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