 8:
Digestive Enzymes

In my opinion, supplemental digestive enzymes should always be used because although all raw, uncooked foods such as raw meat and fresh vegetables do have enzymes within them, they do not provide the same amount as fresh food.

Enzymes are said to be the vital force behind every living organism and without them life is said to have a hard time existing.

In fact, raw, unpasteurized honey is known to be high in enzymes, but after pasteurization, honey loses all of its enzymes. When pasteurized honey is fed to bees, it actually kills the bees because pasteurized honey is enzyme depleted. One might say then that pasteurized honey is missing its vital force.

Realizing that all commercial pet food is cooked beyond belief and at very high temperatures if dry food, we then begin to realize that when we feed commercial pet food that we are in fact feeding food that has no vital force. When feeding commercial pet food, we are in fact feeding foods that are void of enzymes, the vital force, to our pets. Cooking kills enzymes and just like with the bees, our pets can do better with raw foods that still retain some enzymes.

In addition to feeding raw foods, we can help our pets more by using supplemental digestive enzymes, here’s why....

Digestive enzymes essentially allow the body to more fully digest foods that are eaten. Better digestion means better use of the nutrition in the foods along with other many other benefits.

Although all animals can produce their own digestive enzymes, it is more natural and better to use the enzymes found in raw foods. The enzymes found in foods allows your pet’s body to work less. In turn, using the food and supplemental enzymes to your pet’s advantage, you allow your pet to save its own enzymes for emergency purposes.

Saving your pet’s bank account of enzymes for emergencies is extremely important.

All animals are only given a certain amount of enzymes at birth. Once your bank account of enzymes disappears, you go bankrupt. Your pet cannot make deposits to its enzyme bank account, but luckily feeding raw foods and using supplemental digestive enzymes helps slow this process.

Believe it or not, but in the wild, your pet takes supplemental enzymes to help prevent enzyme bankruptcy on a regular basis. In the wild a dog or cat would naturally get its majority of supplemental enzymes from the stomach and intestinal tract of their prey. In addition, fresh raw muscle meat has naturally occurring enzymes too! Enzymes are abundantly found in fresh raw food of prey!

Supplemental enzymes help us to simulate this natural fact!

It is really quite interesting when you think about... the role of the pancreatic and digestive juices of the prey becomes reversed. Instead of helping the prey digest its food, the digestive juices are now helping the hunter digest the prey itself. Using supplemental enzymes helps recreate the enzymes found in the prey’s digestive system.

Additionally, friendly bacteria is eaten by your pet when it eats the prey’s digestive system. The intestinal tract is loaded with probiotics. Probiotics are things like acidophilus and bifidobacterium just to name two. Probiotics are essentially defined as pro meaning 'in favour of' and biotic meaning 'life'.

Probiotic literally means 'in favour of life' and this is the opposite of antibiotics.

How important are enzymes?

Well, imagine there are two bananas sitting on the table. One banana is ripe while the other is green. Both you and your friend are hungry with a capital H. Your friend grabs the ripe banana first and your stuck with the green one. Both of you eat them and your friend feels absolutely wonderful, you however, feel terrible.

The enzymes in the unripe banana have not fully ripened the banana yet. Therefore, your banana is not sweet and you can feel it sitting in your stomach hours after eating it. You get cramps, and worst of all, your friend is laughing. I’m sure that we’ve all experienced this to some degree.

Enzymes make digestion wonderfully easy!

• The enzyme amylase helps with the digestion of carbohydrates

• The enzyme protease helps with the digestion of protein

• The enzyme lipase helps with the digestion of fats

• The enzyme cellulase helps with the digestion of vegetables.

These are the four most commonly used enzymes. There are however thousands of enzymes all doing different jobs and reports say that enzymes are involved with every action within the body, including thinking. Hmmmm.

Editor's Paw Note:

If you want to learn more about enzymes, read my article about "Prevent Bankruptcy - Make Deposits" which talks about enzymes and the importance of enzymes.

There are two digestive enzymes which I like to suggest. My favorite digestive enzyme supplement for pets is called FloraZyme LP. Another digestive enzyme supplement for pets is called FloraZyme EFA. Both of these digestive enzymes supplements for pets also provide friendly bacteria and were formulated by Dr. Swift, DVM. I've used and recommended the supplements formulated by Dr. Swift since 1994 with great success.

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