I interviewed Warren Peary and William Peavy, PH.D in their warm Albuquerque home, seeking for the latest scientific information on this topic.

Dr. Peavy received his M.A. in horticulture science from the University of California and a Ph.D. from Kansas State University. He was a columnist for the El Paso times and has written over one hundred published articles. Author of the Southern Garden Soil Handbook and the Super Nutrition Gardening, for over 40 years Dr. Peavy has pioneered the scientific study of rejuvenation and the importance of germinated seeds in our diet. He also appeared in numerous radio and TV lecturing on the topic of nutrition and food.

Warren Peary is an investigating health journalist, extremely knowledgeable in scientific aspects of nutrition and health.

Q: I would like to present the interesting questions I have been recently asked by our readers. First, how can you live to 120 years in good health?
A: Gerontologists (scientists who study aging) say that 120 years could be the average human life span versus 75 right now...

Q: But how is it possible for anyone to live in good health anywhere near that length of time?
A: A good deal of research indicates that a large part of the answer lies in eating high-enzyme foods every day. Most people don’t know what high-enzyme foods are.

Q: Before getting into the technicalities of high enzyme food, can we go back to the basics of living organisms?
A: Life is a whirlpool of enzyme reactions. Enzymes are the biological catalysts that make every single life process in your body work. Enzymes are like the spark plugs of an engine. Every single system of your body from the brain, to the muscles, nervous system, vascular system, cell reproduction, growth, immunity, antioxidant defense system and digestive system depends upon enzymes. It is enzyme activity that is precisely the measure of youth. The importance of vitamins and minerals is in their use in our body’s enzymes.

Q: Can’t the enzymes produced by our body carry out this function effectively?
A: All of us have a limited capacity to produce enzymes. Like the engine of the car that has a limited capacity to produce horsepower. And this capacity declines with age. It is this capacity with which we are born, that determines our maximum potential lifespan. Some are born with a greater potential lifespan and others less. In any case, as we age, in general, our body is able to produce less and less enzymes. It is this general decline in enzyme activity in our body that is a fundamental cause of aging. When enzyme activity gets too low, the process of death occurs.

Q: How is the usage of enzymes distributed in the body?
A: Now, here is the most important thing to remember about enzymes - the more energy our body has to devote to producing enzymes in one system, the less it has for other systems. The one system that takes a great amount of energy is the digestive system. The enzymes of the digestive system include proteolytic enzymes that digest proteins, amylolytic enzymes that digest carbohydrates, and lypolytic enzymes that digest fats. These digestive enzymes make it possible to get the nutrients from our food. Our body devotes a tremendous amount of energy everyday to produce digestive enzymes. Yet digestive enzymes are just a portion of all the enzymes our body must create every day to run every life process of every system.

Q: How exactly do enzymes affect our aging process?
A: One of the first indication that enzyme activity is waning in your body is a reduction in the efficiency of your digestive system. Virtually all of us have a rapid deterioration in the efficiency of our digestive system as we grow older due to a decrease of digestive enzymes. So serious is this that around two-thirds of all hospitalizations are for problems of the digestive system. Medicines for the digestive system are the number one selling class of drugs. As we age, we lose the ability to produce adequate hydrochloric acid while 35% of people over 65 produce none at all. While the digestive system is deteriorating, the enzyme activity throughout the rest of your body is also in decline. This decline is a fundamental cause of aging as well as many of the diseases associated with aging.

Q: Is there anything we can do that will slow down this decline in enzyme activity and even maximize its activity in our body?
A: The answer is YES! One of the big reasons why we lose the ability to make digestive and other enzymes at such an early age (relative to our maximum lifespans) is that we force our bodies to produce excessively concentrated digestive enzymes all our life. This is because we get little or no enzymes from our food. Why is this? Because we cook virtually everything we eat and cooking destroys enzymes, (enzyme destruction begins at 118 degrees Fahrenheit).
All raw foods contain the enzymes needed for the digestion of their own nutrients. These include the proteolytic, amylolytic, and lypolytic enzymes our body works so hard to produce. Man is the only animal that cooks virtually everything he eats. All animals in the wild eat everything raw and get the enzymes in the food they need and are free of degenerative diseases such as heart disease and cancer. This is actually the way nature intended for us to eat all our food. Biologically, we are animals and have the same requirements for enzymes.

Q: Can you elaborate on high enzyme foods?
A: The key to preserving enzyme activity in your body is to take the burden off of the digestive enzyme-making machinery as much as possible. The work of Dr. Howell has shown that by including foods of very high enzyme content in a meal of cooked food, a significant amount of predigestion can take place both in the saliva and the upper part of the stomach known as the fundus. This is before it hits the hydrochloric acid in the lower part of the stomach. These raw food enzymes can spare a significant amount of your body’s own enzymes. The less energy your body has to devote to digestive enzymes, the more it can devote to maximizing enzyme activity everywhere else in your body. And the more enzyme activity you have, the biologically younger and healthier you will be. If you can maximize enzyme activity, the processes that cause aging can be slowed to a crawl.

Q: What scientific studies support this view?
A: A number of studies using rodents have found that those fed less food live longer while the activity of some key antioxidant enzymes increases above those of control groups. In humans, you will find it is also those that eat less who live the longest. Why is this? A big part of it is that the sparing of digestive enzymes allows the body to maximize enzyme activity throughout the rest of the body that slows the aging process.

Q: How do you get a high enzyme diet? Are you saying we have to eat all raw food?
A: Theoretically, it is what our body is made for and it might be optimal, but virtually no one, including us, is going to do it. Instead, there is a much easier way to get high amount of enzymes in your diet while still enjoying your cooked food. This is by eating a food that has an exceptionally high enzyme content. That food is germinated or sprouted seeds such as grains and beans. Sprouted seeds are germinated over a three to four day span when enzyme activity in the seed reaches a maximum and the sprout is still small. After the 5th day, enzyme content drops off markedly as the sprout grows longer and longer. Sprouts are grown long, like vegetables, and have very little enzymes compared to sprouted seeds. This is a very important distinction to make. People who grow sprouts are often not aware of this because the information is hidden in arcane journals on plant biochemistry. Harvesting sprouts in their first 4 - 5 days is crucial.

Q: What about vegetable and fruits?
A: While raw vegetables and fruits have enzymes, they are low in concentration compared to sprouted seeds. The differences in enzyme concentration are enormous.

Q: How big is the difference?
A: There is 10 to 100 times more enzymes in sprouted seeds than in vegetables or fruits depending on the enzyme and the seed that is being sprouted. There is no food on the planet higher in enzymes than sprouted seeds. They are also a great source of vitamins C, carotenoid, A, B vitamins, and minerals.

Q: According to your extensive research, what seeds are highest in enzymes?
A: The 4 seeds we most highly recommend are Rye, Wheat, Mung Bean, and Lentils. Alfalfa is fine as well.

Q: Can you conclude this for me?
A: Sprouted seeds should be made an integral part of your diet to spare digestive enzymes, maximize enzyme activity, and slow the aging process. They can be grown on your kitchen counter. They are the fountain of youth . In our new book Super nutrition gardening we explain sprouting seeds in chapter 3. You also need good seeds such as certified organic seeds.

Q: After evaluating our Mist-A-Ponic automatic sprouting system, what would you say to my readers?
A: For the people that are on the go, living a busy life and find little time to soak and rinse sprouts a few times a day. I sincerely believe that this development will be of great use. It will assure they consume sprouts daily.

A Special Thanks to Warren Peary and William Peavy, PH.D for the wealth of information supplied.