Salt and Minerals – The Daily Dose
Minerals are an important part of our health, yet they are often overlooked.
Minerals become part of tissue structure, like in bone and teeth, they help maintain acid base balance, to keep the body pH neutral they help regulate body processes, as in enzyme systems and minerals function in nerve impulse transmission and muscle contraction.
Many people still evaluate ingredients based on their macronutrients (fats, carbohydrates and proteins) rather than looking at their micronutrients (minerals, vitamins, phytonutrients, antioxidants and flavonoids to name a few).
Macronutrients come from the food you eat. Some micronutrients can also come from food and your body can make others. However, all minerals are essential – they must be consumed as they are not made anywhere in the body.
Minerals are a system; they are not isolated. Heavy metals will replace an essential mineral if that mineral is deficient. It may help the body survive but not thrive, that is why it is important to have a regular supply of minerals in your daily consumption.
Minerals have similar qualities and have the ability as in heavy metals to displace the appropriate minerals. The periodical table shows their similarity. For example, Iodine, chlorine, bromine and fluorine are all halogens. Iodine is required by every cell in the body, if it is lacking then another halogen can take its place to do the job, but in a very half-hearted way and will not work, as iodine does. If there is an abundance of the other halogens, they can block receptors that iodine needs to activate cell metabolism. Chlorine and fluorine are put into our water supply and bromine is used to clean our milk facilities which iodine once did. Iodine is a mineral known to be lacking in soils and the diet. So, when the other halogens out supply iodine then the body will not work to efficiency causing problems with metabolism and the thyroid. Our Changing Habits seaweed salt makes sure there is iodine consumed daily. Salt is devoid of iodine, but by adding a seaweed high in iodine, we do a natural iodisation.
Some minerals are recycled like iron while others need to be replaced regularly like salts (sodium chloride, potassium, calcium). For too long we have looked at minerals as a tick for tack single system. For example, if it is noted that you are lacking in iron then iron supplements are given. But iron requires copper, retinol and B2 and B12 vitamins to be used, vitamin C is required for copper absorption and the tangled web continues. To take iron by itself may not be getting to the root cause of the problem. The iron may not be able to be used to make erythrocytes (for example) because it doesn’t have the other ingredients to run the biochemical reaction, therefore it stays in storage.
I would much rather see food in its purest form, grown regeneratively or food-based supplements that have these incredible combinations that help systems rather than individual components be taken. When we take an individual nutrient or mineral, we upset the delicate balance that the innate intelligence of the body knows how to do.
Body organs including liver are a wonderful source of copper, iron, vitamins B2, B12 and Vitamin A along with other micro and macro nutrients. In times past liver, kidney, tripe, tongue and other body organs were consumed as part of our dietary patterns. These days muscle meat seems to be the prolific meat now eaten which does not have the concentration of micronutrients as body organs have. I’m seeing a shift back to these wonderful food-based supplements in the way of desiccated and cooked in our foods such as steak and kidney pie and liver pate.
The State of Our Soil
Minerals are found in soil and rocks. You receive minerals by eating plants that absorb them from the earth and by eating meat and produce from animals, which graze on the plants.
But if the soil is lacking in minerals or less than desired due to leaching or fertilisers with just nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, then the plants cannot take all the minerals up and the animals that eat the plants will also be devoid of minerals. Glyphosate – a herbicide which is also an antimicrobial and antibiotic – kills the ecology of the soil, rendering the minerals in the soil useless to the plants. Glyphosate the most widely sprayed desiccant (drying agent for crops) and herbicide world-wide is also a chelating agent, which again renders minerals unavailable to plants and animals and humans.
If our soils are lacking in minerals, then our animals and plants will be lacking and so will we. Therefore, it’s important to find a good source of food and a good source of minerals.
Minerals – an Important Part of Everyone’s Diet
Pica is a minerals deficiency that effects animals, it is diagnosed by the animal beginning to eat non-food items like fence posts and rocks. To the farmer this is a sign that there is a mineral deficiency among the herd and its time to throw a salt block into the paddock. The animals lick the salt and no longer have pica. At the Changing Habits Farm, we not only put a salt lick out for our animals but other minerals as well, the animals have this innate knowing what minerals they need and you watch them pick from a source of minerals exactly what their bodies need to resist tick, flies and other pests.
I liken pica in animals to humans, instead of eating fence posts and rocks humans eat cakes, lollies and chips– maybe what is happening is symptomatic of a mineral deficiency.
Knowing that many people were possibly not going to get the minerals they needed I went about finding a system of minerals rather than individual minerals. The Changing Habits minerals are more than 86 minerals in their natural state extracted from ancient vegetation broken down by bacteria and other microbes. Along with the minerals there are carbon redox molecular complexes that could help in the communication between our microbiome and our cells mitochondria (the energy powerhouse of our cells) as well as help reseal the gut lining. The minerals are carried by fulvic and humic acids which makes them more available for systems both in soil and humans.
Changing Habits has been selling these minerals for well over a decade and our producer has been producing them for more than four decades. It is Australian sourced and made. We do not change the pH, nor do we extract anything out of the natural embodiment of the substrate. What’s interesting is that I am seeing more and more products like ours on the market but changed by taking out fulvic or humic acids, by changing the pH, by adding flavours, by adding sweeteners or making gummy bears. I’ve seen different names for these minerals including fulvic and or fulvic humic concentrate, shilajit, ionic minerals and so on. My philosophy is that we cannot improve on nature, we as humans have lived with nature for 1000’s of generations, these ancient deposits that we source our mineral complex from is clean and deep under the earths surface. It’s like it was deposited there to help us fix the minerals issues we see in soils today and thus humans.
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup. The amount of glyphosate that has been sprayed since its conception in the mid 1970’s is greater than 8.6 billion (2019 figures) kilograms worldwide. The weed killer is used extensively on agriculture, private gardens, verges, sportsgrounds and playgrounds.
Glyphosate is a known herbicide, chelating agent, biocide, antimicrobial and antibiotic. It devastates the gut bacteria as well as soil ecology. It is water soluble and is now being found in rain, waterways, animals, humans, food, vaccines and can sometimes be persistent in some soils for up to 20 years.
There has been much research done on fulvic and humic acids, their content of minerals, antioxidants, vitamins, redox molecules and their ability to deliver minerals to the body. There are also many claims made by these acids, one is that it can help with the effects of glyphosate and being such a ubiquitous chemical that has found its way into most corners of our beautiful planet, it’s a good prophylactic.
The claim I would like to make is that when you take this product it delivers a plethora of minerals and symbiotic substances to your body so that your body can innately use what it needs to be the healthiest and most energetic. Having said that there are many ingredients your body needs including good quality food, sunlight, sleep, movement, connection, grounding and quiet time. The minerals are part of my daily intake. Every morning, I wake and consume a dose of minerals along with filtered water and seaweed salt. It’s my non-negotiable before I go out to watch the sunrise and dip into my local ocean.
It’s not the one thing we do in our life that makes the difference but the small consistent daily things that we do that will change your life and health around.
Cyndi O’Meara
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