These days, everyone seems to be climbing on the nutrition bandwagon. Books and articles offering dietary advice abound, and health food stores are thriving. The trouble is, much of the available information is contradictory at best and inaccurate -- and potentially harmful -- at worst. Too often, it overlooks one very important fact: What we digest is just as important as what we eat.

Proper digestion can't occur without the necessary enzymes. If they aren't present in foods, they must be synthesized by the body, a process that requires tremendous metabolic energy and machinery. When we evaluate the healthfulness of any diet, we must consider the magnitude of the burden that it will place on the body through the digestive process. This burden is what's known as digestive stress.

The issue of stress figures prominently in our current understanding of health and disease. Stress involves the gradual depletion of the reserve capacity to respond and adapt to challenges to the body's systems. The more reserve capacity the body has, the better able it is to cope with stressors that it encounters. By the same token, depleted reserve capacity means that the body is highly vulnerable to the damage that stress can cause.

To better understand the interplay among stress, reserve capacity, and damage, think of the tires on an automobile. Driving causes stress on the tire treads, gradually removing rubber and depicting the reserve capacity of the tires -- that is, the thickness of the treads. The resulting loss of traction increases the risk of structural damage, especially in the presence of extreme challenges such as uneven road surfaces or sudden maneuvers. Reducing the wear and tear on tires through regular maintenance and driving safely on paved roads minimizes the stress on the treads and extends their longevity.

To reduce digestive stress, your best bet is to build your meals and snacks around foods that are rich in enzymes and don't overtax your digestive system. Then your body can extract and utilize the necessary nutrients with minimal energy and effort.

The Low-Stress Diet

Simply stated, a low-stress diet is one that minimizes digestive and systemic stress. The ideal diet would consist of organically grown, pesticide-free foods, with substantial amounts of raw foods in at least two meals per day, since only raw foods contain active enzymes.

Consider what happens when a freshly picked apple remains uneaten for several days. The "meat" of the apple becomes soft and liquefies due to the action of enzymes -- the same ones that help your body digest the apple when you eat it. The work of the enzymes reduces the burden of enzyme secretion on the pancreas, and thus digestive stress.

While eating nothing but raw foods would be a challenge, incorporating them into your meals and snacks whenever possible can minimize the workload for your digestive system. When you add enzyme supplements to help digest cooked and processed foods, you'll improve digestive function and nutrient absorption.

The High-Stress Diet

Unfortunately, the typical American diet is almost entirely cooked or processed fare, with very few raw foods and therefore very few food enzymes. Responsibility for picking up any slack in the digestive process falls to the digestive system and, on a larger scale, the entire body, increasing the likelihood of digestive and systemic stress.

In general, a high-stress diet has one or more of the following characteristics.