Why Eat FRESH Fruits and Vegetables

Americans eat entirely too many processed foods.  Processed and/or refined foods contain large amounts of chemicals, hormones, and preservatives that are harmful to our bodies.  Processed foods have few or no enzymes.
Americans eat much more than the needed amount of processed table salt each day.  Too much table salt can deplete your body of potassium.  Most foods have natural salt in them.  If you need to add salt to your food, use very small amounts.  Sugar cane and sugar beets are full of vitamins, minerals, and sucrose (sugar); when they are processed, little is left but sucrose.  Sugars require B-Complex, calcium, and magnesium to aid in their digestion.  Natural sugars from grains, fruits, and vegetables have enough of these nutrients to aid in digestion.  Refined sugar is mainly calories and has no real nutritional value.  All sugars, natural or refined, raise blood glucose (sugar) the same amount.
Much of the flour and cereal on the market has been refined, enriched, restored, and/or fortified.  To refine means to remove coarseness or make free of other matter.  To enrich a cereal, thiamine (B), riboflavin (B2), niacin, and iron, which are often synthetic vitamins, are added to the refined cereal.  Restored is a term referring to the replacement of some nutrients removed during refining.  The term fortified refers to the addition of one or more nutrients not originally found in the food.
Fiber, which is bulk, is very important because it helps to eliminate toxins from the body.  Indigestible carbohydrates and carbohydrate-like food components all provide bulk.  Fiber passes through the body, taking all the waste with it.  Fiber functions like a garbage disposal.  Fiber is removed when a food is processed, which leads to sluggish digestion.  If you are taking medication for indigestion, try eating more raw fruits and vegetables.  Good sources of fiber are fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, nuts and whole grains.  Bran is the best source.  High fiber is defined as five grams or more per serving.  Good sources of fiber need to be 2.5 grams to 4.9 grams per serving.  The body needs at least twenty-five grams of fiber daily.
You should eat raw fruits and vegetables because you also need the enzymes (antioxidents) you get from them.  An enzyme (protein that controls biochemical reaction; complex protein) is a catalyst (a chemical that accelerates a chemical reaction).  An automobile engine runs on gas, but it won't run very efficiently without oil, which is a catalyst.  Enzymes work the same way in our bodies; they are vital and must be replaced as the body uses them.  Almost all of the enzymes in the body are used for digestion.  You get enzymes from raw fruits and vegetables.  Anytime a food is processed, you lose much of the nutrition in it, especially enzymes.  Enzymes are very sensitive to heat and cold, so they are easily destroyed -  this is why I suggest eating raw fruits and vegetables.