INTRODUCTION
A good chef is like a sorcerer who dispenses happiness
Else Schaparelli, Shocking Life

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well,
if one has not dined well.
Virginia Wolf, A Room of One's Own

The title of this booklet, Don't DineWithout Enzymes, offers you the information you'll need to make one of the most far-reaching and profound health decisions of your life: Will you "dine without enzymes?" - and take your chances of succumbing to avoidable degenerative diseases, or will you "choose life" by "eating life" in the form of live, plant-based aspergillus enzymes?
You have the opportunity to join thousands of others around the world that now enjoy improved digestion, a new feeling of youthfulness, and, who knows?, maybe even the promise of an extended lifespan. It is my hope that you'll read this little booklet as if your life depended upon it... because as you'll read the vital information contained herein, the quality of your life really does depend on it!! The choice is yours... and I hope you'll make the right choice for yourself.
By defining nutrition in the broadest way, nourishment can include physical food as well as a warm hug from a loved one. Nowadays, people eat for many reasons- out of habit, out of a need for comfort and reassurance, and too few, out of true, physiological hunger. Sometimes we eat when we really need a hug, so when the wrong type of food is taken in, we remain dissatisfied, empty and still "hungry." If you really need understanding and love and not physical food, thousands of bowls of sprouts and the best food on earth will not satisfy your hunger.
Obesity is widespread in the United States, affects over 60 million people and has been linked to the killer diseases of cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Paradoxically, people who are obese, despite their excess weight, are the hungriest and most starved of all. It is true that some eat to numb their awareness of emotional pain, but it is equally true that eating vast quantities of nutrient-deficient food is the overweight person's vain attempt to satisfy a hidden hunger for the nutrients their body's crave but sadly do not receive.
Adequate cellular nutrition is dependent on a combination of factors: your dietary choices, method of food preparation, degree of thorough chewing, as well as your body's functional efficiency in digesting and assimilating food. Eating food-based enzymes are a key to helping your body maximize your genetic potential, even if you sometimes choose less-than-optimal lifestyle habits. Using plant- based enzymes increases the availability of nutrients to the billions of cells that are your physical body. Your choosing to "dine with enzymes" can mean the difference between a life of marginal health and mediocrity, or the experience of high-level wellness that includes all the energy you'll need to realize your dreams.
In the thirty five years that I have been a nutritionally-
oriented health practitioner, I have worked with thousands of
overweight individuals, some of whom weighed over 1,000 pounds. With proper guidance and supervision, they were able to switch to a balanced vegetarian diet that included ample quantity of enzyme. The result?... Well, these folks both lost and gained: They lost the weight they needed to lose and gained the health they needed to gain.
Most people do not realize the intimate relationship between "happiness" and their belly. It is only my "gut" feeling, but I think I'm on the right track when I say that happiness begins with a happy stomach. I believe, as do an increasing number of scientists, that a large slice of what we call "happiness" is in fact biochemically orchestrated. Happiness is correlated with a happy belly!
I know that your future health status is very much dependent on proper digestion. When indigestion becomes the rule rather than the exception in that long tube called the gastro-intestinal track, then our lives can also go down the tube. When food does not digest properly, starches go sour, proteins putrify and fats turn rancid.
What are the harmful consequences of chronic indigestion?: Important nutrients become unavailable to the billions of cells that clamor for nutrients. Excess acidity or alkalinity can set in, resulting in aches and pains and a loss of energy that sometimes is mistaken for psychological depression. The electro-voltage potential of your cells decline, leading to premature aging. To compensate for this generalized lack of energy some of us eat sugar or caffeine to "jump start" ourselves so we can "keep on going." If this negative cycle persists, we will "keep on going"- to an early grave.
In nature, all undomesticated animals eat an enzyme-rich diet. They live out their full intended life-span. Humans are the only species that nourish themselves on a cooked, largely "enzymeless diet." Our longevity could be increased if we ate more whole foods with an emphasis on uncooked foods.
Food enzymes go a long way in reducing the stresses of modern life.Whether the stress is dietary, emotional or environmental, enzyme deficiency comprimises our immune systems and forces our bodies to borrow from metabolic and digestive enzyme stores to neutralize internally generated toxins and external invaders such as bacteria and viruses. But we can re-create internal peace- yes, you guessed it, just have a happy belly!
My nutritional work with thousand of clients has given me first-hand confirmation of the validity and usefulness of the ancient science of physiognamy, or face reading.Some examples: with long-term indigestion, the lips become puffy and pouty, producing a sad look. After many years of indigestion, a crease appears in the center of the tongue. The iris changes its color, becoming cloudier and darker. Dark bags develop under the eyes and are signs of kidney and adrenal
stress. Unless you return to an enzyme-rich diet or begin to use plant-based enzyme supplements, you may be on the rocky road to degenerative disease and a painful, premature death.
Dear Reader, please put this booklet down now and walk to the nearest mirror and take a good look. Do you not also have some of these markings? If so, please read this booklet and whatever is of value to you, share with others. That's what life's about right?- sharing the wealth.
I have eaten aspergillus plant digestive enzymes for over thirty years. I have also experimented with other animal and vegetarian-based enzymes such as pancreatin, pepsin, papain and bromelaine. I have concluded that for myself as well as for my clients that aspergillus enzymes are the best- none of these other enzyme sources can come close in the actual results experienced.
A few more words about aspergillus oryzae enzymes. This booklet would not have been written, nor perhaps would I be as alive and healthy as I am today, if it were not for the amazing properties of these "angel-hair-in-appearance" microscopic plants. Over 65 years ago, Dr. Howell began to cultivate one special species of the many aspergillus plants that existed in the plant kingdom. He picked the "oryzae" strain because there were no harmful aflatoxins (a type of poison) associated with this plant. Since then many other safe species have been discovered.. More importantly, however, this strain
contained a rich store of the very same enzymes that the human body used to digest food.

