Number of words: 489

In the 1860s Louis Pasteur discovered that heating milk killed of pathogenic microorganisms that led to many infectious diseases (and launched the germ theory of disease). There were two courses of action the food industry could have taken to halt the spread of infectious diseases through swill milk: They could have cleaned up the filth in the dairy industry and initiated the production of pasture-fed, clean, nutrient-rich milk in the countryside to feed city dwellers. Instead, the industry continued to produce filthy milk from diseased, abused cows and then scalded the germs out of the milk.

Naturopathic physician Ron Schmid, author of The Untold Story of Milk: Green pastures, Contained Cows and Raw Dairy Foods, told me, “Given the sorry state of milk supplies in the early 20th century, pasteurization prevented a lot of sickness and death. On the other hand, we didn’t need to treat good, clean, healthy milk the same way we treated tainted, unsanitary, nutrient dead milk”.

What was not known in Pasteur’s time is the heat of pasteurization kills vitamins C, E, A, D3 and B complex, diminishes calcium and other minerals and makes them harder to absorb, and reduces the digestibility and lessens the nutritional value of protein. Most important, the heat of pasteurization destroys the enzymes in milk. The temperature at which substances feel too hot to touch – about 118 degree Fahrenheit is adequate to kill enzymes.

The ridding of enzymes from our food supply has been a major contributing factor to the downfall of Americans’ health. Enzymes are essential to life because they are biochemical catalysts of cellular function, both inside and outside of the cell. Without enzymes, no biochemical activity would take place. Vitamins, minerals, and hormones cannot perform in the body without enzymes. The 5000 identified enzymes are divided into three categories: Metabolic enzymes enable all bodily process and functions, including maintaining immune function. Digestive enzymes are manufactured in the pancreas to break down food. Enzymes in food jumpstart digestive processes when you eat.

Born in 1898, researcher Edward Howell devoted his life to researching and promoting nutritional approaches to chronic illness. In his book Food Enzymes for Health and Longevity (1939), he explained that eating foods that contain enzymes reduce the need for the pancreas to produce its own digestive enzymes. If your pancreas is overtaxed during your lifetime because you are not providing your body with an adequate supply of enzymes in food, its function will decline. The length of your life depends on how fast your pancreatic enzyme-producing capacity is used up. If you place constant demand on your pancreas to produce enzymes to digest and process incoming dead food, you will die sooner than if you eat enzyme-rich food. That’s why food enzymes are one key to staving off degenerative disease, slowing accelerated ageing and promoting longevity.

Excerpted from pages 146-148 of ‘Death by Supermarket’ by Nancy Deville