There are about 40 minerals which are components of the human body. Of those, thereare 13 minerals, Ca, Fe, Mg, K, Na, P, Zn, Cu, I, Mn, Mo, Cr and Se, for which either therecommended dietary allowance (RDA) or the tolerable upper intake level (UL) wasstipulated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) of Japan in June of 1999.Recent dietary practices have become highly dependent upon refined or purified foodingredients. Therefore, much attention has been paid to minerals which are lost or addedduring food processing. The MHW is expecting the nation to become more responsibleconcerning these foods with unbalanced mineral content and that is why the new RDAand UL have been stipulated.Adequate mineral balance may be changed by other nutrients.Therefore, determiningthe desirable ratio of minerals is not a simple matter. Viewed simply, the desirable ratiocan be calculated from the RDA values. The desirable ratio of Ca, Mg and P is 2: 1: 4.Based on the Japanese standard food composition table, foods which have a comparativelyhigh Ca content of 100mg or more per 100 g of edible material and which have adesirable Ca, Mg and P ratio were selected. There were found to be only fifteen of suchfoods among 87 food items with a comparatively high Ca content. The majority of thesefoods are basic ingredients for many Japanese dishes. There were rice-kojimiso, soybeankojimiso, okara, raw saltwort, raw okura, dried kanpyo, dried purple laver, dried arame, dried ma-konbu kelp, boiled and dried hijiki, dried wakame, finely ground green tea, currypowder, black pepper and boiled wary crab.Milk and its products were not selected as such foods because of their low Mg content. These foods should be consumed with a high-Mg food. Based on these ideas, a study onthe effects of supplementary minerals should be conducted.The health effects of dietary minerals are evident when the minerals are consumedwith appropriate nutrients simultaneously. For example, Ca is important for bone formation, but, without Mg, P, Fe, Zn, vitamin D, vitamin K, vitamin C and protein, adequatebone formation is not expected to occur.It seems possible that the unusual longevity of the Japanese may be due to the desirablemineral balance of Japanese cuisine.Also, absorption of Ca from soybeans and soybean products and other vegetableswhich are the main sources of Ca in the Japanese diet has been compared with the absorp-tion of Ca from milk and milk products which also serve as major sources of Ca in theJapanese diet.It was noticed that the absorption of Ca from soybeans, soybean productsand other vegetables was almost the same as that from milk and milk products.