Digestion In A Nutshell



First, a few definitions


  • A Membrane can best be described as a material that is perforated. Just like the strainer that you use to rinse your vegetables, tiny holes in a membrane will only allow particles of a certain size to pass through. To purify water, a membrane, which has molecular sized perforations, only allows water molecules to pass through.

    There are many membranes in our body. Our Skin, Intestines for example. Science has not developed a membrane anywhere near as good as our skin. The skin's perforations (you know as pores) are adjustable to allow a variety of things to pass in OR out.

    Our intestines work in much the same way. As food passes along it's length, the perforations permit the nutrients to pass through directly into waiting blood vessels.

  • Fiber in the food is needed only to create bulk, slow things down. You can NOT live on a liquid diet. Molecules need to be squeezed through a membrane. Fiber holds things up just enough to create pressure in the system. There is absolutely no nutritive value in fiber. It is simply passed right through and out.

  • Communication within our body is intense to say the least. Every part knows what every other part is doing. Digestion starts the moment you begin to think about eating. Your brain starts sending messages, your mouth waters, your nose begins to analyze the odors, saliva carries messages to your esophagus and stomach, etc, etc. And this communication continues through the whole process.

  • Capacity. Capacity means Maximum. Your freezer has a certain capacity. It can only hold so much. Pile more food into it than it has capacity for and the lid won't close and it will begin to fail.

    ALL the organs in your body have the capacity to do just so much. Like your freezer, if you force them to do more than they have the capacity to do, they will begin to fail.

    Your brain does not have the capacity to decipher, analyze and understand the communication and preparation processes that manage digestion. It does have the capacity to understand the warning signals it is getting from an overloaded system.


The Ingredients
I'm sure you know that there are far too many substances working within our body to even think about let alone try to understand. But there are a few I can explain to give you an idea of what's happening.

  • A Stomach Acid The dreaded stuff that your doctor would have you believe is an enemy of good health and happiness. Stomach Acid is primarily used in the stomach to break down the food you eat. But, as it passes out of the stomach, some of it is picked up by the Pancreas which uses it for a number of things. One of which is to stimulate the production of a substance to neutralize stomach acid in the intestines.

    There is no such thing as "too much stomach acid". Communication between the cells orders in exactly what is needed. There is no pump in there that gets stuck and fills the stomach to overflow.

    Without stomach acid, the food would not be prepared properly and for the most part, it would not be able to be digested. Remember, the intestines allow one molecule at a time through the membrane.

  • Bile is another acid that is produced by the Liver that is even more valuable. Because fat molecules tend to bind together, they need to be separated so they can pass freely through the intestine. Bile is stored and concentrated in the Gall Bladder. The Small Intestine uses hormones to communicate with the Gall Bladder and order in a squirt or two whenever there is fat to be digested.

    The Pancreas uses bile for many things. One use is to produce Insulin which is needed to control Blood Glucose Levels.

    A Clue?
    This is direct proof of the link between diet and disease that we hear stated over and over but the message seems to go unnoticed. Stage 2 Diabetes is now an epidemic in North America. All the experts are telling us that there is a direct link between obesity and Diabetes. They also are warning us that poor diet and exercise is the direct cause of obesity. There it is. Plain english.


    Your Liver and Pancreas are truly amazing, multi-functional organs that regulate and maintain the Nutrients in your blood. Together they produce Enzymes and other Digestive Juices. They are the center of your immune system. They are your primary defense against disease. If they are healthy and not worked beyond capacity, you are healthy. If you ignore the warning signals, they will continue to under perform. As that happens, you are at risk of developing an illness from a very long list of secondary effects that range from Hemorrhoids to Cancer.

    You should never die of Liver Disease. Restrict your diet to only healthy, whole, natural foods and the liver can completely heal itself. Scientists are learning that many other organs (including the Heart) can also regenerate if given the chance to do so.

  • Enzymes An Enzyme is defined as Any of numerous proteins or conjugated proteins produced by living organisms and functioning as biochemical catalysts and that is as scientific as I want to get. There are lots and lots of different enzymes and from the definition you can see "Biochemical Catalyst". That explains that enzymes initiate a chemical reaction between cells. Absolutely vital for proper digestion.

    Every living thing contains enzymes. The key word here is LIVING. Canned, bottled, boxed, dried, powdered and even cooked means DEAD. Food cannot be stored if the enzymes are still living because they initiate the process of decomposition.

    This is not to say that these types of food are bad for you. It is to show that you must eat sufficient quantities of Living, foods as in fresh fruits and vegetables, to maintain optimum digestion.


