BY ELMER G. HEINRICH

Minerals, as we know them, are locked into the earth's crust.

As land dwellers, our main link with minerals is through a diet of plants which are able to extract metallic minerals from the soil as they grow. Our secondary link is from meats of animals that eat plants.

In order for us to understand the importance of minerals, we need to first understand how minerals are composed. -Vitamins, carbohydrates, proteins and lipids are all compounds of the chemical element known as carbon.

Minerals from the earth are elements which are not carbon and which are not bound to carbon. These minerals participate in a multitude of biochemical processes necessary for the maintenance of health in human beings and animals which inhabit our planet.

There are more than 100 mineral elements found on earth.

Four of these, which are oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen, make up 96% of our body. The remaining 4% of our body is basically made up in part, of the other minerals which are available to us and these may vary somewhat, depending on where we live.

Our government and the scientific community have grouped minerals into two categories. Those that are considered to be required in our diets in amounts greater than 100 milligrams per day are called major minerals. Those that are considered to be required in our diets in amounts of less than 100 milligrams per day are called trace minerals. There are seven major minerals.

They are calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, sulfur, sodium and chlorine. Our bodies should contain significant amounts of each. Trace minerals, on the other hand, are present in the body in minute amounts. It is thought that each makes up less than one-hundredth of one percent of our body weight.

The nutritional experts who represent our government point to 12 or 13 minerals as being necessary for average health and to another 8 or 10 minerals as possibly being necessary for health.

I have always wondered why we have never studied the possible necessity of the other 80 or more minerals on earth! Is it possible some of the other minerals on earth are or have been overlooked because they just aren't available from the soil in any kind of quantity?

In my opinion, this is a very interesting question. When you think about it, minerals are bound to play an important part in our lives. After all, rocks are the parent material for soil which is the main source of nutrition for plants, animals and ultimately humans.

While deficiencies of a single mineral are quite common, what happens if we are marginally low in several minerals? The effects can be easily seen when studies are conducted on those persons who consume a large amount of junk food in absence of mineral supplements or those with poor diets in the absence of mineral supplements.

Also, it is a known fact that the absorption of many minerals declines with old age. Additionally, stress and exposure to environmental pollution raise our requirements for minerals, especially zinc, calcium and iron.

In my own personal research, I have found, and am amazed at the number of people who are not even slightly aware of the importance of minerals relative to good health. Most of them seem to have resigned to the fact that you've lived a full life if you die at the average age of 76, after suffering from several diseases for years prior to death. This is a pity!

However, the majority of people are aware of the part which minerals play for ultimate health, but they are likely not to get an adequate amount as needed without consuming a full spectrum of mineral supplements. This stems from the lack of minerals in our present day foods.

To grow and reproduce, crops take up minerals from water and soil, as plants have done for millions of years. According to science, millions of years ago the soil near the earth's surface, where our plants are grown, was saturated with dozens of minerals.
At least 84 minerals were available nearly everywhere and some areas of the planet did contain 100 minerals. The plants of prehistoric times were rich in minerals because there was an abundant supply for them to feed upon from the soil.

When a plant grows it draws available minerals from the soil. We now know the mineral content of plants has been severely altered throughout the last several million years and drastically altered during the last 100 years.

When man began to till the soil, wind and rain erosion began to take its toll along with continuous cropping which gradually caused the soils to lack minerals. Unfortunately, these millions of years of erosion and centuries of unwise farming methods have made good soil a scarce commodity.

Soil tests from all over the world have revealed that our soils are severely lacking in minerals. This in turn, allows us only minerally-deficient plants with very little food value.

Man developed chemical fertilizers in the early 1900s by making or mining concentrated forms of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium rather than using living compounds as they exist in nature.

These living compounds I speak of include manure or humus, a rich, variegated blend of bacteria, fungi, molds, yeasts, algae, worms, insects and other tiny organisms. The health and survival of all plants, domestic or wild, depend on the health of the soil and its ability to provide a constant supply of minerals. If there is a lack of minerals in the soil, plants became stunted, sick and devoid of much of the food value they contained in prehistoric times.

