"Our Immunity Very Much Parallels
 the Immunity of the Land"
 — Empty Harvest by Dr. Jensen

Soil Depletion

  — A Conspired Reality for the Breakdown of Health

[= Illness and Disease = $$$ for the Cancer, Pharmaceutical
and Chemical Industries]
 

Perhaps the best summary is by Dr. William A. Albrecht, Chairman of the Department of Soils at the University of Missouri, who said:

"A declining soil fertility, due to a lack of organic material, major elements, and trace minerals, is responsible for poor crops and in turn for pathological conditions in animals fed deficient foods from such soils, and that mankind is no exception."

Dr Albrecht goes further to unequivocally lay the blame:

"NPK formulas, as legislated and enforced by State Departments of Agriculture, mean malnutrition, attack by insects, bacteria and fungi, weed takeover, crop loss in dry weather, and general loss of mental acuity in the population, leading to degenerative metabolic disease and early death."

1992 Earth Summit Statistics

1992 Earth Summit Report* indicates that the mineral content of the world's farm and range land soil has decreased dramatically.

Percentage of Mineral Depletion From Soil During The Past 100 Years, By Continent:

* You may remember the 1992 Earth Summit by the fact that President Bush wouldn't sign any of the treaties.

** Some US farms are 100% depleted and some are 60% depleted, the average is 85% depletion as compared to 100 years ago. This is worse than in any other country in the world because of the extended use of fertilizers and "maximum yield" mass farming methods.

Fertilisers Are The Problem, Not The Solution

According to research in animal husbandry and from The National Science Foundation, animals require at least:

45 minerals, 12 essential amino acids, 16 vitamins, 3 essential fatty acids.

According to Gary Price Todd, MD, 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.

Why not just add more minerals?

Because it's too expensive for corporations with vested interests in the current system to fix the problem until the demand for fully nutritious food is higher. The demand won't increase until more people know about the result of mineral deficiency. More people won't get informed until scientists and others manage to inform the public.

This socio-economic perspective is confirmed by a US Dept. of Agriculture official that was quoted in Diet for a New America (John Robbins, Stillpoint Publishing, 1987). Quote: "...halting soil erosion and degradation would be prohibitively expensive."

In other words the situation is not going to be fixed any time soon.

NPK 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, farmers get paid to produce maximum yield per acre, not maximum nutrition, so why bother with producing healthy food?

In addition to causing mineral depletion, fertilizers also weaken the crop which in turn makes it more subject to insects. This in turn forces the farmers to use toxic chemicals to kill the insects. Dr Jerome Weisner, Science Councillor to John F. Kennedy, stated way back in 1963 that "The use of pesticides is more dangerous than atomic fallout."

His words are simply a deafening reverberation from those of Rachel Carson in her incisive work of 1962, 'Silent Spring', where she says "We are rightly appalled by the genetic effects of radiation...How then, could we be indifferent to the same effect from farm chemicals used freely in the environment."

Few people know that these clear thinkers were simply expounding on the writings of Amerige Mosca, Italian Scientist and winner of the Science Prize at the Brussels World Fair in 1958.

He tried to stop the fire, which is now burning out of control, when he warned us that. "The damage resulting from nuclear radiation is the same as the damage resulting from the use of toxic genetic chemicals. The use of fungicides of organic syntheses annually causes the same damage to present and future generations as atomic fallout from 14,500 atomic bombs of the Hiroshima type (approximately 29 X 14 megaton hydrogen bombs)."

Sadly, Mr. Mosca's full report was classified for 50 years by the Italian Government. On top of everything the farmer is encouraged to spray vegetables with wax in order to provide a nicer look and increase sales and profits.

When consuming mass produced (non organic) food one is definitely at risk of eating more toxic chemicals, not to mention genetically engineered food that looks fresh for a suspiciously long time, but has questionable effects on your physiology.

Organic Food, Still not Good Enough

You might think that the solution to the problem is to eat only organically grown food. That is obviously a healthier choice because you get more minerals and less toxic chemicals into your system while eating organic food (see table below).