The Process - in very few words.
So! Food is broken down in the stomach and passed down to the intestines. Nutrients ooze through that membrane directly into blood vessels. These blood vessels are carried directly to the Liver. In what seems like a monumental task, the liver inspects and sorts every molecule. Good stuff stays, bad stuff may be used for another task like producing Bile or it will be flushed down into the urinary system.

Now this might seem to be an over simplified explanation, but how much more would you need to know? Knowledge is Power, but too much knowledge just boggles the mind.

Overloading the system
The human body was designed long before Science was a household word. The Liver was designed to filter out impurities from your food. It will quickly have the odd bit of bacteria destroyed. Remove the odd bit of foreign material you might have eaten. It certainly was not designed to handle the waste products from a chemical factory.

You would only need to take any packaged food from your cupboard, read the list of reported ingredients (many additives are not required to be on the label) and actually look them up to see what they are. Then maybe go further and make a list of the additives you eat through a normal day. I guarantee you will be shocked!

These are the things that are wearing out your vital organs. Your Liver is the first line of defence and you are giving it a task that it does not have the capacity to handle.

Imagine trying to tow a large mobile home with your car. You can put it in low gear, put the peddle to the floor and might even get it moving. But you know what will happen. Just like your liver, your car won't give up trying but it will certainly die trying.

Medical Tests
Highly trained medical professionals (doctors) are great fixer uppers. They are lousy detectives!

You can go to your doctor and tell him "My leg hurts." He'll look at it and quickly detect that it's broken. He might ask you how it happened and you could tell him you slipped on a banana peel. It's a perfect visit. The Cause and the Cure are both known.

But go to that doctor and tell him your throat hurts. It won't take him long to decide that it's Acid Reflux. Everybody has Acid Reflux so it hardly takes any amount of investigation. So you might ask him "Why do I have Acid Reflux?" and 9 times out of 10 the doctor will reply with absolutely no shame that he doesn't know the cause. BUT don't worry, because he knows the cure. Again, no shame for this additional failure. He will prescribe a drug that will prevent your body from producing Stomach Acid.

Logically then, if you are bleeding internally, the treatment should be to stop the heart from pumping the blood. Cured!

Liver Disease is a fairly rare thing. But the term disease is used very loosly these days. A blood test for Liver Disease will only detect the presence of viruses. It will not detect over capacity. While your liver is wearing out, you can get all kinds of treatments for the resulting problems (like Acid Reflux) and most likely those treatments will hasten the destruction of your liver.

How Bad Is It?
If your organs have been working beyond capacity because of your bad diet. Foods saturated with chemicals never intended to be eaten. A diet that doesn't supply a wide variety of nutrients. Why would you think that you can bring yourself back to health by adding Drugs? Next time you take your car to be serviced. Compare that treatment with the way you might be treating yourself.

If the label on the filler pipe says "Unleaded Only" you check to make sure you're not using the Diesel pump. You certainly don't add any Maple Syrup. You watch to make sure the mechanic puts in the correct oil. See that he doesn't add any sand or dish soap. You won't let him top up your brake fluid with water or put battery acid in the radiator.

Then on the way home I know you won't stop at a fast food place and order a hamburger & fries. Because you know the bun contains things like Benzene Peroxide, Sodium Benzoate. The lettuce has been soaked in Chlorine Dioxide then preserved with Chitosan and Sulfites. The tomato was grown in a chemical soup. The meat came from an animal raised in a filthy place, fed a diet of antibiotics and hormones. The fries have been boiled to death in artery clogging hydrogenated oil. All washed down with a solution of frightening chemicals disguised by the favor of refined white sugar and tantalizing color.

The sad thing is that even if you go straight home for dinner, it probably contains much of those same things. Disguised by lying labels that read "Healthy".

I hear over and over again silly things like "Well, you can't avoid preservatives!" or "They can't sell food that isn't safe to eat!". Well, you can! And they can!

The food industry has run amuck! There is a belief that the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is watching out for our safety. But that is very far from reality. The onus is on the Food Processors to insure their product is safe. The FDA becomes involved only when there is clinical proof that a food additive or preservative is hazardous to health.

The irony is that the damage caused by these chemicals is insidious. They slowly wear out the internal organs. If you drank a glass of Battery Acid the doctors would say you died from drinking acid. But, if you drink Cola and eat hamburgers and fries for 30 years and your liver quits. The doctor will say you died of an inherited predisposition to liver failure.

Preservatives are put in foods to prevent them from decaying (decomposing, rotting) but your digestive system requires food that will decompose.

It's a No Brainer!