The Aspergilus is fed in a specialized environment of controlled pressure, temperature and humidity. Depending on what is fed, the aspergilus excretes surplus specific enzymes to digest thisa food. After the process is comleted, the aspergilus is removed as a film, the remaining enzymes are harvested are tested for safety, potency and are dried for future use in formulas.


For the first time in recorded history, Howell gave the powdered form of these little plants directly to human patients. He found that the enzymes created by aspergillus oryzae was a key to treating a whole host of seemingly unrelated ailments. Because of the success of his clinical work, he dedicated his life to working out a theoretical and experimental platform to explain how the seeming these miracles had been accomplished. The "Food Enzyme Concept" in human nutrition was the product of this great man's life-work.

Few years ago, I had some nutritional testing done on myself. Two of the most highly accurate electro-acupuncture diagnostic systems in use in the world today found that I could digest practically everything- including the foods I used to be allergic to such as tomatoes, strawberries, cucumbers and chocolate. It was also found that I could easily digest meat, although I would never actually eat meat because of health, ecological and spiritual reasons.The practitioner that was testing me commented that I had the digestive system of a teenager. As a health seeker as well as a health teacher, this was particularly rewarding and confirming experience that all these years of enzyme experimentation had paid off in my own life. If it is true that one is as old as one's digestion, then I should live well into the next millenium. Take my advice on enzymes and maybe
we'll see each other!
-Reverend Viktoras

WHAT ARE ENZYMES?
The word "enzyme" comes from the Greek word enzymas, which means "to ferment" or "cause a change." Enzymes are the foundation for all cell regeneration. Enzymes play a key role in the transformation of undigested food into the nutrients that are absorbed on the cellular level. With proper nutrition, we have the energy to participate "in that dance we call life."
An enzyme is a specialized protein structure which carries with it an energetic charge. Enzymes speed up chemical reactions that normally take place very slowly or not at all. It is the energy behind the protein structure that makes enzymes different from other protein-based substances. It is this energetic "life principle" that animates all living forms and "runs the whole show" we call life.
The father of modern enzyme therapy, Dr. Edward Howell, once said that enzymes emit a "kind of radiation" that can be picked up on Kirlian photo- graphs.
Howell can be singled out from other researchers because he stressed that enzymes are not merely expendable, protein-based chemical catalysts that move along chemical reactions... He forcefully argued that enzymes are none other than units of life-energy that use various protein molecules as their carriers.
Enzymes are much more sensitive to destruction by heat or cold than vitamins and minerals. Food cooked over 118 degrees for more than a half an hour will kill all naturally-occuring enzymes. In the event that dry heat is used, the critical temperature for enzyme destruction is about 150 F
Enzymes are the "true workers" in and out of our cells. As Dr. Richard Gerber M.D. states, "The enzymes catalyze specific reactions of chemicals either to create structure through molecular assemblies or to provide the electrochemical fire to run the cellular engines and ultimately keep the entire system working."

