Howell.jpg (23159 bytes) Originally written in 1939, Dr. Howell’s treatise on raw food enzymes stands as something of a classic in naturopathic healing. His work is documented with over 400 references which, regrettably, are not included in this modern paperback reprint. Since all of those references were pre-1940, their inclusion would provide a fine historical review as well as substantiation for Dr. Howell’s position. His position is well thought out and carefully presented nonetheless: eat fresh and raw food for at least 75% of your diet. This book is a thorough and scholarly work which explains in detail what cooked food can do to the body and what raw food can do for a body. The introduction by Viktoras Kulvinskas is worth reading, and is followed with a recent interview with Dr. Howell. (both excerpted below) Good summary at the close of the book. (124 pp, paper) 

Dr. Edward Howell is the father of enzyme therapy.  His research in the 1930's and 40's is the foundation for modern day enzyme theory.


Introduction

   As an author, researcher and observer in the raw food diet for therapy and maintenance for the past fifteen years, I am overwhelmed to discover Dr. Howell's book through the National Enzyme Co.  I have been searching for and experimenting with exogenous (outside) digestive enzymes for many years in an attempt to allow folks to supplement their cooked food transition (or maintenance) diet. 

The best book on exogenous enzymes, which I discovered was the work of Dr. Howell, "The Status of Food Enzymes in Digestion and Metabolism".  He found plant enzymes in capsules best for predigestion.  I was amazed that this book was written in 1939 at a time when most doctors knew nothing about vitamins and minerals and very few had heard the word "enzyme".

A classic is a work that is timeless.   Although forty years have passed since it was written, today the book is more relevant than it ever was.  Its truths need to be applied by all students of health and nutrition. I feel that it is one of the most important books to be published in the field of scientific nutrition.

Dr. Howell goes beyond everyone else and creates a scientific model for the treatment of all diseases and the maintenance of perfect health that supersedes all other attempts at nutritional therapy.  His approach is grounded in tradition (Genesis 1:29), the patterns of natural nutrition in animals, and sound cultural ecological dietary practices.  Further, he is presenting one of the most heated, controversial and exciting debates in the history of dietary consideration - raw foods versus cooked.  His story is highly readable, at times entertaining, giving full counterarguments.  No region of importance is left uncovered.  It can be read easily by the lay person, and inspire such a person to make dietary alterations, as well as expanding the science of nutrition such that diet will become the main tool for healing most of the existent physical and mental disorders.  I believe that if we apply the enzyme rich raw food diet in therapy, and as a goal to be realized in the gradual dietary transition where each year one consumes larger quantities of raw food, then we will eliminate disease and increase each generation's longevity and possibly even reach the spectacular ages of Methuselah and other Biblical patriarchs.

If pioneers of science were still being burned as in the past for proposing new interpretations which later become gospel truths, I would not give much for the life of Dr. Howell.  "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents by making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation is familiar with it."  Since Dr. Howell's book is already two generations old, we are finding greater receptivity among the scientific and lay communities as the opponents die off from their faulty dietary habits.  A deep change in science will come about only when we have conscious, responsible scientists who see nature as a partner and bring wisdom to the layman so that they too apply nature's law to heal self and the planet.

Enzymes effect our existence.  They have been applied in every phase of healing from arthritis, diabetes, heart disorders and cancer, as well as in agriculture, dairy and wine fermentation, and the biological transmutation of one element into another.   Without enzymes, we develop problems.

The United States is ecologically in bad shape.  The planet is polluted because the mind and spirit have lost contact with nature due to processed, devitalized foods which are clogging the bloodstream with poor nutrition thus attenuating the oxygen supply to the brain and all body parts.  Bodies deficient in nutrients and overloaded with toxic waste are creating an epidemic in the United States where 65% of Americans are chronically ill and 20% of teenagers are suffering from premature aging.

