Why Minerals Matter, Why Most People Are Deficient And How We Can Easily Get Them In Our Diet
It's one of the most profound paradoxes of our time….
Never before in history have we had access to so much food and eaten so much of it. The average American consumes 3,600 calories a day. One would think that within all those calories lies the nutrients we need to stay healthy.
Sure, perhaps we're a culture of overeaters and that's why well over a third of adults in the U.S. are overweight. But with all that food we're eating, surely we're getting the nutrients we need, right? Maybe we just need to eat less?
While eating too much and exercising too little are certainly to blame for the epidemic of metabolic diseases, the paradox is that we're a nation of overfed yet undernourished people.
The foods most people eat are woefully deficient in nutrients, especially minerals. In fact, over 90% of Americans are deficient in at least one vitamin or mineral.
Many people know that vitamins are important. Vitamin C fights free radicals. Vitamin A keeps our vision sharp. Vitamin E hydrates the skin. Vitamin D keeps our bones and immune system strong.
But what about minerals? Can you rattle off the functions and importance of, say, copper or chromium? How about molybdenum or magnesium?
Like Batman to Robin, minerals are the unsung superhero to vitamins. And unfortunately, even if you're buying organic foods at the supermarket, you still may be mineral deficient.
Why do minerals matter, why aren't we getting enough and what's one of the easiest ways we can make sure we're not one of the 9 out of 10 nutrient-deficient?
Why Are Minerals So Important For Optimal Health?
Every single function your body performs depends on adequate mineral intake. Your body needs minerals to repair, grow, sustain energy, produce blood, clot blood when you get a cut, contract muscles to lift weights or even a tiny paper clip. Minerals are nutritional co-factors that keep your heart beating, your enzymes reacting, your nerves firing, your hormones secreting, and your bones strong.
But before any system or organ in your body performs a function, your cells need to receive the message to initiate action. Your body is an amazing machine, consisting of a complex super highway network of electrical circuits.
Within these circuits, electrical impulses are fired. And it's minerals that conduct the impulses through the circuits.
You could say that minerals act like text messages, conducting messages for vitamins and other nutrients to communicate with every cell in your body.
It doesn't matter if you just ate a kale salad for lunch, if you're deficient in minerals, messages are not delivered to the cell and optimal health cannot be achieved.
Here are some functions minerals help fulfill in your body:
Nerve transmission
Oxygen transfer
Proper fluid balance
Blood sugar regulation
Muscle contraction
How Do You Know If You Are Mineral-Deficient?
Some of the most common signs of mineral deficiency include:
Fatigue or shortness of breath
Weakened immune system
Muscle cramps or restless leg
Irregular heart beat
Dramatic blood sugar fluctuations
Numbness or tingling in the extremities
Brain fog/poor concentration
What Are Some Of The Most Important Minerals?
All minerals are important. Minerals are like spark plugs for your 37.2 trillion cells. Without an adequate supply of minerals, your cells lack the catalyst to produce energy.
But certain minerals get more press that others. No doubt, you've heard about certain ones like magnesium, zinc, and potassium. Let's take a look at these and a few others….
The magnificent mellowing material, magnesium is the master mineral of relaxation. Millions of people suffer from leg cramps and restless leg syndrome. Oftentimes the culprit is magnesium deficiency.
Magnesium may also help prevent something even more serious than leg cramps and restless leg syndrome: premature death.
A study published in Journal of Intensive Care Medicine says a deficiency of this critical mineral makes you TWICE AS LIKELY TO DIE as other people.
A deficiency of magnesium can also result in poor sleep quality, says several studies such as this one published in the Journal of Research in Medical Sciences, which concludes, "Supplementation of magnesium appears to improve subjective measures of [sleeplessness] such as … sleep time and sleep onset latency, early morning awakening … melatonin, and serum cortisol, in elderly people."
Every function of the human body is either a cycle or a pump. Every muscle including your heart requires minerals to contract and then relax. Calcium controls contraction, magnesium controls relaxation. Without magnesium, there is no relaxation! Thus, without magnesium, we would all die of heart attacks because the heart would contract – but never relax.
It's estimated that 80% of people are deficient in magnesium, which is involved in hundreds of chemical reactions in the body.
Lots of people know calcium is involved in healthy bone formation. But lesser known is the fact that it's needed for blood clotting so we don't bleed to death from minor cuts and injuries.
Contrary to public opinion, bananas aren't all that rich in this mineral, which is needed for proper fluid balance, nerve transmission, and muscle contraction.
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Maintains healthy bone and teeth formation; regulates acid-base balance.
Like a computer software programmer, it's responsible for coding your DNA; heals wounds; keeps the immune system healthy and plays a vital role in sexual wellness.
One of the most important nutrients for your nervous system, blood vessels and connective tissue. Also develops the brain and activates DNA.
Necessary for optimal thyroid gland function. Also an important antioxidant and protects the body from infection.
Why Most People Need Mineral Supplements For Optimal Health
From the time dinosaurs roamed the planet until the 20th century, plants provided a plethora of health-building minerals. There are two major reasons why today's food supply is woefully deficient in minerals.
The first reason has its roots, not in the soil but in war. Processed food was developed in earnest, in the 1930s and 1940s to be able to ship food to soldiers a world away without spoiling. Almost a century later, much of our population consumes the bulk of its calories from processed foods, which despite the advantage of having a longer shelf life, contains poor nutrient density than minimally-processed and unprocessed, natural food.
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Today's supermarket apple is much less nutrient dense than an apple that grew decades ago? Why is that? This brings us to the second reason most people need supplemental minerals.
Beginning in the mid-20th century, modern agricultural methods were implemented in order to make food grow bigger and faster (yet not nutritionally stronger).
These methods depleted the soil, and each successive generation of crop has become less nutrient-dense.
As this article in Scientific American explains, a study on the nutrient quality of crops, was conducted by researchers from the University of Texas, and what they found was shocking.
Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, comparing the nutrient density of 43 different vegetables and fruits found significant declines in vitamins and minerals over 50 years, beginning in 1950. over the past half century.
In addition to the use of toxic pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, minerals are not as abundant in modern produce because of the following modern farming practices:
Monoculture crops
Not using manure for fertilizer and instead using chemical fertilizers
Genetically-modified organisms
The destruction of natural habitat for the creation of additional crop fields
The loss of biodiversity and other depressing reasons....
So maybe you're thinking, no biggie, I buy organic produce from the supermarket, the sad truth is that by the time you eat the fruits and veggies, some of the mineral content has been depleted.
That's why the most nutritious way to consume fruits and veggies is picking them at peak harvest right off the vine. And that's exactly what we do with the 55 mineral-rich ingredients in Organic Superfood Powder.
The short version of the story is that we simply aren't getting enough minerals from our food. Industrialized farming is destroying our soil and depleting minerals. The U.S. corporate food supply needs major reform, making it far easier for small scale farmers to be the backbone of our nation's nutritional needs instead of massive frankenfood operations sickening our citizens. Minerals matter for life. Without farming, we can't get the minerals we need. But factory farming has dramatically altered the soil.
Get More Minerals In Your Diet, The Easy Way
BōKU MINERALS are the easiest way to get your daily dose of health-affirming, life-supporting macro and trace minerals. Featuring the all-star mineral electrolytes such as magnesium, potassium and sodium, MINERALS also contains 56 trace minerals per serving.
We source our minerals from the Dead Sea, which has one of the highest concentrations of minerals on the planet.
If you want to be not only well-fed but also well-nourished, MINERALS are the easiest way to fortify your 37 trillion cells with the nutrition it needs to get your body functioning to the highest ability it can.
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