When man began adding artificial fertilizers - nitrate, phosphate and potash - to the soil, it was learned crop yields could be greatly increased.

But what appeared to be a blessing has turned out to be a curse. According to the Complete Book of Minerals for Health by Rodale Press, man-made fertilizers upset the delicate balance of minerals and organisms in humus rich soil by killing off the beneficial bacteria, and lacking in the naturally occurring minerals they are less available to plants.

Chemical fertilizers can also saturate plant roots with too much of one nutrient, making it difficult for plants or crops to pick up and absorb other minerals that they need so much.

Where can we get the minerals we need if they are not available in our food supply? About the only method available is to initiate a program of mineral supplementation. That is, take food supplements containing a lot of minerals. Various mineral supplement formulations can be purchased from hundreds of suppliers under literally thousands of labels.

Most of the mineral formulations available today contain no more than 10 to 15 minerals because most are derived from the earth from ancient sea beds, clay or ground up rock and soil. This type of mineral is known as a metallic mineral. The type of mineral which comes from a plant has been assimilated or digested by the plant and is known as a water soluble, plant derived, colloidal mineral.

The few metallic minerals which are available are hard to digest or assimilate. Many nutritional experts believe no more than 5% to 8% of metallic minerals are actually assimilated by the human body. They say the balance, or up to 92%, merely passes through the waste system without benefit. Metallic minerals also require complete digestion before any nutritional value is realized and the normal digestion cycle requires from 15 to 21 hours.

Minerals, even if they are metallic, are of significant value to balance and metabolize our bodily functions. However, you could not live on soil or rock because it is not alive or enzymatically active like plant derived colloidal minerals from raw plants.
Colloidal plant minerals, which have not been destroyed by heat or altered by man-made chemicals are, from a medical standpoint, enzymatically active or living minerals.

Let's talk about vitamins for a minute. Most of us have been hearing about vitamins since we were children. And even today we hear authoritative sources say, "Be sure to take your vitamins!" But, did you know all the vitamins in the world do us little good without minerals?

A vitamin can be broken down into its basic elements which are carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. Basically, vitamins are a group of chemically unrelated organic nutrients that are essential in small quantities for normal metabolism, growth and physical well being. Vitamins must be obtained through diet since they are either not synthesized in our bodies or are synthesized in inadequate amounts.

There is a harmony between vitamins and minerals and even though vitamins are nearly ineffective without minerals, they both are necessary. Minerals are quite different from vitamins in their structure and the work they do, but the two enjoy an excellent working relationship.

According to Rodale's Complete Book of Minerals for Health, minerals create a healthy environment in which the body, using vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates and fats, can grow, function and heal itself. Recently, we've begun to hear a lot about enzymes and anti-oxidants and their importance.

Enzymes are extremely important for our metabolic functions, but enzymes are vitamins, so again they do us little good without minerals. Conversely, some vitamins are helpmates to minerals.

Some minerals are eager workers, but to perform best they need a vitamin or two to stir them into action. As an example, vitamin C can triple iron absorption. Calcium absorption is impossible without vitamin D.

At this point you may ask yourself a question. Is all this publicity about mineral deficiencies and the lack of minerals really true and if so, which minerals and what kind of minerals should I be taking? In my opinion, at least part of your question can be answered with this little story.

Many movies have been made about the migration of our ancestors in the early 1800's. We all know they had to cross the great plains. What we don't know or realize is that few of these people settled in one place. Every few years, they would have to pick up and move. They'd start a small farm in the Midwest such as Iowa, Missouri, Kansas or Nebraska with a milk cow, a couple of pigs, some sheep and a few children.

After a few years one of the children would die, Dad would get constipation and the cow would quit giving milk. The cucumber plants, tomato plants and farm crops wouldn't grow, so they would almost starve.

