Subsections

• Naturopathy
• Trace Elements
• Food Culture & Society - Studies by Weston Price
• The Requirement for Minerals in the Diet

Remineralising You - Naturopathy

Soils are naturally depleted from continuous use over time. It’s good to replace the full mineral complex found in naturally occurring basalt - to increase crop productivity in farms and gardens large and small, without chemical contamination.

As mentioned before, Mother Earth's Minerals is a partnership, made up of Katherine Armitage, Stewart Johnston and Brigid Hurley. Our goal is to support sustainable relationships between the Earth and people, plants and animals. Each of us independently had goals of our own, to work in some way with this direction in mind - to become more sustainable ourselves, to support an ecology of place and promote sustainability.

We first met - and began our conversations about sustainability - while participating in a Body Electronics naturopathy course. There, the history and practice of naturopathy, Jungian psychology, the use of non-invasive medical diagnosis (using iridology and sclera examination techniques), nutrition, anatomy and physiology, and the use of pressure points to heal were the main points of focus. All of these topics were supported or directed through nutrition. Nutrition figured into a large percentage of our studies as it related to all aspects of well-being; each of the other disciplines rely on it to work as a healing tools, promoting regrowth of cells.

The three of us, along with the rest of our class, learned ways to improve our own health and create a more holistic image of what we each wanted to be; learning to recognise the importance of aligning all aspects of human energy - the body, mind, spirit connection. Discussion about what we had wanted to do and hoped we would accomplish brought home how our own health was a major factor to our ability to both mentally and physical reach a resolution. We each had our respective lists; as we came to realise what was truly important on those respective lists, and how each of the lists evolved -a partnership formed as Mother Earth's Minerals.

Naturopathy uses techniques to charge or cleanse the systems. Many of these practices where once part of allopathic medicine. I know this because they were used on me by my mother (a registered nurse who trained in the 1930's) when I was very ill as a child. Everything from hot and cold showers, to enemas, to bundling me up and placing me in the open air; icing, massage, so many practices that did not use drugs to make the body improve its own function came from within. Nourishment was always an important part of the healing process.

When we are young, there is less wear and tear on the body, mind or spirit (we would hope) compared to what we experience as adults. Social and environmental conditions begin to affect us more than they have in past generation, and even children are suffering early with more conditions that were previously not considered normal.

Young adults are generally notorious for eating poor food - in rebellion, sometimes - to what we were told to eat under our parent's direction. This shift away from what was at least thought to be better food - such as whole or unprocessed ones - can cause a more rapid than normal degeneration process leading to faster aging. Unfortunately, this type of degeneration has become the norm.

Minerals are key to good nutrition. Our emotional well-being, as well as our physical function needs minerals in large quantities. When we experience trauma - emotional trauma just as much as physical trauma - vast quantities of essential components found in food are used up by the body in an attempt to heal from within. They are used up at a much faster rate than they would be used for sustaining us when we are not under threat - for that is what trauma is - a threat to the self as a whole.

Click here for an article on Scientific American about fruit and vegetables becoming less nutritious.

The act of glaciation – its progress and retreat - spread minerals over vast areas of the northern hemisphere during the last Ice Age. Before we used up what had become mineral rich topsoil, it was circulated as volcanic dust on the jet stream, taken up from the loess or granulated volcanic debris that covered vast areas of the Earth’s surface. Mineral-laden basalt dust flowed into the water as glacial flour, long after the volcanoes had become glaciers, making even the water supply even more vital. Vulcanization and glaciation made us healthier.

When we are already in a depleted state (from consuming de-mineralized foods that also contain pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers), the body robs itself of these missing nutrients, drawing essential components from its own organ tissues causing energy decline or specific disease.

All forms of healing need to rely on the body to heal itself, through encouragement from outside sources; good, clean food and a healthy, stress-free environment. As we have already been depleted by foods we thought were healthy and full of nutrition, we now know why we are prone to either singular or systemic dis-eases that currently present themselves as routinely recognized conditions of poor health.

