The Mineral Elements In Nutrition

Of all the nutritional materials necessary to health, the minerals have received the least attention by the investigators of science. It has required the study of vitamins to bring this fact into prominence. Vitamins as a class probably should be considered as factors in mineral metabolism, as most of the vitamins are now known to be involved in the normal control of the metabolism of the most important of the nutritional minerals–calcium.

Forms of Minerals

The form in which mineral elements are required may be in one or more of four general classifications: (1) Organic, (2) Inorganic, (3) Colloidal, and (4) Crystalloidal. We may begin by defining each of the forms:

ORGANIC MINERALS: From a nutritional viewpoint, an organic mineral may be defined as a mineral element in some chemical combination that is peculiar to the reactions of the living cell.

INORGANIC MINERALS: An inorganic mineral is a mineral substance in the form in which it occurs before it has been acted upon by living cells. Plants absorb minerals in this form, and they are changed after absorption into organic forms. But that is not to say that the original inorganic forms are not essential to the economy of living cells, both plant and animal.

COLLOIDAL MINERALS: A colloidal mineral is one that has been so altered that it will no longer pass through cell walls or other organic membranes. This colloidal mineral may still be either organic or inorganic in certain cases, although as a general rule it is necessary for the mineral to become changed into organic form in order to get it into the colloidal form. The great class of colloids in living cells are the proteins. In the plant, the retention of minerals is accomplished by attaching the mineral molecules to proteins. These plant proteins are probably the simplest of all proteins, and may have been evolved for the special purpose. Plant juices, therefore, contain both mineral forms, as absorbed as well as in the colloidal form. Milk contains a colloidal form of a calcium compound that is of a protein nature. Proteins are destroyed by heat, and that explains the loss of assimilable calcium in milk when it is pasteurized.

CRYSTALLOID MINERALS: A crystalloid is the pure mineral substance. To form the colloidal form some greater or lesser amount of other material must be present. (This is true only of the minerals; there are many pure colloids, gelatine, for instance, of non-mineral nature.) It is obvious that a cell must be able to convert crystalloids to colloids to prevent the loss of its essential elements by diffusion out again. For example, glucose (blood sugar) is a crystalloid; glycogen (“muscle sugar”) is a colloid. Insulin is believed to make the conversion. Blood sugar as glucose passes into the muscle cell, and without insulin it cannot be retained.

Cooking and Filtering

Cooking also destroys the plant minerals that are in colloidal form. An attempt was made to preserve fruit juices without cooking by filtering through porcelain to remove the organisms, but the product was found to have lost nutritional values. The reason here is apparent–the colloids also were held back.

Potassium and Phosphorus

Potassium is an antagonist of phosphorus; too much causes a sensitization of the nervous system (parasympathetics, in particular), which may be excessive if phosphorus deficiency is present. Horses on a high green grass diet (rich in potassium) become jittery and nervous; bran, with its phosphorus content, prevents and corrects the imbalance.

Calcium

Calcium is put to work in the body in numerous forms, and it is a reflection upon our modern institutions of research that so little is known about just what forms are required, how they are made, and what their functions are. We do know that the form of organic calcium in raw milk is of exceptional value to the child in supplying the material for tooth and bone development, and that in the adult as well as the child a calcium deficiency results in susceptibility to infectious disease.

From a nutritional viewpoint, probably, the differences in various forms of calcium therapy are due to differences in vitamin reserves, as vitamin A, C, D and F in particular, are known to regulate calcium balances between the blood, lymph and intracellular fluids. The blood contains calcium in at least a half a dozen forms, the main divisions being a distinction between the diffusible and non-diffusible, and between serum, plasma and corpuscle calcium.

Costs of Tampering

We must remember that one of the main costs of refining foods is their demineralization, white sugar being devoid of its mineral components, white flour having lost most of its mineral components as well. The intricate mineral-protein complexes are also disrupted by cooking and heat, and potassium, in particular, is probably the most important that must be supplied in organic form. Plant juices are high in potassium, but our intake of raw juices is seldom very high. In the face of these abuses of natural foods, is it any wonder that mineral deficiencies and imbalances rank as high as vitamin deficiencies as causes of malnutrition?