Minerals are Essential to Your Health
We hear so much about vitamins and antioxidants these days, I think that many people don't realize how very important minerals are in your diet, and also how many of our diets are severely lacking in minerals today. Minerals are catalysts for many reactions that take place in our bodies, for example, they are necessary for proper digestion & metabolism, as well as a nervous system that functions properly. In addition, if you are lacking in certain minerals, your body will NOT be able to fully utilize many vitamins: B complex vitamins need magnesium, for example, and vitamin A needs zinc.
In addition, minerals fulfill a vital role in keeping your body within the proper acid/alkaline balance. Your 1st morning urine pH should fall between 6.4 and 7.0. If you have the correct level of minerals, your pH will fall within this range, and hence help transport nutrients into your cells. This means that if your mineral status is low, you can take all the vitamins in the world, but your body will probably not be using them, instead you will very likely be wasting your money!
Leafy green vegetables, whole grains and raw dairy can all be good sources of minerals in your diet if they came from fertile, mineral-rich soils or animals who grazed there. However, much of our soil, even where organic foods are grown, is depleted in minerals. Plants can manufacture vitamins, but they cannot make minerals, they must get them from the soils. Even way back in the 1930s, a US Senate document talked about the lack of minerals in our depleted soils, and how that was adversely affecting the American population's health. But at least back then, most people were not eating packaged foods, they were eating real foods made from scratch for the most part. We know that serious mineral deficiencies do result in disease, and that most Americans today have serious mineral deficiencies.
Truth About Vitamins & Minerals Supplements Austin Nutrition
So what can you do about it?
1) Regularly Search Out Farmers Who Produce Nutritious Foods on Mineral-Replenished Soils
You will have to do some searching to find these products, but not only will your health most likely improve, but foods grown in mineral rich soils taste better! Get to know your local farmers, and find out what they do to keep their soil full of minerals. (Tip: Mineral-rich fruits and vegetables tend to be heavier and denser for their size, and if the soil is good, they will be bug-free. So if you see bugs on your organic salad, that is not just because it was "organic", it means the soil it was grown in was not that good and was most likely missing minerals. In addition, produce grown in healthy soil will also NOT rot, but simply dry out when it gets old.)
2) Replace Your Regular Table Salt with Mineral-Rich Unrefined Sea Salt
Most people don't realize that regular table salt has been heavily refined by a chemical cleaning process, and that this changes the chemical structure of the salt, reducing the number of elements that are naturally found in the salt from 84 to only a couple. This man-made product usually consists of just sodium and chloride, along with some additives, like inorganic iodine in the form of potassium-iodide, and often sugar and aluminum silicate to prevent clumping. However, our body needs those other elements, including trace minerals and natural iodine, in order to be healthy. Some people try to cut back on their salt consumption because of concerns about it raising blood pressure or increasing inflammation. However, this does seem to happen when people consume natural unrefined sea salt. Fish from the ocean will die quickly if placed in a solution of refined (table) salt and water. This sodium chloride is poisonous to them, so it is no wonder that it seems to be harmful to humans as well. However, our bodies need some salt. Blood, sweat and tears all contain salt, and both the skin and the eyes seems to be protected from germs by the anti-bacterial effect of salt. Salt helps with proper digestion and metabolism and also helps to make the heart beat correctly.
3) Help Replenish Your Minerals With Bath Salts
In addition to adding unrefined sea salt to your diet, another way to replenish your body is by bathing in mineral and salt-rich waters. You can either go take a cure at a mineral spa, or go take a beach vacation by the ocean, as people have done for hundreds of years, or use products at home in your bath, such as bath salts from the Dead Sea, which are rich in minerals as well as sodium chloride. Our bodies absorb minerals through our skin, which is why many people swear by mineral bath soaking, whether at a spa or in the comfort of your own home. Mineral-rich salt baths, salt scrubs, rubs and polishes all work to replenish minerals in the body, exfoliate dead skin, stimulate circulation and relieve stress. Look for mineral-rich bath salts from the southern portion of the Dead Sea, which has very concentrated minerals.
4) Sea Vegetables or Seaweeds in Your Diet or Bath
Eating seaweed or sea vegetables like nori, kelp, bladderwrack, wakame and more in your diet or taking seaweed baths can also help to restore minerals to your body, including iodine. Many kinds of seaweeds have traditionally been eaten by people, including kelp, which tends to bind with toxins in the intestines, rendering them indigestible and carrying them out of the body. The high quantity of seaweeds ingested in the macrobiotic diet may be a key to its well known healing qualities. Seaweeds are often available in health food stores or online. One good way to use them is to first grind them up into small pieces, and then cook them with rice and/or beans for at least 1 hour, preferably 2, to help make them more digestible. If you are like some people and can't stand the taste of sea vegetables, you can also look for supplements with sea vegetables so you can still get the benefits.
5) Whey Protein Can Boost Minerals in Your Diet
Whey protein contains high levels of minerals, especially if it comes from the right source. Look for a whey protein that is undenatured and comes from raw, pastured milk.
6) Noni Juice is Also High in Minerals
A good Noni Juice will come from fruit grown in mineral rich, volcanic soil, and often contains lots of minerals. Many people have reported helping to restore their body's natural pH with the ingestion on a regular basis of a high quality Noni Juice. Noni has also been reported to help boost immune function and help to get rid of parasites, infections and depression. Many Noni juices out there, however, are diluted with water and/or other juices and also contain toxic preservatives like sodium benzoate, so make sure and look for one that is 100% Noni Juice or that has been carefully preserved and made into a capsule. If you find a 100% juice product that is potent, it will probably be much more potent than taking a couple capsule, however.
7) Coral Minerals
Coral minerals are minerals found in coral that are already in an ionized form, and hence easy for the body to utilize. You do not have to have a strong digestive system in order to be able to use and properly digest the coral minerals. Coral minerals have been shown to quickly help restore the proper acid/alkaline balance in the body, putting you on the path to better health and causing you to be able to better use other nutrients like vitamins. Many naturopaths recommend that you get your pH up to normal levels before starting on any type of detoxification program, as you also need minerals in order for your body to be able to get rid of the toxins.
In conclusion, we have given you many ways to work on getting your mineral levels back into the normal range naturally. If you have any problems or questions, you may want to consult with a natural health practitioner. Those who have been chronically ill for some time may benefit from taking a mineral test, like the RBC Elements test by Doctor's Data. Ask your health care practitioner to order it for you if you are interested. This tests your various minerals in your Red Blood Cells (RBC) to see if perhaps one or more is significantly lower than the others and may need to be supplemented separately for a short period of time. For the long term, however, we do recommend using the above ways of getting the right minerals into your body for your long-term glowing good health!
Copyright 2011 by EcoViva LLC This article may be copied only in its entirety and only if all links including those in the resource box remain intact.
Karen Pijuan is the owner of several health-related websites and has written numerous articles about healthy living, whole food supplements, natural body care and cleaning products, natural weight loss and more. Find out more about what to look for in a truly healthy vitamin, as well as resources for where to find whole food vitamin at http://www.healthyvitaminsrx.com