It was but a few decades ago that Pasteur gave to the world proof of the close relation between disease and those minute organisms too small to be perceived by the naked eye, bacteria. Previous to that time, the world had experienced frightful epidemics of infectious diseases, which had often persisted unchecked, through ignorance of the cause. Subsequent investigation and experience have brought to view a more hopeful aspect of the whole problem, by demonstrating that the body in a state of health is able to protect itself and to ward off the casual agents of disease.
Natural immunity depends on nutrition. The severity of any disease is determined largely by one of two factors, or by both; namely, the intensity of the cause, and the state of the human organism in regard to its power of defense. Self-preservation is the first law of nature ; but when a child is fed on a one-sided diet, such as white sugar, candy, white bread, cookies, cakes, flesh meats, et cetera, its immunity is soon destroyed, for all denatured foods are so void of life-giving elements that they cannot be properly assimilated from the blood and built up into body tissue. The resulting mineral and vitamine starvation is a primary cause of a multitude of diseases; for this loss of food mineral to the body fluids not only impairs the food value of foodstuffs, but tends to make way for poisons to accumulate in the system.
“The life of the flesh is in the blood,” says the Book of books. When the blood is below par, the health is impaired. Healthy blood means healthy tissue. For perfect health, there must be normal digestion, absorption, and assimilation, and proper elimination of waste products. But one and all, these factors depend largely if not entirely upon the first cause, the supply of foods containing all the primary elements.’
It has been proved that the practice of removing the mineral and vitamine from our foods by milling and refining and by wrong methods of preparation and cooking, is the principal cause of malnutrition in children and of practically all our diseases. A brief study of the functions and uses of one or two of the most familiar and important of these minerals may help us to sense the vital necessity of their presence in the food we eat.