Where have all the minerals gone?

Thursday, March 10, 2011 by: Dennis Mason, C.P.T.
Tags: minerals, nutrition, health news

(NaturalNews) It seems like only yesterday that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work outlining the dangers of global warming, the desecration of the environment for capital gains and his motion picture, An Inconvenient Truth. Let's fast forward to now. Not a whole lot has changed over the past five years or so to turn things around. In fact, it seems as though things have gone from bad to worse. We are (still) face-to-face with situations that compromise not just the health and fitness of the planet, but that of ourselves, our children and our children's children as well. The danger is clear, eminent and unavoidable if we continue on our present course.

No longer can we just sit back and disassociate ourselves from the world in which we live. We are all part of this living, breathing organism that we call Planet Earth. Things that we do to our environment will ultimately come back around to us. If we nurture it, it will in turn nurture us. However, if we take it for granted and abuse it (as we have for the past century or so) it will surely return to us in a negative fashion and we will all suffer the consequences. Remember Newton's Third Law of Motion? It states that "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." It is absolutely true. Now, more than ever, we are seeing just how connected we really are to each other and to our little blue planet. We need the Earth far more than the Earth needs us.

What does all that have to do with our personal health and fitness status? Everything! What we eat, drink, breathe, use, dispose, change, add, subtract and react to, is all connected. Break the chain and things start to fall apart. For a little over a century (or more appropriately, since the advent of industrialization) there has been a rapid growth in our civilization, beyond which our contemporary human community has even imagined. More particularly, since the end of World War II, we have put ourselves on a collision course with extinction. Sound gruff? That's because it is, no matter how we cleverly try to disguise it.

Consider the word 'progress.' It was General Electric's key word in their advertising program following World War II..."Progress is our most important product." However, unbridled progress has a high price tag. It comes in the form of air and water pollution, increasing levels of daily stress, reduced nutritive value in the foods we eat and new diseases related to all of the above. New medical technologies can do little to correct the problems arising from the so-called progress we are experiencing. At best, all they can do is treat the symptoms. My, things sure have changed over time.

When I was a boy growing up in the mid-west, my parents had a good-sized garden that I helped tend as I got older. The bulk of our daily meals came from that garden. We had a small compost area to return vital minerals and other nutrients back to the soil to become part of what we would be eating next harvest. Things are not quite like that anymore. One of the major concerns to me is the condition of the soil from which our basic food chain begins. Of primary importance is the mineral content. See, plants such as vegetables, fruits and nuts absorb the minerals from the soil. Sunlight, clean air and water combine to create vitamins, amino and fatty acids. But, they do not 'make' minerals. Minerals must come from the soil.

The soil however, can become depleted of vital minerals within five to ten years, unless properly tilled or 'worked.' Fertilizers can be of value in supplying some minerals back to the soil. But sadly, for most of the last century commercial fertilizers have been used that provide only a few of the minerals required for good health. For at least the past sixty years only one type of fertilizer has been used extensively. It is the farming industry standard fertilizer, NPK. That stands for the minerals Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosphorous. These three minerals help grow substantial size crops, but do not address the problem of the missing eighty-seven other essential minerals we need for good health and nutrition. As the mega farms have grown, it has become less and less cost effective to add back trace minerals like zinc, copper, selenium and so on to the soil. Then, along came NPK to the rescue. Those minerals help to make sure the crops reach an acceptable size and weight. After all, the bottom line is profit...right? The farm business is a profit center and derives its income by the pound or bushel, not by the amount of trace minerals in the product.

As far back as 1936 our government has been aware of the seriousness of soil mineral depletion and its effect on our health. The research and studies used to testify to this situation were noted in United States Senate document number 264, which stated that due to the decline of minerals in our farm soil, "foods are starving us." Furthermore, at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, statistics were released showing U.S. soil was eighty-five percent depleted. That was 19 years ago and it was the highest amount of soil depletion in the world. To the best of my study and searches nothing substantial has ever been done to reverse the depletion of soil trace minerals. In fact, current nutrition books and journals are still showing the exact same amount of mineral content in fruits and vegetables as in reference books from the early 1970s. It seems to me that with each new edition, the figures were just copied from the previous edition. The figures are exactly the same as forty plus years ago. In reality, I find that hard to be the truth.

So, now what do we do...where do we start? As Glenda said in the Wizard of Oz, "It's always best to start at the beginning." Obviously, the quality of the soil needs to be recharged. Twentieth century concepts generally don't work too well in the twenty-first century. Additionally, there are newer problems adding to the soil depletion problem. Some of those are extremely dangerous pesticides, GMO foods, synthetic hormones added to our animal food base as well as increasing petroleum based products leaching into our little eco-sphere here on the planet.

Personally, I take a colloidal mineral supplement daily. Colloidal minerals come in liquid form (by definition) and their absorption rate is 98 percent. The particles are smaller than a red blood cell and negatively charged. This is very close to Mother Nature's way of delivering your minerals...eating and absorbing them from the variety of fruits, vegetable and other food plants. Other ways to take in as many vitamins and minerals as are available and possible would include selecting and eating a wide variety of organic fruits and vegetables on a daily basis. Other plants that provide still more nutrients would include yams, sweet potatoes, rice and grains, sprouts, nuts and seeds. Go organic as much as possible for a number of reasons. Organic foods are those grown without the use of chemical pesticides. Often, they are grown on smaller farms where the mineral content of the soil most likely be of higher value...and the produce taste better, too.

Citizen action is needed now than ever before. Our politicians and business leaders will generally listen, if enough people speak up. However, we seem to be face-to-face with yet another road block...APATHY. It seems like an overwhelming number of people these days have 'given up the fight' for what's right and just. They seem to simply exist in a Zombie-like trance as if they were a semi-comatose character in George Orwell's novel, 1984. Making changes in the real world is similar to growing muscle. You must give it a reason to change. With muscle, it could be resistance, duration or any combination. With social and business matters, it could be letters and emails demanding action for the health and well-being of our people. The choice is ours. No one else will do it for us.

About the author:
Dennis Mason is a certified personal trainer and coach with over 30 years experience, an NPC bodybuilding competitor, charity cyclist, health and fitness motivational speaker and author. Contact him for information regarding his services in Palm Springs: Personal fitness training, Aquacise water fitness, and nutritional guidance.

On the Web at : www.DennisMasonFitness.com
Email address : [email protected]