Try Sprouts for a Healthy and Balanced Digestion

Sprouts, they seem so fragile and just another funny health food. But these little young stems have stored an incredible number of powerful nutrients and enzymes.

You see, seeds are meant to provide the plant-growing-embryo with all the nutrients it will need during the first crucial days of its development. A tiny seed is a store house of nutrients in a dormant state until they are needed for the sprouting process.

When water is absorbed, a great deal of enzymes are activated so that the nutrients can become available to the plant embryo which starts to grow. This process reaches its peak during the 3rd to 5th day of sprouting.

Sprouts are then full of valuable activated nutrients and enzymes. For example, a sprouted mung bean has:

• The carbohydrate content of a melon
• The amount of vitamin A of lemon
• The amount of vitamin B1 of an avocado
• The amount of vitamin B2 of a dry apple
• The amount of vitamin B3 of a banana
• The amount of vitamin C of a loganberry

But it's not just the nutrients. The enzymes you can find in sprouts are of immense biological importance, too. This is because they contribute to the digestion of other foods in our gut.

It may sound a paradox, but a sprout can do a lot more for you than you might think.

Insufficient digestion is the source of many health problems.

As we age, the amount of enzymes our body produces drops significantly. After our 20's, this ability drops 13% every ten years. This means that our digestive capacity lessens as well.

We are not able to properly digest the amount of food we used to... but it is extremely rare to see the amount of food consumed being reduced. On the contrary, overeating is a common pattern we see establishing itself as people get older.

Poorly digested food in the gut is an immediate source of bacterial infection. Harmful bacteria get the chance to overgrow, reproduce quickly and produce toxins, thus the delicate good bacterial balance is lost and our gut is inflamed.

This can have devastating effects in the actual amount of nutrients absorbed, but it can cause an even more serious disruption of the intestinal function.

The inflammation causes the surface of the gut to be disrupted. This means that toxins and undigested food particles can now leak to the blood stream and migrate anywhere in the body causing systemic (and completely irrelevant to the digestion itself) problems.

So a simple imbalance in the amount of food consumed and the actual amount we can process can indeed be the source of numerous problems.

It is really challenging for a physician to diagnose the real cause behind these pathological conditions. The solution is to switch to a diet that works in harmony with our gut. You can see now how important the sprouts can be.

Raw fruit and vegetables are rich in nutrients and enzymes. But sprouted beans and seeds though have 10-100 times more enzymes and nutrients than raw fruit and plants. It can make a huge difference, if they are included in your diet.

The best sprouts to incorporate in your diet are the following:

• Mung beans
• Rye
• Wheat
• Alfa alfa
• Lentils

Guest Author for this post: Helen Davies, MSc is a medical researcher, and graduate from Imperial College London ( MSc in Human Molecular Genetics). As the founder of Primal Health company, her expertise focuses on Nutritional Genomics and Functional Medicine. If you are interested in learning more about food & DNA interactions, visit our website --> http://www.Primal-Health.com

Raw Honey Versus the Honey Most People Get

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Those familiar with the bible have most certainly heard of Canaan. It was known best as the land of milk and honey. What do milk and honey have in common? Both of these elements in their purest states are unpasteurized.

Pasteurization was discovered in 1862, and was realized as a way to kill bacteria that accelerate spoiling of consumable goods. This is done by heat treating the edibles. The majority of goods found in the market today have been pasteurized in order to extend their shelf life.

Unfortunately, this process can also cause the disruption or loss of nutrients that are found in the natural byproduct of the animals. For years we have been stripping these nutrients in an effort to reduce spoilage and possible disease contamination, but most recently an effort has been made to go back to products found in a more natural state in order to reap their full benefits.

Some foods are clearly labeled as pasteurized, while others may need closer inspection of the label to determine what they are. One of these foods that needs extra consideration is honey.
There is a lot of work done by the bees in the manufacturing of honey. To begin, the worker bees will fly out as far as four miles from the hive in search of some local nectar. When the bee finds a flower, she will first consume nectar for her own nourishment, and will then consume additional nectar into an additional "honey stomach."

Upon returning to the hive, the contents of the worker bees secondary stomach is removed or sucked out by a house bee. The house bee chemically breaks down the polysaccharides of the nectar into some more simple sugars. This makes the nectar more easily digestible and results in honey that is spread throughout the honeycombs.

The bees have processed this sugar in a way to make it less vulnerable to bacteria within the hive as well. The bees will go one step further in their preservation process by fanning the honey with their wings to reduce it's moisture content - making it even less susceptible to bacteria. Honey is then sealed with a protective beeswax and kept until it is ready for consumption.

In this still pure state, the honey is packed with nutrients, antioxidants, and is an amazing energy source. In the United States, it is quite common for honey manufacturers to pasteurize the honey that is collected in an effort to destroy bacteria and prevent fermentation by unseen yeasts. This is done to help increase the shelf life of the sweet syrup, but as a side effect it removes additional nutrients that are beneficial to humans.

How do you know the condition of the honey you have purchased? Unprocessed honeys will be be labeled at 100 percent raw. You can obtain a fairly long shelf life with raw honey as long as you keep it stored under ideal conditions.

The bees have worked hard already to provide a product that is most beneficial in it's pure state. Next time you go shopping for honey, do have a good look at the label. You can enjoy all it has to offer when you can find truly raw honey.

Guest Author: Val Wilson is passionate about all things beekeeping! It is an incredibly rewarding hobby in so many ways, so if you would like more information about how to start beekeeping, go to http://www.bestbeekeeping.com and sign up for the FREE 7 day beekeeping ecourse.