Chapter 7 - Enzymes: Essential to Life Part 1
The first part of Chapter 7 begins with an introduction about enzymes and how they work. Enzymes are large molecules mainly comprised of protein found in cells. They are important to life itself and act as catalysts in biochemical reactions that take place inside and outside a cell. The elimination of enzymes eliminates the presence of life.
Scientists have discovered over 5,000 different enzymes grouped into three different categories. These are metabolic, digestive, and food enzymes. The focus of this chapter is on the last classification of food enzymes which are found in large quantities in certain raw foods. A large enough quantity of food enzymes help initiate digestion in the mouth and stomach.
Professor Moore of Oxford University and Professor Troland of Harvard University, published along similar lines of "enzyme activity" or "biotic energy" during the early part of the 20th Century.
Dr. Laird, quoted in 1922, said, " In living cells, the dynamic, driving power, which apparently introduces the spark of life, is found in their enzyme contents. The metaphysical explanations of life are scarcely needed since the discovery of the enzymes and their functions."
Chapter 7 moves along and explains how pasteurization kills all the enzymes in milk. Wet temperatures of 118 degrees or a dry heat of 150 degrees kill many of the enzymes in food. Thoroughly cooked food will contain no enzymes. However, not all raw foods are rich in enzymes either. Certain raw or fermented foods are helpful in the role of metabolizing food.
Dr. Edward Howell, who was briefly introduced in the previous chapter, and Dr. Francis Pottenger researched and studied food enzymes in the 20th Century. Chapter 7 begins first with a background of who Dr. Pottenger was, to help and establish the credibility of his experiments. It then delves into the details of the cat and guinea pig studies he conducted at his sanatorium. Chapter 7 says, "All pathological and chemical findings were co-supervised by a physician who was a professor of pathology at the University of Southern California, as well as by a pathologist at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena."
Dr. Pottenger's focus was on the possibility that cooking or heating food, could compromise its nutritive value, and of enzymes as well. His first experiment was conducted in 1932, and spanned a period of over 10 years and involved hundreds of cats over many generations. This study compared the effects of a diet composed of raw versus cooked meat. A similar study over a 10 year duration compared the effects raw milk versus pasteurized milk on four groups of cats numbering again in the hundreds spanning many generations. An additional experiment involving guinea pigs fed fresh versus dried greens was also conducted by Dr. Pottenger, with the resultant findings published in July 1938 of the Certified Milk Magazine.
Dr. Pottenger observed an extreme contrast in lifespan and healthy activity between animals fed raw foods versus animals fed cooked foods. During this time period, Robert McCarrison, a British physician in the Indian Medical Service who founded the Nutrition Research Laboratories at Coonoor, India observed similar results as Dr. Pottenger, in a particular study conducted over a three year period involving over 1,000 white rats.
The final section in Chapter 7 relating to Dr. Pottenger is entitled "Dr. Pottenger's Health Fetish" in reference to an article published about Pottenger in the Journal of the American Medical Association on October 19, 1984. This section explores the text of the Association's article and rejects the idea that Dr. Pottenger's respect for unpasteurized milk could be considered irrational as the articles title implies.
Part 2 of Chapter 7, begins with Dr. Howell and the food enzyme concept.