However you don't get the 60 colloidal minerals from organic foods, therefore it is essential for people that eat organic food to supplement with both major and colloidal minerals.

Can We Remineralise the Soil

Is it possible to fix our depleted soils? Many agricultural specialists have said yes it is. Can check out:  http://www.remineralize.org/

More Information

"In the future, we will not be able to rely anymore on our premise that the consumption of a varied balanced diet will provide all the essential trace elements, because such a diet will be very difficult to obtain for millions of people" — Dr. Walter Mertz, U.S. Department of Agriculture, told to congress in 1977.

Dr. Linus Pauling the two-time Nobel Prize winner states that:

"You can trace every sickness, every disease, and every ailment to a mineral deficiency.

"Mineral insufficiency and trace elements insufficiency are more likely to occur than are vitamin insufficiency states. Because of differing geologic conditions, minerals and trace elements may be scarce in the soils of certain regions and rich in those of other regions. 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" — The Doctor's Vitamin and Mineral Encyclopedia

In Dr. Jensen's book, Empty Harvest, he talks about how many of our illnesses are correlated with our improper stewardship of the land. Our immunity very much parallels the immunity of the land. Of special mention is that trace minerals are very depleted in our soils. Veterinarians have long since known this, which is why there are some 45 trace minerals added to dog and livestock food. They would much rather spend a few cents everyday than hundreds of dollars on vet bills!

Dr. Charles Northen, MD researcher reports that, "In the absence of minerals, vitamins have no function. Lacking vitamins, the system can make use of the minerals, but lacking minerals vitamins are useless."

Gaylord Hauser, from his book, "Diet Does It", concurs by stating, "Minerals are certainly as important to us as vitamins, yet minerals are overlooked, neglected and their value underestimated."

What is Ideal Soil?

Soils must be considered as a living system - an interface between soil biology, chemistry, and physics. Healthy soils have billions of microbes per tablespoon. Calcium is the predominate nutrient (ion ~atom) in soil chemistry. Manage the soil's chemistry and physics, and the biology naturally follows.

5% Organic Matter - Decaying trash-organic matter - made into humic acid by microbes

• Humus, humic acid (organic complex molecules) protein enzymes, carbon, vitamins, growth regulators, sugars and amino adds to name a few.
• Natural chelater & greatly reduces leaching.
• You want all your nitrogen (ammonia) and sulfur in this form.
• You want microbes to feed on organic trash (carbon) and assimilate nutrients such as calcium, phosphate. and metals.

45% Rock Minerals - Volcanic in origin - rock minerals

• Calcium carbonate (lime), calcium phosphate, gypsum, and shells.
• Clay- expanding and non expanding which microbes find nutrients & produce sugar. High ability to keep nutrients from leaching.
• Potassium feldspars - rock dusts.
• This chemistry fraction of the soil is responsible for the beginning of the whole growth process.
• 70% - 80% of the soil needs to be calcium dominated.
• Want 7 parts calcium to one part magnesium.
• Calcium is the queen and king of nutrients.
• Calcium Carbonate (limestone CaCO3).
• Rock Phosphate and bone meal (Ca3P2O5).
• Gypsum (CaSO4).

25% - Air

25% - Water  

Building healthy soil takes time and inputs. In time, erosion will be virtually eliminated, and water needs will be dramatically reduced. Insect and disease problems will be all but eliminated. After your soils are built (healthy) inputs will only be needed in order to maintain fertility. Nitrogen is the number one cause of insect and disease problems. Optimum soil pH 6.2 - 6.4.

Healthy soil will not stick to your shoes or hands.

Healthy soil smells like the earth (forest).

Quality fruit will not rot.

[More on Dr William AlBrecht]

Since the Introduction of the NPK "Fertilizer":



Addendum to the Earth-Human Harming Toxic Fertilizers Used in Commercial Farming Practices

Sewage Sludge

America Leads the World in Micro-Nutrient Depleted Soil!

