What’s in Your Soil?
That healthful looking green leafy stuff in your fridge may not be as great for you as you think. How could that be you ask? Well…Let me explain.
First, a brief ecology lesson;
- Healthy organic soil contains microorganisms* or microbes
- These microbes work to break down plant matter in the soil
- This breakdown of vegetation creates byproducts, such as humate deposits in the soil
- Humate deposits are rich in many amazing minerals, such as fulvic acid and humic acids
*Soil microorganisms can be classified as bacteria, actinomycetes, fungi, algae and protozoa. Each of these groups has characteristics that define them and their functions in soil.
So, how does this relate to your lettuce?
Right now, less than 4% of the soil in North America is certified organic farmland, and worldwide chemically based farming practices are continually polluting the soil. The soil your vegetables were grown in.
This means the valuable microbes are either being killed off or mutated by the likes of herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers, ultimately leading to mineral depletion, first in the soil, then in your body. Without these precious microbes even re-mineralizing the soil is futile, as the humates and fulvic acids are still missing.
Ok, on to that lettuce finally! Chances are it was grown in an environment that was lacking microbes, and thus the creation of humates and fulvic minerals are almost nil to very low. As a result, the lettuce is lacking in minerals even though it may look lush and green.
"I get it, sick soil means my lettuce is lacking."
But what effect does this have on my health? And what’s this fulvic acid stuff you keep talking about?
We’ll get to that but first let's take a quick look at world health.
It’s hard not to see that disease is on the rise worldwide. The cancer statistics are terrifying and it’s been announced that the life expectancy in the US has dropped for the first time in 22 years!
Here’s a stat:
100 years ago, 1 in 8000 was expected to get Cancer, today that number is higher than 4 in 10!
Scary or what!?
What’s causing all this? Well…there are many factors involved, but we are going to talk about a big one.
Mineralization is defined as the process in which an inorganic substance precipitates in an organic matrix.
Yes, it sounds confusing but let me break it down for you. When it comes to mineralization in the body (ie, getting our nutrients), this is how it happens,
- Inorganic substance are the minerals/nutrients you get from food or supplements
- Precipitates is NOT rain, it’s just a fancy chemistry term used for ‘is deposited in’
- Organic matrix in this case equals the human body at the cellular level
Mineralization or nutrition absorption is the process of minerals being deposited into your body and then get absorbed into your cells.
But they have trouble doing this on their own; that’s why today so many of us are deficient.
Minerals/nutrients received by your cells, are vital to health, and the link between disease and missing minerals has been proven time and time again. (Micronutrients in health and disease, A Shenkin)
But if ingesting minerals/nutrients alone doesn’t complete the mineralization process then how do we fix this?
This is where our humates (the fulvic and humic acids) come into play.
- The humates in the soil allow the plant to easily uptake nutrients and minerals from the soil.
- When we eat these plants, the nutrients come into our body and then the humates go to work.
- The fulvic acid adheres to the minerals, the humic acid dilates the cell membrane allowing the minerals to easily pass through cell membrane allowing the mineralizing process to take place - at the cellular level.
"Without the help of our friendly fulvic and humic minerals, we miss out on the minerals being properly absorbed by the body."
How can I make sure I get my fulvic acid?
When growing food in a microbial rich environment, it creates an ideal ecosystem for the uptake of nutrients by the plant. These nutrient dense plants are chocked full of beneficial things like fulvic and humic minerals that we will immensely benefit from.
There’s a number of ways you can ensure you’re eating nutrient dense greens.
- Plant a container (or potted) vegetable garden, or raised garden in your yard to grow your own vegetables during the Spring/Summer/Fall months. Make sure you find living, organic and unsterilized soil with microbial nature in it. Unfortunately soil found commercially may be deemed “organic” but it may still contain various fertilizers. Or ideally you know a soil cultivator who is maintaining a microbial rich soil, using worms (commonly known as worm castings). Knowing your soil provider is as important as knowing your food farmer!
- Purchase bio-dynamically grown produce directly from a farmer or a vegetable grower, who can confirm the origin and contents of the high quality soil they use to grow in. The key to this path is to know your farmer intimately. Ensure they don’t use pesticides or fertilizers on the soil/plants, and better yet use biodynamic farming practices if possible. Organic certification varies and many of the organic fertilizers being used, even in organic farming, are being found carcinogenic.
- Select an indoor growing system that requires minimal energy output, uses microbial rich organic Canadian soil to enable even ‘Black Thumbs’ (aka people who can’t grow anything) to grow a wide variety of high-density greens. There are more and more units coming on to the market, mostly hydroponics or similar water based growing systems that can grow plants really well, but they fail to respond adequately to the question about whether the plants grown are effectively mineralizing the body. Modgarden’s tinyFarm focuses on ensuring the soil used is pure, living, embodies the biodynamic nature, ie, taking you back 100 years to when our soils were pure. While you can’t bring nature into your home, tinyFarm’s quest is to mimic pure untouched nature as much as possible and brings it indoors in a convenient, modular, affordable design.
Take control of your health, by ensuring your healthful looking greens have the necessary minerals in them, creating the disease defense we all need.
You ARE what you eat. You eat what’s grown in healthy, living soil!
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