HOW WERE ENZYMES DISCOVERED


DO WE NEED PLANT ENZYMES?
Some medical authorities make the claim that since your body can make its own enzymes, it is unnecessary to take supplemental food enzymes. They believe that the body develops a dependence on external enzyme sources and stops producing its own enzymes. As you'll read, this position is unfounded. Throughout the millions of years of evolution that led up to the present, humans subsisted on an enzyme-rich diet and still continued to make enzymes.
The ideal as far as ease of digestion is concerned is that the enzymes present in the food itself do as much work as possible before your body's own enzymes "kick in" to finish the job with its own secretions. The specific enzyme secreted by the body ( and the amount) is dictated by what nutrient (protein, starch, fat) needs to be digested after the food enzymes have done their work. Consistently eating an external source (exogenous source) of enzymes conserves your own body's digestive secretion of enzymes.

ENZYME LOGIC IN DOLLARS & SENSE
Let's play a little with the concept of enzymes by using our day-to-day experience of banking as a metaphor.
Your body's enzymes can be likened to cash reserves in your own life-force bank account. Each time you eat enzymeless food, you tax your system by making a withdrawal from this enzyme bank.
Meal by meal you decrease your enzyme net worth, which can be equated with your life potential. Since at least half of all enzyme capital in the body is assigned to digesting foods, eating life-less cooked foods in effect puts a continual hold on 50% of your budget. Your individual budget limit is determined by your genetic inheritance.
If one's enzyme capital is frozen in this way, your ability to allocate funds to improve the quality of your life is then on hold to the tune of 50% of your net worth! You'll then have limited enzyme resources with which to make much-needed home improvements (cleansing and rebuilding organs and tissues) and protecting your enzyme life savings ,via a strong immune system.
To complicate matters, your bills are coming due, and guess what, your account is low in funds! You're desperate, so you borrow (take stimulants such as coffee to keep going) because your credit rating (overall health) is bad due to years and years of withdrawals. You now wish that you had made more enzyme deposits in your life force bank account, so that you wouldn't be finding yourself in arreaers, experiencing energy deficiencies.
You get the point. Now that you know how health finances work, before life hands you a big bill that you can't afford to pay, start investing in your future health by taking plant-based enzymes today! It could be the best investment, with a return of new youthful energy and freedom from the mid-age crises.

ENZYMES AND AGING
Dr. James B. Sumner, Nobel Prize recipient and Professor of Bio-chemistry at Cornell University wrote in his book,The Secret of Life - Enzymes that the "getting old feeling" after forty is due to reduced enzyme levels throughout the body. Young cells contain a hundreds times more enzymes than old cells. Old cells are filled with metabolic waste and toxins.
In Today's Health (September 1960), which is published by the American Medical Association, Dr. Ratcliff states that "many research men believe that the aging process is the result of the slowing down and disorganization of enzyme activity. Might it eventually be possible to restore youthful patterns of activity by supplying those enzymes that are deficient.?"
Ratcliff goes on to say that "researchers are convinced that virtually all disease can be traced to missing or faulty enzymes...To date, an estimated forty-four diseases have been related to enzyme disturbances."
Enzymes can make the difference between a long life of vibrant health and the half-dead, half-alive limbo state experienced by all too many of us. In the final analysis, the nutritional value of a food cannot be judged by the amount of calories, vitamins and minerals it possesses but rather by the life-force or enzyme potential present in the food. It is a fact that without enzymes, essential vitamins and minerals cannot work.
The miracle of life would be impossible without enzymes. Enzymes are at the heart of all the body's activities, from digesting the food we eat to blinking our eyes. It has been said that the human body is nothing but a series of thousands of enzymatic reactions. Without enzymes, the body would be nothing but inorganic matter.
The length and quality of life is directly proportional to the amount of available enzymes in the body. The level of amylase in human saliva is approximately 30 times more abundant in the average 25 year old than the average 81 year old. In contrast, whales and dolphins, who live in the perfectly balanced aquatic environment and eat entirely on raw foods (like the rest of the two million species of this planet) have no difference in cell enzyme composition in young and old. (Murray M.D., Sea Energy Agriculture)
Enzyme pioneer Dr. Howell has stated, "The fact that the enzyme content of organisms is depleted with increasing old-age is forcibly presented when fluids or tissues are examined at different ages. After full mature growth has been attained there is a slow and gradual decrease in the enzyme content of organisms. When the enzyme content becomes so low that metabolism cannot proceed at a proper level, death overtakes the organism." More simply put, what Dr. Howell is saying is that with increasing age, when our enzymes run out, our physical body dies.
Not only do we run out of enzymes, but as an organism grows older, more metabolic errors occur which affect the quality of the synthesis of enzymes. According to Dr. David Greenberg, chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of California at San Francisco, "Enzymes are becoming increasingly important in medical research because an ever-growing number of diseases can be traced to some defect in the enzyme process."
Just a few of the highly respected researchers who feel that ill health is linked to enzyme deficiency are Dr. Franz Bergel of London; Dr. Holman from the University of Wales, Dr. Potter, professor at the University of Wisconsin; Dr. Manner from Loyola University; and Dr.Salter from Yale Medical School.

