CALIFORNIA AVOCADO ASSOCIATION 



61 



For many years it was considered that, as far as the mineral matter was 

 concerned, almost any diet was adequate and very little attention was, there- 

 fore, paid to the role of the mineral ingredients. Today, however, as result 

 of nutritional studies we note that our previous views and opinions were not 

 sound and that more consideration should be given to the mineral matter of the 

 diet than was previously supposed necessary. It is now known that cereals 

 alone are deficient in certain minerals, such as sodium, calcium and chlorine, 

 required for growth and normal development in the young animal. Again we 

 know that, as a result of the work of recent years, the mineral matter of our 

 foods may be divided into two main groups, the "acid forming" and the "base 

 forming." It is absolutely necessary, according to the best authorities, that 

 there be a generous representation in the diet of both these groups in order that 

 the mineral equilibrium of the body should not be altered and the alkalinity of 

 the blood be not disturbed. 



The chief foods which furnish the "acid forming" mineral elements are, 

 cereals, meat and eggs, while those supplying, in the main, the base forming 

 minerals are the fruits and vegetables. 



Mention has been made of milk fat and egg yolk fat containing vitamines. 

 These were discovered by Osborne and Mendel, McCollum and others, as 

 result of dietary experiments and the name given to such dietary essentials was 

 "vitamine" by some, and "growth promoting substance" by others. During 

 the past ten years much work has been done by leading nutrition investigators 

 in connection with the studies of vitamines and their role in nutrition. The 

 question the layman might naturally ask is, ''What is a vitamine?'' It has 

 been known for many years that there exist in fresh food some substances which 

 are essential for the prevention of scurvy. These are called, by some, ''anti- 

 scorbutic substances'' (effective against scurvy). Beriberi is another deficiency 

 disease which can be prevented by a diet adequate in antineuritic substances, (a 

 remedy of service in nervous diseases), so that we have two substances, anti- 

 scorbutic and anti-neuritic, present in foods which are evidently curative for 

 these two diseases. Naturally there was a desire on the part of many inves- 

 tigators to quantitatively separate these materials from the foods. Funk and 

 his collaborators, however, devoting much time and energy to the problem, 

 succeeded, in 1912, in devising a method which led to a product of high physio- 

 logical activity and curative powers. To this preparation Funk gave the name 

 "vitamine," from "Vita," life, and "amine" meaning a substance essential to 

 life. 



It should be said that these unknown essentials have no direct relation to 

 the ordinary nutrients such as protein, fats, carbohydrates and mineral matter. 



The three terms, "antiscorbutic vitamine," "anti-neuritic vitamine," and 

 "growth promoting substances" are not the only designations that have been 

 proposed or suggested. Others are, "growth substances," "growth deter- 

 minants," "food hormones," "accessory food substances," "dietary essentials," 

 "fat-soluble vitamines," "water-soluble vitamines." It has been quite clearly 

 shown that there are two groups of these so-called "vitamines," one soluble in- 

 fat and one soluble in water. The latter again have been divided into two sub- 

 groups, anti-neuritic vitamine, fairly widely distributed in plants and necessary 

 to prevent polyneuritis and beriberi, and the anti-scorbutic vitamine so necessary 

 for prevention of diseases like scurvy. There have been suggested, therefore, 

 the provisional names "fat-soluble A," "water-soluble B" for the anti-neuritic 

 vitamine; and "water-soluble C" for the antiscorbutic vitamine. All three are 