This fact has been widely documented and published for more than 60 years. Articles and books on the subject have been written by many notable doctors and pioneers in exposing the relationship between poor soil health, nutrient deficiencies and disease. Dr. Royal Lee, Dr. Bernard Jensen, Dr. Francis Pottinger, Dr. Weston Price, Dr, William Albrecht and Dr. Rene Quinton to name but a few. 70 years ago, in 1936 the US government in US Senate Document 264 from the 74th Congress stated: "Do you know that most of us today are suffering from certain dangerous diet deficiencies which cannot be remedied until the depleted soils from which our foods come are brought into proper mineral balance? The alarming fact is that foods, fruits and vegetables and grains, now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contain enough of certain needed minerals, are starving us — no matter how much of them we eat!" This government document was created 70 years ago. The U.S. government knew as far back as 1936 that our soil, thus our food supply was deficient in life sustaining and health promoting minerals. Has this situation changed for the better since then? No, it is far, far worse!

Our mineral deficient food supply is so bad that the largest anti-supplement, anti-health food, and anti-alternative medicine group, The American Medical Association, published two articles in their June 2002 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, reversing a long-standing anti-vitamin policy. Robert H. Fletcher, MD, MSc, and Kathleen M. Fairfield, MD, DrPH, of Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health concluded in their article, “A large proportion of the general population has less-than-optimal intakes of a number of vitamins, exposing them to increased disease risk. In addition, they counsel that, it appears prudent for all adults to take vitamin supplements.”

The average American eats a diet high in white sugar, white bread, white rice, sodas and “fast food”. Our foods are saturated with artificial dyes, flavorings, herbicides, pesticides, saturated fats, trans-fats, processed sugar, and excito-toxins like, MSG and Nutra-Sweet®. Our foods are either aided by growth hormones, antibiotics or genetic engineering. Our foods are microwaved, heat pasteurized & hot filled, reconstituted and fortified. You are what you eat. Think about that for a moment.

“In order for man to continue to live on earth, he must make some fundamental changes. He must look to the oceans of the world as a source of needed elements. These elements must be returned to the soil so that better quality and more healthful foods can be produced. Man must stop the destruction of the soil”

(Maynard Murray, M.D. (1910-1983).

”When we think of health, we usually don't think of dirt. But dirt, or soil, is the primary factor in maintaining our nutritional health because all our food comes from the earth. Since our bodies are literally composed of the ’dust of the earth,’ meaning minerals, healthy bodies are connected to healthy soil. If any element is missing from the soil, then it will be missing from the foods we eat and as a result, we will not be properly nourished. Unfortunately, our commercial methods of agriculture are not only depleting the soil of precious trace minerals, they are also destroying the ability of plants to be able to utilize those elements. Hence, our food is nutritionally deficient right from the start. To make matters worse, our food gets refined and more of its nutritional content is removed in the process. While there are still those diehards in the medical community who preach the old dogma that supplements aren't necessary if you eat a ’balanced diet,’ it is nonetheless a fact that animal feeds — ALL contain nutritional supplements. Agricultural experts recognize that farmers must supplement animal feeds. They know that grain and other foodstuffs do not contain enough nutrients to maintain healthy livestock without adding supplements. If animals can't stay healthy eating our modern crops, how can human beings?“

Solutions to Mineral-Depleted Soils and Our Health

Many individuals are experimenting with, and producing, viable solutions to soil depletion. As discussed in a previous article, soil depletion is a serious problem for the world's population because of the quality of food. No longer can we rely on food to contain a good quantity of minerals and vitamins, especially food produced for, or by, large agribusiness organizations in mineral-depleted soils.

The richest countries in the world now have populations with reduced capacity to fight off disease due to weakened immune systems caused by an overload of chemicals in the body, as well as, by a lack of nutrients. The time is now to adopt solutions.

