Why take bitter herbs and spices? Doesn’t the body produce its own bile and digestive enzymes?
Today people are subject to numerous environmental influences and dietary habits which have diminished, and in some cases, nearly destroyed the body’s ability to digest food properly.
In ancient human diets bitter herbs, spices and raw foods were consumed with meals as a matter of course. Their herbal knowledge far exceeded that of our own today. Remnants of these ancient cultures can still be found in indigenous cultures today, whose levels of health also far exceed that of modern man (until, of course, they become westernized).
Antibiotics, mercury amalgam tooth fillings, chemicals in our food, water and environment have caused great havoc in the area of digestive health. Ancestral lifestyle habits have been lost in modern congested, high-rise style living.
More so than at any other time in human history, herbal restorative digestive nutrition is needed to support and correct the damage done by modern living.
If I am taking Enzymes for Life, will I also need to take enzymes or ox bile supplements?
No, in most cases enzymes and bile supplements can be dispensed with, unless, of course, your pancreas and liver are entirely incapable of producing digestive enzymes and bile.
Extreme cases may need to taper off the crutches (since the body shuts down in areas where we endlessly supplement rather than nourish back to health). Tapering is best accomplished while simultaneously building digestive powers through the herb and mineral nutritive approach.
The hepatic (liver) and pancreatic production of digestive juices can be supported with nutrition from herbs & earth-born mineral sources, thus assisting the body to rebuild these organs to the point that they regain full digestive juice production again.
Rebuilding digestive powers may take a short amount of time or longer, depending on the degree of harm done by the supplements and the nature of the diet causing the digestive obstructions in the first place.
The most common causes of digestive impairment are:
- fungal promoting foods (especially sweets or starches when combined with certain oils, fats or nuts)
- chemicals (antibiotics, radiation, heavy metals, mercury tooth fillings, chemical laden water)
- drinking too much liquid with or after a meal
- an overly-acidic constitution
Why are digestive enzyme supplements not recommended?
Digestive enzymes are extracts of plants and other sources, meaning they are not the whole plant. Thus the numerous supportive compounds (in some cases, hundreds of phytonutrients) that nature builds into a plant for optimal digestion are not included in the digestive enzyme supplement.
To take nature’s plants and mineral sources apart, then isolate specific compounds from them to turn into supplements, is revealing an inherent distrust of the Original Natural Order of Life. It is saying that nature’s original provisions are not sufficient on their own merit, in their complete forms; that 5 billion years of product development by nature cannot do as much as the measly 250 years of medical intervention and “natural” extract-based supplements.
The more concentrated and isolated a substance becomes, the more likely it is to cause disturbances in the body’s biological terrain. Disturbances in the body eventually show up similar to the incompleteness of the extracted compound.
Those trying to get off of hormone replacement therapy after a year or more will understand just how disruptive isolated supplementation can be to the human body.
Digestive enzyme supplements, while less impacting, still weaken the body’s enzyme producing organs (salivary glands, stomach, pancreas, intestines, and liver). Like putting a cast on the leg results in atrophy of the muscles, extract supplements give the body the signal that it does not need to work at producing those metabolic compounds.
It is far wiser to simply give the body the building blocks needed by the body to construct the metabolic compounds in ways that only nature understands how to do.
Herbs, clays, sea vegetables and other wild foods are complete forms of nutrition built by nature for the human being to nourish specific areas of human physiology (also built by nature). The body uses these little known compounds to regenerate itself according to nature’s wisdom.
Why are animal bile supplements not recommended?
Your own body already knows how to regulate the precise quantity of bile, HCL and other digestive juices you need in a given moment to digest the unique set of foods you are consuming. Trying to micromanage the regulation of these more refined digestion juices with animal extracts is throwing the body out of balance in two basic ways:
- animal juices are designed uniquely for that animal, not for humans. It may be too much or too little for your body of any number of desirable bile constituents based on their diet and body type compared to yours.
- digestive juice supplementation can never accurately approximate the precise digestive requirements of your body at any given moment throughout the day and night. Fed properly, your own body’s natural digestive mechanisms are perfectly capable of meeting your unique digestive needs in the moment.
