The Minerals

The Important Thing

Do it right. Acquire what the body needs, not what is on special. The shops will learn from you. Go as close to what the earth supplies, in the correct combinations. That is primarily good quality food with minerals present in that food. Secondarily augment this with sea minerals, moor minerals or coral calcium. Look at daily suggested use on the container and spread this amount over the three meals. Avoid taking all at once if you can, as spreading the minerals out over the day will give more benefit. Why? Because it is supplying the body in the most natural way. It will give you a speedy fill of your deficiencies and a precious reservoir in time of need.

Mineral Rich Rocks

Well, where to begin? Our basic needs have a basic principle behind them: they are made from what has always been available for life. Remember the drawings you find in books about the first billions of years on earth. Wild seas, rocks, sunlight, gases. This is where we have to look.

We use these basics all the time. Sun and water, we had those then and we've got them still. We use them regularly, as part of our basic needs. The sun bathes our skin and our eyes and warms us. Water makes up 70 % of our human body, it cleans us and refreshes us emotionally.

Mineral-rich rocks? Yes, also. We use rocks via our food. Fragments of rock are washed over and the wash carries the freed minerals along in the water, the soil, the plant.

Evidence

Why are minerals one of our basic needs? First of all, the most logical evidence is that minerals have always, from first life onward, been available for living organisms to develop from. Every other bit of evidence will carry on from here.

We, and the first cellular life forms, and everything in between, were brought about from what was available. Sun, water, rocks. Rocks contain sulphur, phosphorus, calcium and the like, and carbon. On the other hand, the software like proteins, vitamins, and food acids came afterwards. The software is a function of the rocks: combinations of elements from the rocks as they presented locally, plus the contribution from the sun plus the presence of water. Proteins, being software, are not available in rocks. Proteins are put together later, from eroded rock particles that provide the needed sulphur, carbon, phosphorus, calcium, as well as from hydrogen and other gases from the atmosphere, oxygen and nitrogen. It needed a lot of doing (like possibly lightning) to get there. Long after the rocks were formed did the proteins come about, yet the rocks were at the heart of it.

Charged Minerals

The important thing to realize is that minerals in our body carry charge. They work like electrical wiring. Charge concerns the smallest parts of us, the atoms. Atoms become ions, when they have either too many electrons, which makes them too negative, or too few electrons, which makes them too positive. When positive and negative are combined they become neutral, calm, balanced. This combining gets work done. The charged minerals in this way move reactions. Put two magnets together, one with its positive end next to the other's negative end. You will see the oppositely charged ends clicking together. Positive calcium and negative phosphorus molecules click together in a similar way and, for instance, make up bone cells in our frame. Each cell in our body is a mineral-based electrically wired place, where one combination takes place after another. Switches go on and switches go off, but at a pace we cannot dream of, so fast. The positive and negative minerals are the first source of all this wiring, the pathways of reactions that need to take place in the cell.

The Minerals in Their Infinite Role

The elementary role of minerals is also seen in their perpetuity, their endlessness. They are what make stars recognizable, they are the dust that remains of us after we've gone. A living organism, plant or animal, is a small mound of minerals when burnt. All the other things like proteins and carbohydrates, however important to get on with, need to be rebuilt in each new life, they are temporary and exist on the basis of those minerals and their opposite charges.

Mineral Deficiency

As for us, the need for minerals is no longer satisfied. We do not eat enough of the mineral-rich foods such as vegetables, seeds and nuts. And even then, the soils and hence the food are getting depleted of minerals. Only so many tomatoes can get enough out of the soil with their roots and then the soil does no longer contain enough. What happens? The minerals, as we just saw, are never lost. They are always cycling around somewhere. They end up in the sewerage or the compost, away from the vegetable growers' land. Some growers take extra care to put minerals back with natural fertilizer like seaweed, which contains many trace minerals. Not just simplified man-made fertilizer. Growers can recycle back a broad range of minerals via the compost but the amount that goes to the sewage plant, however, is where a bit of technology is needed. The whole point is, that it is unlikely that there are enough minerals in each meal as we have it, morning lunch and dinner, on account of their lack in the soil. In the light of the deep need for minerals the question 'have we enough minerals in this meal' becomes a bit rhetorical - you already know the answer. A mineral addition from a powder or a liquid is required each time, to satisfy a normal need of the frame. The deep need for minerals by the body indicates their basic importance. When we are sick, the best thing is to replace minerals first.

Choose Your Minerals Cautiously

How to go about it? The two key points to do it right are one, to have a broad amount of minerals (we are not here taking them for a symptom, but as a food) following the way we have evolved from the broad amount present in rocks. Two, they have to be absorbable and useable in the processes in the body, the metabolism. Once seeing minerals from this perspective, the choices become clear. Sea minerals that come as a liquid are highly desirable. They come as mineral combinations that run parallel to the mineral combinations required in our body. So also are the minerals extracted from old plant deposits, such as moors. Coral calcium is another. It contains the trace minerals of the sea. Any genuine natural combination of minerals is in order.

Success in Japan

Coral calcium consists of dead coral that has been lying about on the ocean floor. Algae have invaded it as well as microbes plus all the minerals that the sea contains have found a home in this dead coral. Dr. Robert Barefoot in his book on the importance of calcium explains the value of microbes that have become part of coral calcium. These microbes are dormant in the powder you buy and 'spring to life' as he puts it, in a glass of water. By drinking the water, the microbes then arrive in the gut, where they are extremely useful. In a gut with toxic conditions they outsmart the local bacteria by far. They will pull calcium from gut into gut wall and hence into the bloodstream, in other words, they help absorb this stubborn mineral that needs otherwise active vitamin D. Very good for older people and people who miss out on sunlight to get the needed vitamin D. The coral calcium available in the market place comes from Okinawa, at the most southern tip of Japan. The people of Okinawa are lucky enough to live on a whole island made up of the old coral. They have the potential to be fit centenarians, and many of them are.

Cheaper Coral Calcium

Some coral calcium is deficient in magnesium, it has leached out. Calcium and magnesium always need to be taken in combination of two to one, in a food supplement. Twice as much calcium. The magnesium-deficient coral calcium is cheaper and still has the benefit of the dormant bacteria and thus of being well absorbed. It still contains many trace minerals from the sea. When taking this cheaper coral calcium, it is important to add magnesium, half the amount of the calcium. Magnesium is not as much of a challenge to absorb as calcium. Always check the label to see the ratio of calcium to magnesium.

The Volcanos at Okinawa

A bit of speculation may see the vicinity of volcanoes in the ocean bed as an added benefit of Okinawan coral calcium. Many minerals are spewed out by volcanoes for a start, making for an extra mineral- rich area of sea. The dead coral will reflect this. Microbes living under volcanic conditions may be extra hardy. One has to only visualize the extreme heat and highly acidic sulphuric acid that will be present from time to time. Tolerance to such conditions means even greater success for these microbes over human microbes regarding absorption of nutrients. Us, with our overeating, ask too much of our endogenous microbes in the gut. The coral calcium microbes on the other hand make quick work of the absorption of minerals under unfavourable conditions. Once minerals are inside our system, they contribute greatly to better function, better sugar regulation, better regulation of acidity, better weight. The volcanic conditions may thus contribute to coral calcium's success by doing uphill work. Coral calcium bacteria are so far a little known area of study.

In Context

The minerals on their own, despite their primordial importance, cannot do everything. They have to be seen in combination with other important nutrients to get the software produced and the functions going. The other main important nutrients are oils and greens. These will be discussed in part three and part four.