In my book www.HowToLiveTheHealthiestLife.com I have a whole chapter on raw food and another on enzymes. Here are two excerpts from them:
1. Phillip Day says if the ratio of cooked to raw food is greater than 1:1 then the body starts to treat the cooked food as a poison. The body manufactures antibodies to defend against it.
2. Dr Howell says, “enzymes are used up faster during certain illnesses, during extremely hot or cold weather, and during strenuous exercise. Also, keep in mind that any enzymes that are taken are not wasted since they add to the enzyme pool of your body. Furthermore, as we pass our prime, the amount of enzymes in our bodies and excreted in our sweat and urine continues to decline until we die. In fact, low enzyme levels are associated with old age and chronic disease. So far, there’s not much hard evidence on whether taking additional enzymes will extend the lifespan. However, we do know that laboratory rats that eat raw foods will live about 3 years. Rats that eat enzymeless chow diets will live only 2 years. Thus, we see that diets deficient in enzymes cause a 30% reduction in lifespan. If this held true for human beings, it may mean that people could extend their lifespans by 20 or more years – just by maintaining proper enzyme levels.” From http://www.zetatalk.com/food/tfood33i.htm