ENZYMES THROUGHOUT HISTORY
In the 1890's, the forerunners of the modern science of nutrition discovered building-block substances in food. They named these building-blocks proteins.
At the turn of the 20th century, a new word was coined to refer to a class of food-based, bio-active, organically-bound chemical substances found to be essential for human health. These substances were called vitamins.
And about a decade or so later, the importance of organic minerals in food was recognized to be equally essential to health.
In the l990's, one hundred years after the birth of modern scientific nutrition, we find ourselves at an exciting juncture: A missing link in our understanding of the life-giving properties of food is being illuminated by the increasing acceptance of the critical role of food-based enzymes for health and longevity.I predict that in the near future, the impact of enzymes on health will be more profound than was vitamins, minerals and proteins in the past.
When it comes to a discussion of the history of nutrition as it relates to enzymes, let's begin with what is our first food, milk. Numerous medical studies and current public health statistics confirm what our pre-historic ancestors knew, that infants who were breast-fed on human-mother's milk had less health problems than those infants who were raised on pasteurized cow-mother's milk. Aside from the self-evident fact that human mother's milk is ideally suited for human infants and cow's milk is ideally suited for calves, it is significant that the former is unheated and therefore enzyme-rich and the latter is heated and therefore enzyme-poor.
No one knows exactly when primitive cultures began using enzymatic fermentation to help to digest their food, but we do know it was probably a trial-and-error affair. Who knows, one of your very distant hairy cousins could have been the one to discover that the liquid run-off of yesterday's crushed berries tasted mighty good the next day- and also kept spirits really high for the whole tribe- for reasons that they just couldn't figure out!
Today, both traditional and modern societies have inherited several pre-historic food-processing technologies which involve the transformation of food using enzymes. These advances have lasted to this day because they possessed survival value- they improved digestibility, storagability and even improved the taste of foodstuffs.
Among the more well-known foods and beverages that we continue to supply (and demand) are alcoholic beverages; the fermentation of soy products such as miso, tamari and tempeh; sauerkraut; bread-making with the aid of yeast plants; and the natural fermentation of the milks of various species of animal with the help of lactobacillus bacteria.
From the above list of foods, soy product ferments are of special interest to our discussion of modern day plant-based enzyme supplementation. Thousands of years ago, Asian cultures discovered a certain species of fungus, (named aspergillus oryzae in western nomemclature), that could pre-digest soybeans if special growing conditions were met. In the 1930's, enzyme pioneer Dr. Edward Howell took this age-old discovery of the East to the West. He went on to pioneer the use of plant enzymes for human nutrition and therapy.
Over twenty years ago, I discovered Dr. Howell's long out-of-print first book gathering dust in the basement of a medical library where I was doing health research. Published in 1939, this limited edition book was entitled, The Status of Food Enzymes in Digestion and Metabolism. With much effort I traced its author, who was in his 80's, and found him affiliated with the National Enzyme Company, an enzyme manufacturing company he himself had founded in the 1930's. Dr. Howell graciously gave me permission to reprint the book with a fifty-page update under the new title, Food Enzymes for Health and Longevity.
About a decade later, Howell's classic was again republished in a simplified and popularized version by Avery Press and renamed Enzyme Nutrition. With this last release, the long-ignored discoveries of Dr. Howell spread to many health practitioners and seekers of health around the world.