Trace Elements

An imbalance of trace minerals can cause severe pain and suffering. Numerous health problems have been identified by the National Health Association that can be related to insufficient intake of trace minerals, which are one of the fifty known essential components needed by the human body to sustain health. We need -

Oxygen -

Clean and well charged breathable air

Water -

Chemical and pesticide free, tested for bacteria

Essential amino acids -

8 needed for adults (11 for premature infants - 10 for children)

2 Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs) -

Alpha linoleic and linoleic acids

20 to 21 Minerals -

(Tin having been identified as the possible 21st trace mineral)

13 Vitamins -

(vitamins A&D must be balanced to avoid toxicity/increase absorption)

A source of energy -

FOOD; uncontaminated by foreign substances that are hazardous

Light -

needed for the assimilation of vitamins

Most of our foods - even those grown organically - can be significantly de-mineralised. Soil used again and again, especially replanted with the same crop, can not only loose minerals but physical substance (top spoil) which carries both organic and in-organic material that aids in the distribution of good bacteria.

Food, Culture and Society – studies by Weston Price

It is of interest that the diets of relatively contemporary but more primitive (isolated) cultures have shown a very high immunity to dental caries and freedom from other degenerative processes. International studies into nutrition by Weston Price in the 1930’s were ground-breaking. Price had been an American dentist of Canadian birth who founded the research wing of the American Dental Association known as the National Dental Associationwhere he identified a lack of good nutrition as the cause for most dental problems. In 1939, he published Nutrition and Physical Degeneration andshowed this to be the case; the foods of indigenous cultures contained at least four times the minimum requirements as what is recommended for optimum health in western culture today.

The following are some statistics on the foods eaten by a number of different groups, compared to what is generally eaten in affluent societies.

Upwardly progressive societies generally exist with what is referred to as displaced nutrition; eating food consisting largely of white-flour products, sugar, polished rice, jams, canned goods, dry or frozen processed foods along with vegetable fats which have invariably failed to provide even the minimum nutrient levels. The escalation of diabetes since the advent of fast food has increased at a terrible pace. From www.healthline.com –

            "Fast foods are typically high in calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar, and salt
            and can contribute to high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease"

At the time of the Weston Price studies, foods of the native Eskimos contained 5.4 times as much calcium as these displacing foods of the white man, five times as much phosphorus, 1.5 times as much iron, 7.9 times as much magnesium, 1.8 times as much copper, 49.0 times as much iodine, and at least ten times that number of fat-soluble vitamins. For the Indians in the far north of Canada, the native foods provided 5.8 times as much calcium, 5.8 times as much phosphorus, 2.7 times as much iron, 4.3 times as much magnesium, 1.5 times as much copper, 8.8 times as much iodine, and at least a ten-fold increase in fat-soluble activators. For brevity, we will apply the figures to calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron and fat-soluble activators in order.

The ratio in the Swiss native diets to that in the modern displacing diet was for calcium is 3.7 times greater; for phosphorus, 2.2  times; for magnesium, 2.5; for iron, 3.1 times and for the fat-soluble activators, at least ten fold. For the Gaelic peoples in the Outer Hebrides, the native foods provided 2.1 times as much calcium, 2.3 times as much phosphorus, 1.3 times as much magnesium and 1.0 times as much iron. Fat-soluble activators were evident in an increase at least ten fold.

For the Aborigines of Australia living along the eastern coast where they have access to sea foods, the ratio of minerals in the native diet compared to those people eating the displacing modernized foods was, for calcium, 4.6 fold; for phosphorus, 6.2 fold; for magnesium, seventeen times more and for iron 50.6 higher; vitamin fat-solubility was again, ten times greater and the same was true in the native diet of the New Zealand Maori with an increase in the native foods over the displacing foods of the modernized whites: 6.2 fold for calcium, 6.9 fold for phosphorus, 23.4 fold for magnesium, 58.3 fold for iron.