To those working with soil, the solutions are clear. The soil must have a biology; a viable ecosystem. Current farming practices have ensured a sterile ecosystem in which micro-organisms, nutrients, even natural life itself, are absent. The use of chemical fertilizers rids the soil of the good bacteria needed to sustain life.

According to Michael King (Herbalist, Author on self-healing, soil health, environment), a good soil needs five key elements. These are:

(1) A complex of the full range of minerals – clay, rock dust, seaweed and sea solids;

(2) A good amount of amorphous silica

(3) Humus/humic substances (dead organic material)

(4) Mycorrhizae (a crucial relationship between plant roots and fungi that improves nutrient uptake)

(5) Abundant soil biology

These elements encourage nutrient uptake, as well as unlock and modify minerals in the soil, creating a healthy ecosystem and thus, healthy, nutrient-rich plants.

Clay is typically formed from volcanic ash and acquired various organic and inorganic content over time. However one type of clay from north west USA, a pyrophyllite clay, is made underground and is reported to have a high amount of silica necessary to make minerals bio-available, as well as, the ability to detoxify soils, amongst other impressive qualities. 

According to Don Weaver (Author of To Love and Regenerate the Earth) in an article called "Restoring Our Earth to Vibrant Health," California's largest organic farm, called Cal-Organic, used 3,000 tons of rock dust to re-mineralize the soil.

Rock dust is gravel from a range of rock types – glacial, river, and seashore. The dust contains a range of elements and trace minerals, and helps balance the pH level of the soil, as well as improves the soil biology, leading to better crops.

Many people have reported success using seaweed and other elements from the sea which contain a large amount of minerals. Like clay and rock dust, the benefits of ocean food is to improve biology of the soil as well as the uptake of nutrients.

The solution to improve the biology of the soil using the elements discussed can be implemented straightaway. Is there a need for any research, further debate or to wait any longer?

It is becoming clear that certain priorities will need to be established with regards to our health and that of the environment. How important are these as opposed to the financial welfare of organizations? How will health systems cope with more and more illness and who is to pay?

It will also be important to determine what role, if any, producers of agricultural chemicals will play. If they were savvy, they would have already started to work in partnership with us, the people. They would have clear and honest policies that overturn current untenable ones that have put money before our health, the health of wildlife, farm animals, and the environment. If they were concerned about us, they will acknowledge their mistake and work as an integrated, open, ethical body to ensure we have access to affordable, good quality nutrient-rich food.

We cannot rely on governments to protect our health, our finances maybe, but not our health. We can take action. We can buy organic food grown in nutrient-rich soils. We can refuse to buy canned fruits and vegetables, and we can refuse to buy fresh fruits and vegetables from supermarkets known to stock poor quality ones.

We can urge our shops to start creating policies that ensure we can buy good quality food from them, preferably affordable organic food grown locally by farmers, or if that fails, create a co-operative or a group to purchase directly from organic farmers. Our health is in our hands.
 

http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/002434.html 

More on Fertilizers and Heavy Metal in our Soils

Dr. Linus Pauling the two-time Nobel Prize winner states that:
 "You can trace every sickness, every disease, and every ailment to a mineral deficiency."

Mineral Deficiency:  Linked to Every Disease and Sickness

http://healthydebates.com/mineral-deficiency-linked-every-disease-sickness/

Mineral depletion over the last century or so has been terrible, which in turn has effected the natural mineral levels in our soils, and therefore natural mineral levels in the food that we consume. Over recent decades, this problem has only gotten worse, as we continue to strip the soil around the world of up to 80 trace minerals that are essential for optimum health.

As it turns out, every ailment or sickness that you experience is due to a mineral deficiency. Therefore, if you have sufficient levels of all of your minerals, you are the closest you will ever get to “perfect health.”

“You can trace every sickness, every disease, and every ailment to a mineral deficiency.”

– Dr. Linus Pauling, two-time Nobel Prize winner

“The lack of minerals is the root of all disease.”

– Dr. Gary Price Todd


How Important is Mineral Consumption?