What is so amazing is that although the universities and private research firms with budgets totaling in the billions of dollars have not managed to achieve a major breakthrough in the healing of epidemic chronic disease, yet, nevertheless, a single man, forty years ago, could provide an answer to all human ailments as well as to aging.  Dr. Howell comes to such a basic, yet controversial conclusion that many, if not all degenerative diseases that Americans suffer from, are doctored for and die from are chiefly caused by eating cooked foods and produce deficient in enzymes.  His research is the first significant scientific attempt to show the importance of raw foods in human nutrition.  His work basically shows that science made a great mistake when it endorsed cooked food eating, a mistake which has led to the development of one of the sickest nations in the world.

Today many researchers are catching up with and extending the pioneer work of Dr. Howell.  There is a significant turn of events in research, for example in the study of cancer, where few highly respected researchers are relating the disease to enzyme deficiency which could be prevented and possibly reversed through live food dietary management.  Some of these researchers are: Dr. Arthur Robinson, Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicene; Dr. Chiu Nan Lai, University of Texas System Cancer Center, M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute; Dr. Max Gerson, author of "Cancer: 51 Cases"; Professor William Salter, Yale Medical School.

Already, during the first week of 1980, a cancer study by the National Cancer Institute approved the first clinical trial of laetrile and enzymes on humans in conjunction with a "special metabolic diet" (the terminology used to designate a diet of predominantly raw foods according to the explanation I received from the research project spokesman).  Last year two health journals, "Let's Live" and "Bestways", which are among the journals with the largest circulation, strongly advocated a modified raw food diet.

The live food program that Dr. Ann Wigmore and myself developed at the Hippocrates Health Institute, Boston, has proven to be effective in the prevention and reversal of degenerative disease, besides providing a tasty and efficient maintenance diet.  It is the diet most rich in enzymes.  It is inexpensive, can be totally organic, and grown even in a city apartment.

Leukemia is a classic area for the study of this raw foods diet.  Genetically predisposed individuals will develop leukemia on a poor quality diet.  Raw food will help to alleviate the condition by eliminating the excess of leukocytes produced due to cooked food.

"'Leukocytosis' is the name that medical pathology gives to an excessive augment of white blood corpuscles in the blood.   Donders discovered the phenomenon in 1846 and Virchow classified 'digestive leukocytosis' as 'normal' since everyone seemed to suffer from it.  This was upset by Dr. Paul Kautchakoff, M.D., who showed that the cooking of food was the cause of leukocytosis.  The white blood corpuscles prevent infection and intoxication of the blood.  Kautchakoff found that he could divide his findings on leukocytosis in four distinct groups according to reaction in the blood: 1) raw food produced no augment; 2) common cooked food caused leukocytosis; 3) pressure cooked food caused greater leukocytosis than non-pressure cooked food; 4) manufactured foods such as wine, vinegar, white sugar, ham, etc. are the most offensive.  Kautchakoff was no vegetarian yet his findings show that flesh would have to be eaten raw to avoid leukocytosis which would be unpalatable to humans, but prepared meat (cooked, smoked, salted, etc.) brought on the most violent reaction equivalent to the leukocytosis count manifest in poisoning."

Why this pathological condition exists after eating cooked food can best be explained by the fact that the cooked food is totally devoid of enzymes it has stored up in order to break down the food components into units small enough to enter the blood and lymph.  The leukocytes are rich in enzymes and are being transported to the stomach area to aid in the digestive process.  They also carry on similar functions in the time of colds and other germ related diseases; in such cases they digest the foreign particles or protein based invading germs.

The condition of leukemia manifests in genetically predisposed individuals on a cooked and processed food diet.  The body has been sensitized to overact in production of white blood enzyme rich cells when the pancreas is malfunctioning and supplying very few digestive enzymes.  Furthermore, the conditioin is associated with higher amounts of uric acid and a weakened kidney.   The white blood cells are being utilized to compensate, very ineffectively, for the mentioned deficiencies, by trying to digest - eat up - the foreign protein and excess uric acid.  The cooked foods, according to Kautchakoff trigger off increased production of leukocytes, and Howell shows that they are acting as digestants.

Transcribing of this introduction will be continued ... come back soon.