Why Food Enzymes are Important
Plant enzymes are important because they
are capable of digesting food before the
body's own digestive process begins. In other
words, plant enzymes can enhance the
digestion of food and the delivery of
nutrients to the blood even if you have a
compromised digestive system. The same
cannot be said of animal enzymes such as
pancreatin.
Everyone agrees that proper nutrition is
crucial to the maintenance of a healthy
body. However, most health care
practitioners overlook the true cause of
many nutritional disorders. It is assumed,
quite mistakenly, that digestion occurs
automatically and the correction of a
nutritional disorder simply requires matching
the right nutritional supplement to the
condition. For example, vitamin C for colds,
vitamin A for viruses and herbal laxatives for
constipation. While this treatment may
relieve patient symptoms, the relief is only
temporary because the underlying problem
of faulty digestion is ignored. Health care
practitioner who want to effectively manage
health problems that are related to
nutritional imbalances must consider each
person's ability to digest food.
Unfortunately,most clinicians give little or
no thought to the role of enzymes in
digestion, despite overwhelming evidence
of their importance.
Enzymes are present in all living animal and
plant cells. They are the primary motivators
of all natural biochemical processes. Life
cannot exist without enzymes because they
are essential components of every chemical
reaction in the body. For example, they are
the only substance that can digest food and
make it small enough to pass through the
gastrointestinal mucosa into the bloodstream.
Three very broad classifications of enzymes
are:

1. Food enzymes - occur in raw food
   and, when present in the diet, begin
   the process of digestion
2. Digestive enzymes - produced by
   the body to break food into particles
   small enough to be carried across the
   gut wall
3. Metabolic enzymes - produced by
   the body to perform various complex
   biochemical reactions

In the 1930's, Edward Howell, MD, the food
enzyme pioneer, found that there is a
difference between plant enzymes and
those that are produced by the body. He
was convinced that plant enzymes in food
and supplements have a different function in
human digestion than that of the body's own
digestive enzymes. With this theory, he
began isolating and concentrating plant
enzymes from their sources. He found the
difference is that food enzymes begin
digesting food in the stomach and will work
for at least on hour before the body's
digestive system begins to work. For this
reason, enzymes should be considered
essential nutrients. Unfortunately, this is not
the case, and food manufacturers are
removing them from food to gain shelf-life.
Dr. Howell was particularly impressed by the
way the ingestion of raw food slowed the
progress of chronic degenerative diseases
and spent his professional life postulating
and then validating his theories.