1. Nutritional Deficiencies

Most significantly, who is not digesting their food well cannot obtain the optimum amount of nutrients from their food that help rebuild, repair, and regenerate the body.

2. Fermentation/Decomposition

Poor digestion also causes slower transit time of the food through the digestive tract. This prolonged transit time often causes the food to ferment causing gas formation. After this, the fermenting foods begin to decompose or rot (causing toxic chemical formation).

3. Self-Toxification/Colon Problems

Another factor is a deficiency of fiber in the diet. A lack of fiber in the stools causes the feces to become sticky. This combination of sticky, fermenting, and putrefied food produces toxins and ‘free-radicals’, which are absorbed into the bloodstream and can create a lining of toxic residues and mucus which coats the lower intestinal tract. This toxic, mucus plaque can contribute to numerous health conditions, such as diverticulitis, colitis, and other colon problems. The symptoms associated with this ‘self-toxification’ can include allergies, body aches, confusion, forgetfulness, headaches, and decreased energy.

4. Leaky-Gut Syndrome/Food Allergies

A serious condition associated with poor digestion is “leaky-gut” syndrome. Leaky Gut Syndrome occurs when foods are not digested completely. Large, poorly digested protein molecules force their way through the gut wall into the bloodstream. In the blood, instead of being delivered where needed as nutrients, these large proteins are recognized incorrectly by the immune system as an invader from outside the body. The immune system then mounts an antigen-antibody reaction, creating immune cells to attack the antigen. This is also known as having a food allergy attack. I believe that a large majority of ‘food allergies’ are simply due to poor digestion and this antigen-antibody reaction to proteins in the bloodstream.

5. Liver/Kidney Stress & Skin Conditions

By constantly allowing these toxins to enter the bloodstream, it also places stress on the liver (major organ of detoxification) and kidneys (cleaners of the blood). If these organs become overworked, the skin will become an organ of elimination and you will begin to see skin conditions appearing. Many skin conditions are caused or contributed to by poor digestion and the resulting toxic environment of the intestinal tract.

6. Parasites/Yeast Infections

Other conditions related to poor digestion and leaky-gut syndrome are parasite infections, which are more common that one would expect, and Candida albicans (yeast) infection of the intestinal tract.All of these conditions increase the toxic load on the body and have a negative effect on the immune system.

Most raw food, like our bodies, is very perishable. When raw foods are exposed to temperatures above 118 degrees, they start to rapidly break down, just as our bodies would if we had a fever that high. One of the constituents of foods which can break down are enzymes. Enzymes help us digest our food. Enzymes are proteins though, and they have a very specific 3-dimensional structure in space. Once they are heated much above 118 degrees, this structure can change.

Once enzymes are exposed to heat, they are no longer able to provide the function for which they were designed. Cooked foods contribute to chronic illness, because their enzyme content is damaged and thus requires us to make our own enzymes to process the food. The digestion of cooked food uses valuable metabolic enzymes in order to help digest your food. Digestion of cooked food demands much more energy than the digestion of raw food. In general, raw food is so much more easily digested that it passes through the digestive tract in 1/2 to 1/3 of the time it takes for cooked food.

Eating enzyme-dead foods places a burden on your pancreas and other organs and overworks them, which eventually exhausts these organs. Many people gradually impair their pancreas and progressively lose the ability to digest their food after a lifetime of ingesting processed foods.