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Our name is pronounced "enzymes" for a reason. Everything we make is about what enzymes do in the body, why cooked and processed food has none left, and how to put them back.
Enzymes are the foundation of energy in every living thing. They regulate tens of thousands of biochemical functions, including the ones responsible for building, detoxifying and healing the body. Even thinking involves enzyme activity. Without enzymes, seeds would not sprout, fruit would not ripen, leaves would not change colour, and life would not exist.
Certain enzymes give the body the means to digest food and absorb its nutrients. When food is eaten while it is still "live", the enzymes it carries help the body make use of what is in it. A fresh apple has over 300–400 different nutrients. Eaten raw, its live food enzymes help the body work out what to do with each one. A cooked apple still has the nutrients, but the heat has destroyed the enzymes, leaving it essentially dead. Without them, the pancreas has to produce every enzyme needed to digest the apple on its own.
Nature has many classes of enzymes; our focus is on two. Dietary enzymes, which the body turns into its own defences, and digestive enzymes, which break food down. Both are destroyed by the same heat and chemical processing.
Found in all natural, unprocessed food. They support digestion and the distribution of key nutrients, and they give the body the resource to produce its own metabolic enzymes, above all the front-line antioxidant enzymes that fight free-radical damage and keep cells working.
Also found in living food, with the pancreas producing a share of its own. Each one plays a specific role in breaking down a component of the meal so it can be absorbed. Without enough of them, food passes through only partly used, and nutritional shortfalls follow.
The reason it matters to supplement dietary enzymes is simple: cooked and processed foods have had theirs destroyed. Without an adequate supply, the body cannot keep pace with its own daily restoration and repair, and general health slides. When you consider the mountains of pre-cooked, processed food consumed by people and their pets, it is easy to see why health challenges of every kind are on the rise. That truth is the reason Nzymes exists.
Dr. Francis M. Pottenger's decade-long feeding study reported a lifelong diet of cooked or processed food as a contributing factor in chronic degenerative disease, infection and other ills.5 It also found that each succeeding generation kept on an enzyme-less diet showed progressively more illness.
Even the best commercial pet foods have their enzymes destroyed by normal processing, heat and preservatives (see What's really in pet foods). Those food enzymes are what a pet's immune system and primary metabolic functions depend on. Feeding enzyme-less food for an entire lifetime may contribute to the growing list of problems we see today, and most of them have a shelf of their own here:
Remember, every pet needs more than processed food. Enzymes support a healthy immune system; if there are none in your pet's food, there is little else protecting the body.
Linda Arndt, the canine nutrition consultant behind greatdanelady.com and a long-time nutrition consultant to Nzymes, started all her Great Dane pups on Nzymes as soon as they were weaned, to support them through vaccinations and steady growth. She saw Nzymes as replacing what is missing from most diets, especially the over-processed ones, and our products were at the core of many of her feeding programs.
Our mission is to help the body help itself. Sprouted Granules, Antioxidant Treats and, for people, Antioxidant Complex carry high concentrations of live-food enzymes from live sprouted soybean meal, so the body has the resource to produce antioxidant enzymes in abundance.
The Core FoundationSee the Core Foundation →Sprouted Granules in the bowl and Antioxidant Treats by hand: live-food enzymes and antioxidants, made from live sprouted soybean meal. Where every pet starts.
Digestive enzymes are easy to supplement daily too. They are built into our live micro-flora product for pets, Bac-Pak Plus (and Pro-B for people).
Bac-Pak PlusSee Bac-Pak Plus →Five live probiotic strains plus eight digestive enzymes, to break food down well and keep the gut's bacteria in balance.
Not sure which fits your pet? Book a free consultation, or take the 2-minute quiz.
Dietary enzymes are the live enzymes in raw, unprocessed food. They give the body the resource to produce its own metabolic enzymes, including the antioxidant enzymes that defend cells against free-radical damage. Digestive enzymes break food down so nutrients can be absorbed; the pancreas makes some, and live food supplies the rest.
Heat and chemical processing destroy enzymes. A cooked apple still has nutrients, but without its live enzymes the body has to produce everything needed to digest it, which puts extra load on the pancreas. The same is true of every bag or can of processed pet food.
Yes. Even the best commercial pet foods are cooked and preserved, and that process destroys the enzymes. Quality matters for the nutrients; it does not put the live enzymes back.
Sprouted Granules and Antioxidant Treats (the Core Foundation) are made from live sprouted soybean meal, a live-food source that gives the body the raw material to produce its own antioxidant enzymes. Bac-Pak Plus is different: it supplies digestive enzymes and probiotics for the gut itself.
Tell a member of our team what your pet eats and what you've noticed, and we'll help you work out where live nutrition fits in.
The consultation is a scheduled half hour on Google Meet, so you get real time and real answers. It's free, and it always will be.
