Of the fifteen to twenty substances contained in foods and comprising the body, the most abundant are oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, chlorin, sodium, potassium, magnesium, iron, calcium, phosphorus, and sulphur. All living matter, plant or animal, contains oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen; the difference in the form and use of the matter is in the proportions of these elements.
Carbon combined with oxygen forms carbon dioxid. Hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxid form the air. Oxygen and hydrogen form water. Calcium, iron, magnesium, sodium, and potassium form the majority of rocks.
The substances contained in living organisms are the same as those in inorganic matter, only in different complexities as appropriated to each need. This difference in complexity of combinations of the same elements in a body is the physical difference between a living and a non-living plant or animal.
By far the most important change which the food must undergo to convert it from raw material into a state for conversion into body needs is the chemical change. While the body needs carbon, it cannot use coal; it needs nitrogen, yet it cannot appropriate it to rebuilding bone and muscle until, by chemical action with other elements within, it has been converted into complex substances called proteins; again, the chemical action of oxygen breaks down the proteins.
The muscles, ligaments, and labor-performing structures contain the largest amount of proteins; the fats and the carbohydrates contain the largest amount of carbonaceous compounds; the brain, the nerves, and the bones contain the largest portion of phosphorous compounds; yet, while the brain contains phosphorus, and the muscles nitrogen, the brain cannot be built up by eating elementary phosphorus, nor the muscles by pure nitrogen, but compounds rich in phosphorus or nitrogen may be utilized. It has been demonstrated by scientific investigation that no unorganized element is assimilated by the system and converted into its various structures.
The gluten of wheat is built up by the chemical union of nitrogen in the air and nitrogen in the soil with other substances. Plants are able to use the simple compounds of the earth, air, and soil, and, within their own cells, build them up into such complex substances as starch, sugar, protein, fat, and salt, which are appropriated by the animal kingdom for further growth and change.
In its conversion into tissue, heat, energy, and waste, the importance of the chemical exceeds the mechanical action, such as digestion, absorption, assimilation, and elimination; yet the chemical changes are aided by the mechanical.
Each individual should know, approximately, the chemical constituents and the proportion of these constituents in normal blood, because from the elements in the blood, the tissues are constructed. If certain elements be lacking, the foods containing these elements in largest proportions should be supplied until the blood no longer shows the deficiency. This is Nature’s method of correction.
Each meal, or each day’s food, may not contain just the amounts of protein or of fuel ingredients necessary for that day’s work and re-supply, but the body is continually storing material, and this reserve is constantly being drawn upon to provide any element which may be lacking in that day’s supply. Thus, an excess or a deficiency one day may be adjusted the next. Healthful nourishment requires that the balance, as a whole, be kept, and that a deficiency or over-supply be not continued for too long.
Many domestic animals take their food elements from air and water, as well as from the compounds which the plants have formed; while others make use of meat, a compound formed by another animal. The digestive forces of the animal has converted these elements into flesh, a compound easily assimilated by another.