x
It’s no secret that in recent decades soil minerals have become depleted, and because of this, our food quality has declined. We are seeing record amounts of plastic pollution, chemical exposure, and lower nutrient levels. It is becoming incredibly difficult to find nutrient dense food for our families, and it is debatable whether or not it’s even possible to get enough nutrients solely from food anymore.
While it was once enough to avoid all processed foods, artificial colors, flavorings, refined sugar, artificial hormones, pesticides, and herbicides, that may not be enough to meet nutrient needs today Even a diet of fresh produce, organic proteins, and high quality fats may be lacking in key minerals due to lack of soil quality. Our food just isn’t what it used to be.
In the last 100 years, over farming, monocropping and the use of chemical pesticides and artificial fertilizers in commercial, large scale agriculture has depleted the soil of minerals to dangerously low levels. We no longer hunt and gather our foods from pristine, healthy soils, as farmers don’t put the same healthy and remineralizing compost back into the soil.
In the old days, farmers had to carefully replenish the nutrient levels of their fields and pastures with compost, crop rotation, and soil rest intervals to maintain soil fertility.
Now, they bypass this replenishing process through the use of chemical based fertilizers (that allow crops to continue growing), but deplete the soil of naturally occurring minerals and pH balancing microorganisms.
Soil mineral depletion has been a growing problem over the past several decades:
There is deep concern over continuing major declines in the mineral values in farm and range soils throughout the world.
-Conclusion of the 1992 official Rio Earth Summit from the United Nations
This conclusion was based on information showing that over the past 100 years, the mineral levels in agricultural soils has drastically dropped on average by 72% in Europe, 76% in Asia, and 85% in North America.
The outlook is bleak:
Mineral depletion of the soil is so bad in the US, that in 1997, you’d have to eat 26 apples to get the same amount of iron from an apple eaten in 1950.
-Dr. August Dunning
You’d have to eat even more apples today as the onset of new GMO seeds and more intense chemical pesticides have been introduced that further deplete the soil.
It’s a global phenomenon too, and isn’t much better in Europe:
In the UK, researchers started tracking nutrient content of food at the University of London’s King College. They found that between 1940 and 1991, that fruits and vegetables have lost on average between 20%-60% of their mineral content.
-Marin Hum, “Soil mineral depletion”, in Optimum nutrition, Vol. 19, No. 3, Autumn 2006.
The short answer? EVERYTHING.
Every living organism, including bacteria, plants, animals, and humans, need minerals to function properly. Humans need a wide array of minerals in specific amounts. The problem isn’t (yet) that minerals are no longer in the soil, it’s just that they’re present in much smaller amounts than what we need for health.
Trace minerals are also referred to as trace elements or essential minerals and they can be a serious concern to your health if they’re lacking. Trace minerals work synergistically with other minerals, vitamins, enzymes, and amino acids in a wide variety of biochemical reactions.
As Minerals in the Soil Go Down, Disease Goes Up
As soil has been rapidly depleted over the last century and even more intensively in the past 30 years, it’s not a surprise that diseases of every kind have accelerated rapidly over the same period:
When you’re deficient in one or more minerals, your body can start to show symptoms.
For instance, those deficient in Magnesium, may have constipation, anxiety, depression and sleep problems. Zinc is vital for immune function so zinc deficiency can increase the chance of illness or skin problems. Selenium is important for normal heart function and for fertility, especially in men. In fact, research has shown a link between severe selenium deficiency and Sudden Death Syndrome (a name for the unexplained cardiac related deaths of people under age 35 with no apparent heart disease).
Even minerals just needed in tiny amounts, like copper, are vital, as a deficiency of copper can lead to irregular heartbeat or even more severe heart problems.
Essentially, the body starts to break down in a state of mineral deficiency, as it simply does not have the necessary elements to function correctly.
Dr. Linus Pauling (who won the Nobel Prize… twice) concluded after years of studying that:
You can trace every sickness, every disease, and every ailment to a mineral deficiency.
I’ve been researching ways to protect my family from the negative health effects of mineral depletion, as it’s a serious problem, considering the widespread implications it can have on the human body.
We already consume a lot of nutrient dense protein and produce from fresh, local sources, and grow our own food whenever possible.
In an ideal world, we could get all of our minerals from food. But since that may no longer possible, supplements can help.
Mineral supplements are nothing new, they have been around a long time. However, not all mineral supplements are the same. You may think that a regular, over the counter mineral or multivitamin and mineral supplement is replenishing your body and meeting your mineral needs, but even the best supplement will contain less than 40 minerals and very few trace elements.
Learn More: Click Here