With these vital minerals being the most basic of building blocks for proper health and nutrition, the above statements can hardly be considered exaggerations. To put it plainly, in a world with no minerals, nothing works. Enzymes and amino acids won’t work, therefore nutrients and vitamins can’t be broken down and absorbed. The world population would have major deficiencies in both minerals and vitamins. The final result would be a disease-stricken world full of poor health, where nothing biologically really works as it should… a world we are quickly making a reality.

“In the absence of minerals, vitamins have no function. Lacking vitamins, the system can make use of the minerals, but lacking minerals, vitamins are useless.”

– Dr. Charles Northern, researcher and MD

Nature works in a way that is best described as “everything returns to the Earth.” Root systems of trees will pull minerals from deep in the soil, die, and then decompose. This process returns these minerals to the soil, but at a much higher depth that animals and even humans can benefit from. Animals that consume these minerals will also die, decompose, and be returned to the soil. On a similar level, human and animal waste matter is also returned to the soil.

In our modern and present-day world, humans have disrupted this natural “circle of life”, lowering mineral replenishment by removing most waste and dead animals, clear-cutting trees and forests to make land for crops, and over-farming virtually all soils without allowing nature the time for micro-organisms to convert any remaining minerals into a usable form for plants. As a result of the addition of petro-chemical fertilizers, today we really only return nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to the soil, which might bring lush growth, but growth that is lacking nutrients on a major level.

“The alarming fact is that fruits, vegetables and grain now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contain enough of certain minerals are starving us—no matter how much of them we eat. No man of today can eat enough fruits and vegetables to supply his system with the minerals he requires for perfect health because his stomach isn’t big enough to hold them.”

– Senate Document 264 regarding mineral deficiencies affecting U.S. farmland, (issued in 1936)

Minerals & Nutrition: Those Were the Days

We’ve applied herbicides and pesticides that actually kill off vital micro-organisms, that are responsible for converting remaining minerals into usable forms for plants, which as a result, effects animal and human mineral consumption.

As a result of extended use of “maximum yield” farming methods and fertilizers, North American soil content has had an average of 85% mineral depletion spanning over the last 100 years, making it the most depleted of any continent on Earth.

Just to offer an example, spinach we eat today contains maybe 15% of the nutrition that the same spinach would have contained 60 years ago. In the end, our society today is that much more unhealthy, and it’s obvious everywhere that you look.

Body Trying to Tell Me Something?

Obesity is another major area where mineral deficiency shows its ugly face, in addition to poor immune system support and poor overall health. In the same way that cats and dogs eat grass when they know by instinct that they are either deficient in minerals and vitamins, or need a little extra to combat an illness or infection — it is believed that the human body sends similar instinctive signals that it is missing vital minerals and nutrients. However, it seems that we no longer recognize what it is our bodies are telling us and where to find what we need to silence these signals.

The confusion over some of these signals often leads to cravings, which results in eating and eating to satisfy them, but what our bodies really crave is the missing minerals and nutrition. Rather than turn to a healthy way to furnish minerals, [through cellular support], we continue with the S.A.D. diet (Standard American Diet), which include nuked meals, junk food, sweets, fast foods, etc. A lot of us can relate to the familiar scenario of eating to the point of nearly getting sick, yet still feeling hungry for “something”. That something is most likely missing minerals.

Conclusion

Think of all of the money you have ever spent on “healthy products” over the years trying to better yourself. If you are eating well, dieting, popping vitamins, or working out every day in pursuit of “perfect health,” your attempts will fall short without the help of natural minerals as a part of your diet. You won’t understand until you experience sufficient mineral levels for yourself.

The depletion of these minerals throughout the world has made it extremely difficult to maintain sufficient levels of the minerals that your body requires. Consider a natural & organic mineral supplement to maintain these levels. The amount of money you will spend on fruits and vegetables alone trying to acquire the same minerals will be astronomical.

The Deficiency of Vitamin D Leads to Chronic Disease and Cancer

 

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