To Doug,
	Oh, you'd love Dr. Howell!  I did.  For me, anyway, he put the
whole business of raw foods and calorie-restriction on a sound
theoretical scientific basis.  He wrote a 700p book, "Enzyme Nutrition,"
I think it was called, replete with scientific references and footnotes,
but i haven't been able to track it down yet.  Few copies were printed
and fewer survive.  However, Viktoras Kulvinskas resurrected his work and
had a 200p abridgment published under the title "Food Enzymes for Health
and Longevity,"  and it retains footnotes.  There is also another version
by Avery publishers (no relation) called "Enzyme Nutritrion," which seems
to be a similar abridgment without the footnotes.  I'll bet Kulvinskas
has the original, but he seems to be guarding it for whatever reason.  At
least, he ignored my requests on how to obtain it.
	Anyway, Dr. Howell's basic theoretical paradigm, which he
buttresses with numerous scientific studies, is that the mysterious thing
we call nerve energy (or chi, or prana, ...) is equivalent to what Howell
calls enzyme manufacturing potential (let's call it EP).  The body has
upwards of 100,000 enzymes in production, but the energy that produces
these things is of a finite inherited quantity.  The process of aging is
merely a gradual using up of the body's enzyme potential.  Further, the
body maintains a pool of readily available enzyme stores that it is able
to use to transmute its enzymes from one type to another --- digestive to
metabolic to whatever.  The point for raw foods and CR is this: every
time we eat, the body must use up some of its EP and enzyme stores in
processing the food.  The less food eaten, the less EP gets used up (or
it gets used in more productive ways, like healing chronic ailments, and
so forth).  Raw foods contain self-digesting enzymes which are highly
active at physiological temperatures and do a great deal of pre-digesting
of the food in the first 30-45 minutes it sits in our stomach before
these are broken down in turn by our digestive juices.
	A way he suggests looking at it is like electricity.  Electricity
consists of flowing electrons, which can use any number of metallic and
non-metallic substances as carriers.  He likens enzyme energy to
electricity.  The 1000's of enzymes are really just protein carries of
one special kind of energy that flows from one "enzyme" protein carrier
to another.  He suggests that in addition to the enzymes of raw food
predigesting it to some extent, the body may also be able to remove the
energy packets from these plant enzymes before it digestively destroys
the protein carriers and add them to its stores.
	He identified the lymph system as the body's enzyme reservoir, in
particular, the leukocytes.  This explains why leukocytes are sent off to
"battle" germ invaders --- they have most of the digestive power to
absorb them.  It also explains the well-known phenomenon of digestive
leukocytosis that occurs in the small intestine when cooked food is
eaten.  The idea is that the body's normal supply of digestive secretions
are maxed out by this food, so the reserves are rushed to the scene to
help out.
	You gotta read this one; you'd eat it right up!  And, as i said,
it would provide good ammunition to use in your pitched battle with the
CR types.
				Bob