In sugar cane and in beets, sugar and calcium are always combined ; but in order that sugar may be crystallized, all the valuable mineral matter, including calcium, must be removed. Calcium in the sirup from cane or beets prevents the crystallization of sugar. Refined sugar, therefore, has a very strong chemical affinity for the calcium which was a part of the original combination in cane or beet juice; and when such sugar is absorbed into the system, and its atoms find calcium present in the blood, they immediately unite with it, and the result is a substance that cannot be utilized by the body in its normal building processes. Hence the calcium that should have gone into the building of bones and teeth, and into the formation of blood and tissue, is lost. Thus does refined sugar, robbed of its calcium, retaliate, so to speak, and replenishes itself, when taken internally, from our own tissues and body fluids. Candies are made from white sugar and glucose, which have been robbed of all mineral matter, and consequently are worse than “foodless food,” because they use up the reserve lime already deposited in the tissues.
It is a noteworthy incongruity, that with more and better-perfected toothbrushes and more tooth paste on hand to-day, probably, than at any previous time in the world’s history, there should be more dentists putting in full time, more bad teeth, and more infected gums, than ever before. Coincident with this stern fact, it remains that white sugar is in reality only a modern commodity. Two centuries ago white sugar was sold practically only at drug stores, where it was used for sweetening bitter medicines ; now about ninety pounds per capita is used in the United States annually. Has this not something to do with decayed teeth?