You, Me, and Minerals

Let me save you some money and potential health problems. Have you ever found yourself standing in the health food section of a store staring, almost trancelike, at the vitamin and mineral supplement bottles? The fancy packaging and enticing claims are so confusing. Which one is best? Are they all the same? Does it even matter? Well, let me assure you, it matters big time.

First, what is so important about minerals? What do they actually do for us? Minerals are elements that are essential for life and optimal health. There are approximately six dozen minerals that are necessary for everything from bones, hair, and nails to enzyme and hormone formation to control of chemical and neurological reactions to regulation of virtually every physiologic function. A mineral deficiency can create a multitude of problems, diseases, and, in the extreme, even death.

Second, are all minerals the same? Are both organic and inorganic minerals equally useable by the body? Again, to simplify, inorganic minerals are found dissolved in water and deposited in soils, whereas organic minerals are found in plants and the animals that have consumed them. The preponderance of evidence demonstrates that something has to have life to give life. To be useable by the body, minerals must go through the biologic chain where they are imbued with carbon, trace elements, and enzymes by plants and grasses. I am convinced that inorganic minerals are, at the very least, of little value nutritionally, and potentially harmful.

As an example, you can take a nail that is made of pure iron and grind it into the finest powder imaginable, put it in a capsule and take it with a glass of water, and you will get virtually no nutritional iron. Conversely, if you take that very same nail and throw it on the ground where it decomposes into the soil, then eat a plant that grows in that location, you get the usable iron.

This same process is true for all other minerals. Bone meal, dolomite, and calcium carbonate are mainly calcium, but they are inorganic rock with impurities such as lead. Have you ever had your lawn sprinklers spray your car on a hot day? When it dries, you can see the deposits of the dissolved calcium rock that is very difficult to remove. They do the same thing in your body, often depositing in your kidneys and joints. If you have never had kidney stones, count your blessings, filter your water, and stop taking inorganic supplements. Again, like other minerals, calcium must go through the organic chain to be useable. Cattle that eat grasses growing in mineral rich soils get the calcium that they pass on in their milk products. Get your calcium from your foods like green leafy plant sources, seeds, and nuts. By the way, almond and coconut milk have approximately 50% more useable calcium than dairy milk with none of the hormones or antibiotics.

Of course a growing concern today is soil degradation where there is a depletion of many normal nutrients due to leeching, overuse, and artificial herbicides and pesticides. We’ll discuss the effect of soil exhaustion on plant-based nutrition in a future article. Sunwarrior ORMUS Supergreens are raw, organic, and are grown in a pristine, fertile, mineral rich, ancient volcanic valley to give you healthy nutrition naturally.

Learn more about Dr. Steve Weston