Food Enzymes Aid Mineral Assimilation

Let us define the facts which represent the premise for our discussion and conclusions:

Fact No. 1–The mineral elements of foods fail to be assimilated in the absence of certain enzymes of the phytase and phosphatase group. These enzymes are not found in the human digestive system.

Fact No. 2–The free phytic acid common in cereal foods combines with calcium, iron and other minerals that may be present and fixes them as phytates, thus rendering them unassimilable unless these enzymes are present.

Fact No. 3–Wholegrain cereals and wholewheat bread have been looked upon as a bad influence in the diet by reason of their higher content of free phytic acid than refined cereal products and white flour.

Digestive Enzyme

Fact No. 4–The rat differs from the human and many other animals in that it secretes a digestive enzyme that breaks down the phytates in cereals and therefore suffers no disadvantage from the ingestion of whole meal bread. As rats have been used to test foods, up to now this failure of cereal foods to give us mineral nutrition has escaped attention.

The above facts are all taken from one reference book of recent publication. At the moment the case looks bad for wholegrain and wholewheat in the diet. You may depend that at this stage of the debate, the white flour proponents are making the most of the situation.

More Facts

But a little knowledge has been reputed to be a dangerous thing. Let us look for more facts to add to these before we decide to shun wholegrain products:

Fact No. 5–The cooking of cereals and the pasteurizing of milk and cheese have destroyed the phosphatase in the common food sources of that enzyme, so essential to the assimilation of calcium and iron. Raw bran is one of the richest sources; the therapeutic value of such old-time remedies as bran water and barley water is no doubt due to the phosphatase content.

Vitamin D

Fact No. 6–It would seem that the common impression that there is a general deficiency of vitamin D is erroneous, when we appraise the effect of this lack of mineral-assimilating enzymes in our food.

A form of vitamin D that serves perfectly to promote calcium assimilation by the rat is relatively useless and, in fact, toxic to other species like the chicken and human that must have a nutritional supply of phosphatase to assimilate calcium.

To use the rat to standardize a vitamin for human use is just as barbarous as to put powdered hay into milk as carbohydrate for baby feeding. The one reason animal tests are being used today in standardizing methods is because there are faces to be saved. The facts have been known to all who should know since they were published in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Yearbook of 1939, where in unmistakable words the fallacy of transferring feeding tests from one species to another was expressed.

Almost every vitamin principle has forms that are specific for species, just as hay is the best carbohydrate for horses. The market is still being flooded with rat vitamins of high potency, that often are unfit for human nutrition.

Fact No. 7–Phosphatase releases from cereals not only the mineral salts and phosphoric acid, but inositol, a fraction of the vitamin B complex as welI. Phosphoric acid is known to lower the blood viscosity and help eliminate calcium deposits in arthritis and arteriosclerosis. Inositol has been shown to prevent and cure liver disease and cardiovascular changes that accompany high blood pressure and diabetes. Lowering the blood viscosity, of course, also relieves high blood pressure. In all probability it is the inositol and phosphoric acid with the B complex vitamins that are responsible for the success of the rice diet in high blood pressure. Certainly a slow way to get a few vitamins and minerals.

Although all of us cannot readily obtain raw certified milk, raw wholewheat flour is available, and unsulfured Louisiana black molasses is found in health food stores. We have here the three elements for a very good balanced food.

Recipe

One way to use them is to make a milk shake with the three ingredients. The alkaline ash of the molasses balances the acid ash of the wheat, and the milk affords the calcium otherwise lost without the raw wheat enzymes. The best molasses is brown rather than black, being cooked at a lower temperature in high vacuum pans, and has a more pleasant flavor. Such molasses is almost comparable with rice bran extract in vitamin value, for it represents the residual mineral and vitamin fractions in the cane juice after all the crystallizable sugar has been removed. The amount of molasses must be limited to that necessary for a mild flavor, its carbohydrate is best offset by a nut ration to accompany the milk shake. Almonds stand at the top of the list for this purpose, peanuts also good, but must be raw, for roasting nuts not only destroys vitamins and proteins but renders what is left relatively undigestible. If you use a liquefier or blender, the nuts may be incorporated into the milk shake.

Destroyed Enzymes

One of the deliberate purposes of bleaching flour is to destroy the enzymes, for then the yeast has a more uniform effect in the commercial baking of bread.

After 50 years of this practice, we begin to see that we have destroyed, as a consequence, the teeth and bones of our people. For what else is arthritis than bone destruction by malnutrition? And X-ray examinations show that there is practically no one today free from the progressive changes of arthritis, any more than they are free from tooth disease in some degree.