Instead of supplementation, consider nourishing your organs and glands back to health. Then normal, ideal production of digestive juices, at any moment, day or night, becomes available to you on demand.
Whole Herbs and Spices for Optimal Digestion
Enzymes for Life provides whole plant herbs and digestive spices which nourish the body back to digestive health in accordance with the wisdom of its nature.
The body reacts to bitter herbs by producing bile in the liver. The body manufactures its own digestive enzymes in the pancreas, salivary glands, stomach and intestines.
Enzymes for Life and the spices contained in it, provide plant-based building blocks for the these organs to increase their natural bile & digestive enzyme production.
Regardless of one’s age, when fed properly and nourished sufficiently with whole earthen foods the body will produce all of the digestive enzymes, bile, hormones, and soil based organisms required for perfect digestion. Thus, store bought enzymes and ox bile-type supplements are no longer needed.
If my gallbladder has been removed is it still OK to take Digestive Bitters?
Consuming bitter herbs with a meal supports the body’s natural bile production.
The liver produces the bile (with some help from the spleen) and would normally store the bile in the gallbladder to concentrate it 5-18 times before delivering it to the small intestines once oils or fats exit the stomach. (For those without a spleen, the liver & lymph systems take over some of the splenic functions).
Without the concentration process performed by the gallbladder, the bile from the liver is simply dumped into the intestines when stimulated by oils, fats or bitter herbs.
This means the bile is not as strong as is desirable, but still effective to a degree. So, yes, someone without a gallbladder can take the Enzymes for Life since bitter foods provide nutrients (an herb is simply food; parsley, coriander, cumin, dandelion leaf, and fennel are common herbal foods), to which the body reacts to by increasing the quantity of bile manufactured by the liver. In this way one might overcome the lack of concentration with abundance.
Secondarily, bile performs the function of encapsulating toxins (chemicals, heavy metals, bacteria, fungi, viruses, parasites, etc.) filtered out of the blood by the liver. Thus, the detoxification benefits of bile-stimulating bitter herbs will still be as powerful as before.
Thirdly, bile is also used by the body to neutralize stomach acids in food exiting the stomach, so this benefit remains as well.
What is the difference between liquid bitters and dry herbal capsules?
Liquid bitter herbal formulas are also helpful for the human digestive tract in a similar way that a dry herb encapsulated formula works.
The differences between the two are:
1) The bitter taste of an encapsulated formula is noticed less than with a liquid formula, so this makes it easier for some to take.
2) It is also true that the taste of the herbs help to prepare the digestive tract to produce certain kinds of digestive juices, so there is an advantage there in favor of the liquid. For this reason, some of our clients will open one capsule, to get the taste advantage, and then take the rest in the capsule form.
3) An herbal extract is not a whole plant, thus the liquid forms are missing part of what nature intended for the human body to be most effective. It is impossible to extract 100% of the medicinal value from a plant using the various liquid extraction methods.
The fibers of a plant alone contribute significantly to the effectiveness of a plant’s action in the human body. Among their many benefits are the fact that fibers are a food source for friendly bacteria and archaea in the intestinal tract. Friendly bacteria & archaea are intimately involved in completing the breakdown of foods into nutrients for the body.
How were the herbal ingredients in Enzymes for Life selected for the formula?
Complete digestion of food involves much more than just the stomach & intestines. The ingredients in Enzymes for Life were selected due to their historical and scientific value for assisting the body to improve the digestive powers of the human digestive tract.
Each herb selected has its unique nourishing effect on various organs and glands of the body involved in the numerous digestive actions applied to the foods consumed. The complete picture of food digestion and assimilation involves the stomach, pancreas, liver, gall bladder, small and large intestines, spleen, kidneys, bladder, adrenals, blood, capillaries, probiotics, enzymes, hormones, and numerous biological transformations.
Digestive enzymes, Ox Bile, HCL, antacids, laxatives (the most common supplements reached for when the digestion is off), are incapable of providing the hundreds of plant-based nutritional compounds that nature designed into various herbs and spices to support the true needs of the human body for total digestive efficiency.