ENZYMES GO MAINSTREAM
After over seventy years of enzyme research, the "enzyme nutrition concept" is finally out of the laboratory and into nutritional supplement bottles that at any one time can be found in thousands of kitchen cupboards around the world.
In an increasing number of newspapers, magazines and medical journals each year, the study of the practical use of enzymes is being researched and reported.
At the time of this writing Books In Print lists over one hundred books which have references to enzymes.
The popular "muscle" magazine, Muscle & Fitness (May 1992) published an article entitled "Enzymes- Age Stoppers?" in which the author states that "the body contains over 5,000 identified enzymes that regulate the functions of all organs and tissues."
Two months later, in the July Muscle and Fitness , it states that "enzymes may be what makes the difference between fit, strong athletes and lethargic, listless couch potatoes."
Even the small-town local paper in Hot Springs, Arkansas ran a piece entitled "Can Enzyme Regimens End Obesity?" The article was an account of a National Dietary Research Council experiment in which the researchers had the test subjects consume at least six e meals per day along with an enzyme complex supplement that was thought might help the body overcome it's resistance to weight loss. Of the 50 people who participated in the study, the women lost an average of one pound a day. The men lost an average of two pounds a day. The health food industry's major trade magazine, the Natural Foods Merchandiser (6/93) reveals its positive position towards enzymes in the title, "Are Enzymes the Key to Boosting Immunity?
Despite the long-overdue surfacing of the truth about enzymes, don't be surprised if your family doctor still downplays the importance (or even existence) of enzymes in foods. Traditionally, segments of the medical community take a conservative posture on many issues. In fact, the majority of doctors, dietitians and nutritionists do not fully appreciate the contribution of food enzymes to health maintenance and the prevention of disease. At the conclusion of this booklet, you will probably know more about food enzymes than most physicians!
(If this becomes true in your actual experience, you may at some point choose to educate others on this subject. For this reason, the publisher gives discount prices towards the purchase of quantity orders of this booklet.)
Outside the human body, enzymes can produce dramatic effects very quickly. Enzymes are used in the process of making bread, wine, cheese, etc. Enzymes are used in laundry detergents, septic tanks and in dissolving massive accidental oil spills. In these cases, there is no denying that enzymes do their work. Why then is there so much resistance to accepting that food enzymes do work in the human body.
When food is cooked, there is a reduction in the bio-availability of protein, vitamins and minerals so that your cells get much less nutrition. Unless you cook at 118 degrees Fahrenheit or below (as in sun-drying or dehydrating foods), you will completely destroy all of the enzymes present in the food.
One of the myths still held by many "health fooders" is that eating a raw vegetable salad alongside an otherwise cooked meal is sufficient to digest the cooked food portion of the meal. The reality of the situation is that since there is a direct co-relation between the number of calories in a food and the amount of enzymes present, low-calorie salads have relatively few enzymes to help out in digesting any other food you may be eating. Unless the salad is comprised of sprouts (which are naturally high in enzymes because they are young plants), you cannot count on raw salads to be of much help as far as its contribution to digestibility is concerned.
After taking enzyme supplements, many people immediately feel a difference in the ease in which their food is digested. They also report an overall boost in their energy level. Others do not report any dramatic subjective improvement. The latter case is probably due to the relatively good health enjoyed already or the fact that the "bloom of youth" has not as yet faded. Whether you feel any immediate subjective improvements in your health as a result of taking enzymes is not as important as your understanding how enzymes do their work of enhancing digestion and assimilation, boosting the immune system and contributing to your total body vitality.

ENZYME PRODUCTS HELP THE S.A.D. ONE
Can you remember what you ate yesterday? In all probability, each of your meals contained nutrients from the protein group, starch group, fat group and cellulose fiber group. Therefore, it makes sense then that if you had chosen an enzyme supplement to help digest any one of yesterday's meals, you would had been wise to have chosen a "full-spectrum" enzyme formulation- one that could digest it all! - protein, starch, fat and cellulose.
As to the reality of what people are eating nowadays (and the consequent burden on our digestive systems), one over-programmed young TV addict" once said to me, "What enzymes will work for the pizza group, or candy food group and especially for the ice cream and fast food group?" This young man is expressing his early concerned about his SAD (Standard American Diet) fare.
I replied, (in my mind at least ) "nothing less than a heavy-duty, all-purpose enzyme formulation that can handle complex combinations of food. Plant based aspergillus enzymes to the rescue!"
In contrast, some of the more popular enzyme products on the market today are extremely limited in what nutrients they will act upon. Cases in point: The popular product Beano, taunted as the preventive antidote to gas-forming beans, works on selected sugars only. Beans in themselves contain starches, fats, proteins, fiber as well as these sugars. Beano makes no claims to aid in the digestion of the other elements mentioned. Therefore, your body is on its own to deal with the "mixed bag" nutritional complex of cooked beans. And if your body is not up for the task, you and your gastrointestinal track will become transformed into a mixed bag as well... of undigested beans, gas and perhaps even some brief but appropriate social isolation... at least until the crisis has, quite literally, "passed."
Another popular product on the market is Lactaid, which is used specifically for those "lactose intolerant people unable to digest the milk sugar in dairy products. However, what about the fat and protein also contained in dairy foods? Lactaid is no help in these departments.
The point of the discussion is that what is wanted is a comprehensive enzyme formulation that realistically reflects the eating patterns of the individual in the context of cultural mores and what people actually eat.