Plants can make carbohydrates, enzymes, vitamins, amino acids, fibre, fatty acids etc. yet they can not make minerals. Minerals exist in the soil and must come to us from the soil. A plant draws minerals up through its root system and delivers it to us in a colloidal, organically bound form. Unfortunately, due in part by the way in which agriculture has been practiced the past hundred years or so, the mineral content of our range and crop soils is at an all time low. Farmers can grow millions of bushels of corn by applying the fertilizer, NPK (nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus) to their fields. However, after five to seven years of harvesting crop after crop from the same field most of the minerals, especially the trace minerals and rare earths, are virtually 'strip mined' from the soil. Alarmingly low mineral content in soils worldwide was documented most recently at the 1993 "Eco" conference in Rio. The poverty of our soils translates into a lack of minerals in our diets and also may well diminish the plants own ability to manufacture other nutrients we need like vitamins, fatty acids and amino acids. Besides poor soils other factors contribute to malnourishment. More and more of our foods are now highly processed or manipulated to achieve a certain look or taste or convenience of preparation. Frozen orange juice, for example, has been shown by consumer magazines to be a pathetic substitute for fresh squeezed. Also, due to our fast paced lifestyle, we tend to neglect eating fresh fruits and vegetables, the very foods richest in precious vitamins and enzymes. Because it is next to impossible for us to get all 90 essential nutrients from our diet, it is imperative that we turn to other sources. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT WE SUPPLEMENT.
Keith Abell, RPh CIP MI