If they were lucky enough to make it through the winter, they'd load all their belongings into a covered wagon and move West with the milk cow in tow.
When they found a suitable place they started another farm. In a few years, another child would die. Mom would get constipated this time. The crops, cucumbers and tomatoes would quit growing and the cow would again quit giving milk. And, if they survived the winter, they'd load everything in a wagon and move farther West again.

What was the problem? The soil was being depleted! Crops and plant growth took minerals out of the soil. The only way to eliminate this problem was to own a piece of bottom land near a river. Only the lucky or wealthy farmers owned the bottom land.
When it flooded, they'd get new topsoil and silt and sometimes as many as 84 metallic minerals from many miles upstream. So, if they were fortunate enough to own bottom land they didn't have to move. Why? Because the fertilizer would come to them during the flood. But if they were out on the prairie with no river or bottom land they would be required to move, otherwise the entire family would become malnourished and nearly starve.

This settling and moving process has occurred many thousands of times during the last 175 years. This was necessary because our ancestors were actually strip mining the nutrients from the soils. If there were little or no nutrients in the soil, their crops, cucumbers and tomatoes couldn't grow because of a lack of needed minerals. Depleted soils can not possibly supply adequate nutrients to our food chain.
Commercial fertilizers were introduced in 1908. Was the soil depletion problem solved? Not by a long shot! Study any commercial fertilizer by reviewing the ingredients listed on the package.

You will see nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK) and most times, nothing more. Why? It's a known fact that you can raise most crops and plants with what little nutrients are still in the soil, and NPK. Most farmers never put back more than 8 minerals. In the first place, more than 8 minerals would be nearly impossible to obtain.

Secondly, if they were obtainable and if farmers attempted to put that many back into the soil they would go broke. We all know 8 minerals are sufficient to raise large, red, juicy tomatoes, but many times if you were blindfolded while eating, you would have trouble identifying the tomatoes due to a lack of taste.
The lack of taste is due to a lack of minerals which causes a lack of Brix. Soil depletion is the only reason today's plants contain no more than 16 to 20 minerals, on average, compared to at least 77 minerals millions of years ago.

According to research in the animal husbandry field and The National Science Foundation, animals require at least 45 minerals, 12 essential amino acids, 16 vitamins and 3 essential fatty acids. According to Gary Price Todd, M.D., the human body requires at least 60 minerals for optimal health and basically the same other essentials as animals. But, only 8 minerals are available in any kind of quantity in most of the food we eat today.

We know plants can make vitamins, amino acids and varying amounts of fatty acids, if they are healthy from being grown in soils containing abundant minerals. If the soil lacks minerals, the plant is stunted because a plant can not make minerals.
If at this point, you still do not grasp the fact minerals play an important role in our lives, you might ask the question - What are minerals like calcium, copper and iron from rocks in earth's crust doing in our living, breathing, active bodies? - a lot - Let me mention a few examples. Calcium is a construction worker so to speak. It is a builder. I want to feature calcium because of its utmost importance.

Calcium gives bones and teeth their strength and rigidity, and also helps nerves to function properly. As a construction worker, it builds strong bones. But more importantly, if utilized properly and in early stages after the foundation is firm, it will help build strong bones which will endure a life of havoc.

To save your daughter from bone crippling osteoporosis in old age, you should begin giving her extra calcium between five and ten years of age. That startling advice comes from new research by pediatrician Steven A. Abrams at Children's Nutritional Research Center in Houston, Texas. It's critical that young girls get lots of calcium several years before they reach 11.

That's because "most bone-forming activity occurs in the years just before and just after the start of puberty." Which on average is age 10, says Dr. Abrams. Menstruation begins two or three years later. By age 15, most bone-forming activity has come to a halt, he says.

The higher the bone mass, the lower the odds of osteoporosis later in life. Incidentally, some very creditable sources say chromium picolinate, used along with calcium, can really benefit the user.

