IS YOUR BODY DEMANDING FOOD ENZYMES?
By: Dr. Edward Howell
The following article was written by Dr. Howell late in his life, in
an attempt to make clear his revolutionary food
enzyme concept.
In spite of all I have written about food enzymes since 1936, common
misconceptions persist and distort their significance in nutrition. Let
me restate that all animal and vegetable foods in their natural state contain
non-caloric elements in addition to proteins, carbohydrates and fats. In
order of their discovery and recognition as indispensable food elements,
they are minerals, vitamins and enzymes. It is obvious that merely discovering
that foods are endowed by nature with any particular non-caloric food material
should constitute ail the proof needed to establish this substance as a
protector of the health and well being of living organisms, including the
human race, during the whole life span. This is because constituents of
unprocessed natural foods have had countless eons of time to mold and shape
the form and function of living organisms and have created a dependence
to fill a need. Therefore, to remove any part of natural food from the
normal diet could not be sanctioned because of the possibility of harm
to the health and well-being.
This has been shown by the history of nutrition. Not very long ago,
the only elements considered necessary for wholesome nutrition were protein,
carbohydrates and fats. Minerals were considered unimportant and ignobly
characterized by chemists as "ash" because they were all that remained
after food was burned in the laboratory. Vitamins and enzymes in foods
were unknown. The fiber of foods was removed and discarded because fiber
was believed to be too coarse for the human digestive tract. Many people
formerly believed that vegetables were fit food only for rabbits and cows
not humans. The immigrants flooding here form Europe during the early years
of this century, foolishly embraced white bread with open arms. In the
backward, unindustrialized countries, only the wealthy ate white bread,
the common people having to be satisfied with whole grain bread, of whose
health value they were ignorant.
Page 2