The Polynesians were similarly represented: 5.6 fold for calcium, 7.2 fold for phosphorus, 28.5 fold for magnesium, 18.6 fold for iron; and the fat-soluble activators were increased at least ten fold. The coastal Indians of Peru with their native primitive diets showed provisional increases of the displacing diet of 6.6 times for calcium, 5.5 for phosphorus, 13.6 fold for magnesium, 5.1 fold for iron; and again - an excess of ten-fold for fat-soluble vitamins.

For the Indians of the Andean Mountains of Peru, the native foods provided an increase over the provision of the displacing modern foods of 5 fold for calcium, 5.5 fold for phosphorus, 13.3 fold for magnesium, 29.3 fold for iron; and an excess of at least ten fold was provided for fat-soluble vitamins. For the cattle tribes in the interior of Africa, the primitive foods provided an increase over the provision of the displacing modernized foods of 7.5 fold for calcium, 8.2 fold for phosphorus, 19.1 fold for magnesium, 16.6 fold for iron and at least ten fold for fat-soluble activators. For the agricultural tribes in Central Africa the native diet provided an increase over the provision of the displacing modern diet of 3.5 fold for calcium, 4.1 fold for phosphorus, 5.4 fold for magnesium, 16.6 fold for iron and, once more ten times the fat-soluble activators. All above primitive diets provided also a large increase in the water-soluble vitamins over the number provided in the displacing modern diets.

It's of interest to note that in this portion of his work, Weston Price did not indicate the origin of the mineral resources listed. Each of the cultures mentioned who live on the Pacific Rim, also known as the Ring of Fire (the Polynesians, Peruvians and Maori) are living in volcanically active ecosystems. They have the highest rates of minerals in their diets.

The Requirement for Minerals in the Diet

For many years government has thought it important to provide us with information about the recommended daily allowance of the many nutritional components of food. This information must appear on all processed/packaged food goods - for humans and for animals. Many processed foods have supplements added to them to meet nutrient standards but what about the whole foods we eat that aren’t processed and aren’t required to wear this label?

Many people trust the wholesome goodness of fresh fruit and vegetables; if they are organic they should even be better. Whereas a balanced and varied diet may be able to provide the nutrients for health, is the average diet balanced and varied enough? On average are we actually getting nutrient rich foods that provide our nutrient needs? The other question is can we help optimise our health by getting back to the mineral levels we would have had decades ago before soils became so depleted?

The following table lets us know more about the benefit of our food, and their shortfalls.

There are numerous nutrient mineral deficiencies evident in the table above.

The list of researchers below worked in the field and in test centers, along with many others who can be found on the TERRA - Living Soil website. Their work spreads over a period of ninety years,all recognizing that our food is lacking in minerals because of a lack of minerals in the soil.

• Robert Able, salesman for sand & gravel industry, funded a three-year study by the USDA Agricultural Research Center of mineral fines and compost on corn, wheat and soybean rotation in which they performed as well or better than conventional fertilizers.
• Dr. Robert Bruck, a North Carolina forestry expert, conducted experiments in the 1980's that showed basalt trace element fertilizer renews dying forests and assures healthy, vigorous seedling growth on southern Appalachian mountaintops deforested by acid rain and air pollution.
• Dr. George Earp-Thomas,, New Zealand research scientist, discovered early in the 20th century that New Jersey soils were losing their minerals—especially trace elements.
• James Ruegg, retired New Jersey engineer, used ground-up lava rocks (basalt) to restore the productivity of a worn-out farm early in the 20th century.
• Julius Henzel was a German farmer who founded a movement to spread stone meal (volcanic rock) on farmland in the middle 19th century, before invention of soluble chemical fertilizers.
• Tom MacDonald, an organic farmer in upstate New York, discovered in the 1980's the benefits of glacial gravel dust (ground basalt), creating an abundance of healthy, disease resistant vegetable crops
• David Marsh describes the role of minerals in evolution, biology and ecology, and the purposes and practices of remineralization as a strategy to restore the Earth, regenerate forests and revitalize our food quality.

These men, along with the research by English author Graham Harvey, inspire us to provide naturally sourced volcanic basalt for remineralizing the soil in which our food grows, providing us with the nutrients we want and need for an optimally healthy life.