Iron is part of a substance called hemoglobin which carries life sustaining oxygen to our cells. Iron, along with copper, appears to have participated very closely together in the evolution of aerobic life, maybe as long as three billion years ago!
The condition most commonly associated with iron deficiency is iron deficiency anemia. Copper, zinc and cobalt, among other minerals, are necessary for enzyme activities such as food digestion. Copper also plays a significant role in respiration.

Sulfur combines with nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen to build protein, a main ingredient of muscles, skin and organs. Sodium and potassium regulate water balance. If it were not for these two minerals we would bloat or swell up with water or we would dehydrate, dry out or die.

Our bodies contain about two pounds of phosphorous which, when tied to calcium, helps give strength and rigidity to bones and teeth. It also controls energy release. A lack of phosphorus causes us to over eat.

In fact, according to the Complete Book of Minerals for Health, if our body has too little phosphorous we'd have to eat practically nonstop just to maintain basic metabolism. Maybe this is a reason for so much obesity around the world!
Our body is made up of about 100 trillion cells, each one bustling with activities that depend on magnesium. In fact, next to potassium, magnesium is the most plentiful mineral inside each cell.

Magnesium helps deliver energy by activating the production of a special substance called adenosine tri-phosphate which extracts energy from the foods we eat and delivers it to each and every one of those billions and billions of cells in our bodies, whether they are in the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, blood or bone. Magnesium is one of the most important major minerals.

Chlorine is another one of the major minerals! Chlorine's intended use from Mother Nature was not to disinfect our water or swimming pools, but to help digest our foods. Chlorine is found in virtually all of our foods. As a part of hydrochloric acid, chlorine rallies the digestive juices of the stomach.

A combination of hydrochloric acid and powerful digestive enzymes gobbles up food particles, mashing them into a semi-fluid pulp called chyme, which is squirted into the upper intestine for final digestive breakdown. Here is something of importance relative to chlorine.

Chlorine in water is entirely different than chlorine in food. The chlorine used to disinfect water is an activated form of chloride with absolutely no nutritional value and chlorination may, in fact, cause some serious health problems. This is common knowledge from discussions from around the world.

We could go on about the major minerals for hours, but what about trace minerals? According to our government, the trace elements that are required for human health are iron, iodine, copper, manganese, zinc, molybdenum, selenium and chromium.
There are trace elements that appear to be important for other warm- blooded animals. These are fluorine, tin, boron, vanadium, silicon, nickel, arsenic, cadmium and lead. Whether these elements play roles in human nutrition remains to be determined. Mineral-insufficiency and trace-element insufficiency problems are actually more likely to occur than are vitamin-insufficiency situations.

Those at increased risk of such insufficiencies include people who eat low-calorie diets, the elderly, pregnant women, people on certain drugs (such as diuretics), vegetarians and those living where the soil is deficient in certain minerals.
The soil of South Dakota, for example, is very rich in selenium, while the soil in certain parts of China and New Zealand is very poor in selenium.

Thus, you can live in some areas, eat a perfectly "balanced" diet and still develop mineral deficiencies or trace-element deficiencies that can only be averted through dietary change or supplementation. Sub-optimal intake can be due to factors other than soil depletion.

These factors are as diverse as the effects of acid rain and the over-refining, over-processing of foods. Our vulnerability to even minute dietary imbalances in minerals can be appreciated by comparing, to begin with, our daily mineral intake (about 1.5 grams) with our total intake of carbohydrates, proteins and lipids (about 500 grams).
Thus our mineral intake represents only about 0.3 percent of our total intake of nutrients, yet minerals are so potent and so important that without them we wouldn't be able to utilize the other 99.7 percent of foodstuffs and would quickly perish.

There has been a strong tendency on the part of some dietetic and other medical professionals to discourage people from taking more than the RDAs (Recommended Daily Allowances) of minerals which can be obtained, they say, in the typical American diet.

