Salt
Milk furnishes salt in proper proportion for the baby, and later, when the child is through nursing, eggs should be added to the diet of cow’s milk. It is especially essential that growing children be furnished milk and eggs that they may be assured of the proper proportion and quantity of calcium salts, as these form the substances of bones and teeth, which constitute about one-sixth of the body weight.
All vegetables, fruits, cereals, legumes, and nuts furnish both calcium salts and sodium, potassium, and magnesium, which are the salts used in the blood and lymph. Minerals are abundant in dried legumes, (beans and peas). A diet consisting largely of vegetables needs the addition of sodium chlorid (common table salt) to supply sufficient salts for foods; likewise more salt than is contained in grass and fodder is needed for animals, particularly for those producing milk. The scientific farmer salts his cattle regularly, while wild animals travel miles and form beaten paths to springs containing salt.
In rectal feeding, it is known that food absorbs more readily through the large intestine if salted. It is probable that salt, in normal proportions, also aids absorption in the stomach and small intestine.
Salt should not, however, be used immoderately.
The minerals of the food, or of the body, form the ashes in burning.
Iron
Iron is an inorganic substance and is necessary in making red blood corpuscles.