Of the four principal or fundamental classes of foods we build the human body. Protein may be roughly said to correspond to the timber used, the heavy pieces of lumber that form the bulk of the house or its framework. Hydrocarbons may be regarded as the walls and flooring. Carbohydrates are likewise as necessary to complete the house as the wiring, heating, or plumbing systems. Most important of all is the proportion of organic mineral elements, which correspond to all the metal used in construction - nails, screws, fixtures, cleats, bolts, etc. With these latter elements we class nuclein, vitamin, and iodine, as these may be compared to the cement that holds or binds together the other elements.

Supposing we are building a house - our house. The limber yard supplies the boards, the shingles, the joists and the rest of the wooden portions. One contractor undertakes to furnish labor to build the walls and lay the floors; another to install the plumbing, wiring, and heating devices. From this point, it is barely possible that we might be able to slap together some sort of a house. But without nails, without hinges on the doors, without locks for the windows, without the metal elements, our house, if indeed it could be gotten together at all, would scarcely be a very comfortable or home-like place and it certainly could not withstand the first mild wind that happened along. So it is with the human house.*
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* Instead of Medicine, R.Swinburne Clymer, 1918
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Minerals are the true fundamentals of the building; they are more - with the vitamins they are the constructing, the vital, activating and energizing elements. It is they who control all the processes of life. They lock the building against invasion by the enemy, they hold together the various organs, they coordinate the telegraph and telephone systems and the lighting plant, they maintain the sewage system, man the blood pumps, and control all the other functions. These organic mineral elements are the most important portions of the blood, the cells, digestive juices, nerve tissues, brain, muscles, and procreative system. Without these vital elements the fluid part of the blood, the gastric juices, and the other secretions would be no more than an acid water. Without mineral elements to act on the starches, sugars and proteins, they would ferment and disintegrate instead of being burned up, assimilated, and built into the human house, replacing old portions which must be continually discarded. Lack of these organic mineral elements to act on the starches, sugars and proteins would permit the immediate formation of toxins and poisons, and the stomach, bowels, liver, kidneys, the pancreas, gall bladder, heart, lungs, glands, blood, would be quickly torn down. Just in proportion as these elements are missing in the daily food so is the state of the body and mind.

Nature in her infinite wisdom has so arranged the organism that at the first deficiency in the smallest cellular structure, an unmistakable warning is sent out in the form of aches, pains, mucous discharges, indigestion, insomnia, sluggishness of liver or bowels, unnatural tiredness, fatigue, dizziness, erratic activity, moods, emotional display, temperature, loss or gain of weight, and many other sensations.

Despite all that we have learned we blissfully continue to denature our food substances, and try to lull these various messages by the administration of drugs and potions - non-metabolizable substances - instead, as wisdom and rational thought would indicate, of seeking the cause - determining the elements missing, and supplying these to the crying organism.

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(1) These instructions are based on the findings of the International Research and experimental Bureau, and the Teachings of Drs. Harrow, Cargue, Rocine and others engaged in dietetic research.
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Vital sodium, as found in food substances, is the chemical solvent and neutralizer of morbid products in the body and keeps the calcium element properly distributed, preventing localization as in arthritis.

Sodium in combination with chlorine is one of the important constituents of the lymph. In the transmission of the electric-magnetic induction current generated in the nerve spiral by the iron in the blood, a saline solution is necessary, as shown by the construction of electric batteries. For this purpose the blood stream contains a large quantity of sodium chloride, which permits and sustains the generation and conduction of electric currents.

Sodium keeps the calcium and magnesia elements in the food soluble and easy to dissolve so as to permit perfect assimilation. Calcium and magnesium when not kept properly dissolved and distributed by sodium have the tendency to deposit themselves in various parts of the body, obstructing the capillaries and being a cause of gall and bladder stones. Sodium protects the blood from becoming too readily coagulated, as it also does in milk, where it keeps the casein, which is combined with lime and magnesia, in solution.

Sodium plays an important role in the formation of saliva, the pancreatic juice, and bile. In the bile, the dissolving and reducing properties of sodium can be easily recognized in the emulsification and saponification of fats.

The excretion of carbonic acid through the lungs is carried on by the sodium derivatives contained in the blood and lymph. Sodium is therefore essential for the purification of the system from poisonous carbonaceous waste products.

Sodium acts on the brain, the secretions, the mucous and serous membranes, the throat, alimentary canal, secretory glands, the stomach, intestines, spleen, pancreas, and affects the albumin metabolism. It is essential to the spleen; while the liver contains approximately twice as much lime as sodium, the spleen contains twice as much sodium as the liver. Sodium helps to regulate the dilution in the body fluids and prevents excess diluent in the blood stream.(*)
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(*) This indicates an aqueous or solvent dilution, or at least a distension of the suspending medium. Since sodium increases the osmotic pressure - as does any other soluble compound - it prevents dilution of the blood by aqueous fluids up to the isobaric point of equilibrium and causes its own solution to become diluted down to the same point.
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In conjunction or combination with sulphur, it acts on the liver, and incites the stomach and bowels to normal activity. Sodium is part of the saliva and bile, and counteracts acidity by neutralizing bodily acids such as acetic, butyric, and lactic. The ingestion of too great an amount of fatty foods drains the system of sodium and results in abnormalities of the stomach, fermentation, and prostration. A deficiency of sodium will permit a destructive intestinal flora to form in the alimentary canal which may bring about premature old age or death. Sodium is abundantly required in heavy physical labor, during excitement, excess of emotions, perspiration, heavy brain work, pregnancy, menstruation, functioning of the spleen, gastric secretions, bile, blood, intestinal secretions, joints, liver, muscles, brain, blood corpuscles, fibrous tissue, cartilage, blood serum.

Calcium may be in excess, localized, or improperly distributed, but sodium is never supplied beyond the requirements of the body, therefore all people suffer more or less for want of vital sodium.

Sodium is called for in cancers and tumors, gout, slow digestion, fermentation of food, vomiting of infants, frontal headaches, bloating after eating, dim eyesight, mental confusion, catarrh, murky complexion, dryness of tongue and skin, feeling of heaviness in a warm room, sleepiness during the day, joints that crack on moving stiff tendons, bruised feeling of the flesh, lack of saliva, thirst after meals, difficulty in digesting starches, sweets, and fats, when digestion is slow and productive of gas, restlessness, nervousness, and weariness. In practically all stomach troubles, constipation, gout, arthritis, sodium must be supplied in conjunction with calcium and potassium and, fortunately, many of the foods rich in one of these elements also contain a great deal of the others.

Sodium is a cleanser and maintains the alkalinity of the system and is a preventive of acidosis and its associated ailments.

For a description of other organic minerals in food, visit:

http://www.denverspiritualcommunity.org/Wisdom/DietChpt14.htm

Tables are from the Wolf Clinic and the foods with sodium have been noted.
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