Unfortunately, numerous studies have shown, repeatedly, that many, possibly most Americans are not getting the RDAs for the minerals in their daily diets. Supplementation, therefore, seems advisable. Evidence is accumulating from recent studies that mineral/trace-element supplementation may help prevent various forms of some degenerative processes.

As you've already heard, plants can make vitamins and naturally in my opinion, I believe we should be using plant minerals. However, as stated previously, plants can not make minerals! So, where do we get them?One source could be Body Booster because plants do synthesize minerals.

We believe Body Booster is the best overall "source of pure food plant derived colloidal minerals on earth." Nearly everybody, especially so called nutritional experts, misunderstand or don't appear to know anything about plant derived colloidal minerals. They group plant derived minerals with metallic minerals which come from oyster shell, calcium carbonate, limestone, soil and clay and sea salts.
Supposedly too much of some of these metallic elements have toxic effects on the body. Again, according to Dr. Todd, the human body is not designed to absorb or assimilate and use metallic minerals. The health food industry recognized the metallic mineral absorption problem, of no more than 8%, in the mid 70's. Chelated minerals were developed in the laboratory.

This process involved wrapping amino acids or protein around metallic minerals to help the body metabolize them. This did help the problem by providing slightly more than 50% absorption. We all know about toxic metals (toxic minerals) and most people have been led to believe the so-called toxic minerals are bad regardless of their source.

Let's take aluminum as an example.

Aluminum, as found in the earth is a metallic mineral. It has always bothered me to learn that so many of our supposed leaders, intellectuals, doctors and nutritionists know so little about the element.

It has been criticized beyond belief. Granted, metallic aluminum, like that which can be dissolved or leached from aluminum pans or utensils may be extremely harmful and I truly believe it is. But what about aluminum from food? In the first place, all aluminum which comes from food is colloidal (preassimilated by the plant) and it is naturally tied to oxygen or silica.

This makes it aluminum hydroxide or aluminum silica. Both are known to be very beneficial and both are used extensively as food additives throughout the world. Therefore, if aluminum is harmful, why is it used in food processing or as ingredients in deodorizers, antacids, face makeup and nearly without exception in every municipal water system in the United States?

Incidentally, the World Health Organization estimates that the average adult dietary aluminum intake ranges between 10 and 15 milligrams (mg) daily. See if you agree after reading the next several paragraphs.

Aluminum is one of the most abundant minerals on earth, second only to silica. It is in virtually everything we touch, most of the air we breathe, most water we drink and in most food we eat. I am particularly alarmed to learn government officials in some countries either are not aware of or want to suppress the fact that aluminum is also one of, if not the most abundant minerals in many of our foods!

The country of Finland says it is unlawful to consume more than 2 mg of aluminum per day, regardless of the source! We spoke to several well known laboratory and food chemists about Finland's legal limits. Needless to say they all had a belly lurching laugh over this.

Apparently, our government is aware of the aluminum in food because we do not have an established limit. If we did, we would have a hard time staying alive. This makes me wonder what foods the Finnish people eat.

We were able to obtain copies of the results of lab tests for aluminum in certain food plants. The results came from the ATL Agronomy Handbook used by many agronomists worldwide.

The page headings state "Plant Analysis Guide Nutrient Sufficiency Ranges." understand the tests are made on plant petals, vines or even the fruit or nut, depending on the type of plant bearing the food. The amounts are listed in parts per million (PPM).

Before I go any further, let me say that PPM and MG/L (milligrams per liter) are considered one and the same. If you have doubts about this statement, consider this fact. There are 994,000 milligrams in one liter so the difference between MG/L and PPM is insignificant. Now let's continue.

The test results have a low amount and a high amount which were obtained from different tests on the same food or plant species.

I am listing the averages below. I believe this will be a big surprise to many of you.

The way I calculate the amounts listed above, people allowed no more than 2 mg per day could not eat more than one thin slice (cut off the end) of a banana each day. People allowed 4 mg could eat no more than a very small portion of a small potato each day.

