Do Enzyme pills get destroyed with heat?

[hippie4lyfe]

The raw food movement says that eating raw fruits vegetables, nuts and seeds is best because of the enzyme content which normally gets killed in a heated food diet.

I am not a raw foodist but I do take enzymes to help with digestion. I wonder though if I have a pill with my coffee in the morning and breakfast if the heat renders the pill ineffective.

 

[Jeff D.]

I'm not sure but if you can tell me the enzymes you are taking then maybe I can help you more.

 

[hippie4lyfe]

I am taking ones by Garden of life

 

[Jeff D.]

After reading the enzymes in it I think you may want to consider taking your enzymes with a drink with a little bit of sugar. I don't drink coffee nor do I know the exact temperature it is when you drink it but as long as it is below 120 degrees F then it should be okay.

 

[hippie4lyfe]

Out of curiosity why the sugar?

 

[Jeff D.]

Well it says that it has the enzyme amylase and it breaks down sugar so the first thought in my mind is that you should try and start reacting with the ezyme as soon as possible. With a little sugar it would start the enzyme to react which would keep it in your system longer if you are having D. I can't remeber right now if that is something you are dealing with. It's just an idea I have and not scientifically proven. The one thing is that I can't see how much of each enzyme is in a pill which doesn't help to figure out what to take it with. I say when in doubt take with water though.

 

[saidinstouch]

As a side note to the concept of not eating cooked foods, there was a study recently that determined that cooked foods are directly correlated with the advanced evolution of man. Around the time we began to cook our food, our evolution was drastically sped up due to an increase in available energy and a decrease in energy required to process foods. So from a purely scientific perspective, cooked foods are actually beneficial to your body.

Also, any enzyme that will be easily denatured by heating will be just as easily destroyed by the pH of your stomach. The only difference is in your stomach it _might_ stick around long enough in a folded state to have some limited activity. This is highly dependent on the stability of the enzyme however and most likely any enzyme that can survive your stomach acid can survive cooking as well. The nutrients in things like fruits and vegetables are what are lost by cooking since they tend to seep out into the liquid or surrounding medium that you cook in when you do things like steam your vegetables.

All in all, it can't hurt to take your enzymes however if you find they give you any relief since that is all that we really care about in the end. If you are worried about your coffee inactivating the pills, then you can always take them 5-10 minutes after you're done with your coffee since the coffee will rapidly equilibrate to your bodies temperature once inside your stomach.

 

[GregD]

I tried the enzymes from Garden of Life for a few months, but they didn't do anything for me. I felt exactly the same before I was on them, while I was on them, and after I stopped them. If they aren't working for you, it might not be the heat, but the product itself.

I do like Garden of Life, for the most part. I take their probiotics and vitamins regularly. I do think that they go a little overboard with all of the products they recommend for managing CD. If you took everything they recommend you'd be spending about $250/month just on their supplements.

-Greg