Cooking of food to a large extent breaks down the organic phosphorus salts and makes them inorganic.  In this state they are of but little use to the body.  Poor digestion associated with putrefactive fermentation equally converts the organic salts into inorganic ones.  These pass into the blood and are promptly eliminated by the kidneys as waste (phosphaturia) and thus they never reach the nerves at all.

We must remember that phosphorus is usually found in natural foods bound up with the proteid and especially with that proteid which has to do with the reproduction of the species.  For this reason man instinctively resorts to the use of egg-yolks, and to the various seeds (such as nuts, wheat, barley, etc.) because of their rich phosphorus content.

These proteid-bound phosphorus salts can only be properly utilised when the hydrochloric acid of the stomach juice is well formed, for it converts them into acid salts which are readily absorbed.  Therefore to ensure free absorption we must always remember to give the phosphorus-containing foods with such meals as will cause free secretion of the gastric acid.

When fermentation is active and the stomach juices are weakened the germs of the intestines rapidly break up the phosphorus constituents of the proteids and make them inorganic.  Therefore the first thing to do when a person is found to be suffering from phosphaturia is to stop the intestinal fermentation by a right diet, clear the bowels of their accumulated waste poisons and give the nerves plenty of rest.  Another consideration to bear in mind is that the nerves need fat wherewith to build up the lecithin.  An excessive fermentative sourness of the stomach makes the food so acid when sent into the bowels that the bile, pancreatic and other intestinal juices cannot neutralise them, and so the fats themselves are not emulsified and digested, which fully accounts for the mental depression and debility of which these patients complain.

People who are suffering from “nerves” in any form need plenty of pure fat (fresh dairy butter, cream, nut butter, fruit-oils, etc.) and an abundance of natural fresh vegetable products at once rich in phosphorus and iron and in organic alkaline acid-neutralising earthy salts.  These arrest fermentation and so enable the phosphorus and the fat to become duly assimilated.

 CANARY VERSUS JAMAICA BANANAS.

R.B., Lincoln, would like to know if there is very much difference, as regards food value, between the Jamaica and Canary banana.  “I have heard it said that the Jamaica is only fit for the dust-heap.  Well, I cannot very easily think it is so useless, and at the same time I have an idea that the Canary is the better of the two.  I should be very pleased to know if you think there is much difference between them.”