And what about salads? Review the list again and make your own decision. Apparently, colloidal aluminum is not harmful, don't you think? I had the opportunity to speak to many people while participating in a National Health Foods show in Anaheim, California in early 1995.

I directed a simple question to more than forty of these people on an individual basis. Several had Pad's in food chemistry, at least eight of them were certified nutritionists, two were medical doctors, four were chiropractors and the balance were health food store owners.

My question to each was "would you eat food if you knew it contained aluminum, arsenic, lead or nickel?" Without hesitation each person replied "absolutely not!" I was shocked to learn that so many supposedly well schooled nutritional people were unaware that these minerals can be found in nearly all food we eat.

To prove my point we contracted a well known reputable laboratory to perform a spectrographic test for total mineral content on several well known foods. The lab purchased these foods items from a midwest supermarket.
The test results follow:

We must remember that the minerals found in these foods are no longer metallic minerals. According to food chemistry, plant derived colloidal minerals are 100% absorbable, so comparing metallic minerals to plant derived minerals would be like comparing saw dust to oatmeal.

Plant derived colloidal minerals are the result of plants converting metallic minerals to colloidal minerals through the root system by a process known to science as assimilation through plant synthesis.

By this process the metallic mineral is assimilated or digested by the plant, therefore it can be more easily assimilated by the human body. This side steps the normal digestive time of from 15 to 21 hours as required for the small amount of metallic minerals actually utilized.

A plant mineral is as much as several hundred to as much as a thousand times smaller than the smallest metallic mineral. This makes it colloidal in nature.
A plant derived mineral is less than 0.001 micron in size which is approximately 1/6000th the size of a red blood cell. Their small size gives them an enormous surface area. It has been calculated that the plant derived colloidal minerals in one teaspoon of a quality trace mineral supplement would have a total surface area of approximately 55 acres.

That's billions of tiny electrically-charged minerals. Tests have proven that these trace minerals have a natural negative zeta potential or natural negative electrical charge.

All plants, fruits and vegetables contain converted or assimilated metallic minerals, even though they contain few today as compared to years ago. Expert food chemists say colloidal minerals from plants are non-toxic in reasonable dosage.

For example, iodine in colloidal form is one of the elements for good health. This is really interesting in that if you drank even 2 grains of free iodine, it would kill you. In its colloidal plant derived form, iodine is not only harmless, it is beneficial. The same is true for plant derived arsenic, lead, aluminum and other minerals considered toxic in their metallic form.

According to science, the surface of the earth has changed significantly since its inception. One of these changes apparently occurred approximately 70 million years ago in an area which is now known as Emery County, Utah. Supposedly, a glacier or other causes of earth movement buried a large quantity of vegetative matter which may have been a dense growth or a washed in bog of numerous plants.

Today it is home to a 1,000-acre mining site which contains an estimated 32 million metric tons of humic shale reserves which is sufficient to produce 950 billion gallons of colloidal trace minerals. This humic matter is a prehistoric deposit of plants which was or still is under great pressure from the earth.

All of the moisture has been compressed out of the humus (referred to as humic shale) and what remains is nothing more than prehistoric plant derivatives.
This prehistoric deposit was discovered in 1926. By 1930, trial and error tests revealed that minerals could be extracted from the humus with water through a natural leaching process.

Continued tests over the years also revealed that the humus contained numerous minerals, which are colloidal in nature (from plants) rather than normally recognized metallic minerals which come from ground up rocks and soil.

These colloidal minerals have been sold to millions of satisfied customers since 1931. This 65-year track record of customer satisfaction serves as testimony to the important benefits of trace mineral supplementation.

A quart of trace minerals contains approximately 38,000 milligrams of 7 major minerals and 70 trace minerals. These 77 total minerals are in no way proportionate to the 15 to 20 minerals found in today's fruits, vegetables and grains but they will round out a part of your diet that really needs supplementation.