Minerals are also important for vitamins to do their jobs. Minerals act as co-enzymes and cofactors for both vitamins and enzymes. This means that vitamins and enzymes can’t do their job properly without the proper minerals — the purple connector pieces that enable us to finish the structure.
If God’s creative plan for the earth called for more than 100 minerals, we obviously need more than the 12-13 that the U.S. Government says are necessary for health. I tend to agree with Dr. Todd, who says we need 50 minerals — and even this might be a conservative estimate. All of the 90-plus minerals in the world today can be found in human tissue; at least 50 of them have various metabolic functions in maintaining health.
Obviously, minerals are vital to our health. But what type?
Three types of minerals will help us erase our deficiency and maintain total health = wholeness. They are metallic, chelated, and organic plant bound.
Metallic minerals are the worst of the three, because they are hard to digest and assimilate. Only 5-8 percent of metallic minerals are actually assimilated into the body; if you take 500 mg of metallic calcium, a maximum of 40 mg will actually be used. And that’s only if they’re fully digested, which can take 15-21 hours. Unfortunately, metallic minerals are the most commonly-used types in supplements sold. They are also less expensive than the other types.
Chelated minerals are metallic minerals that are bound to, or surrounded by, amino acids, which actually tricks the body into accepting the metallic minerals, making them easier to assimilate. Chelated minerals are assimilated at a rate of 40-50 percent, much higher than the 5-8 percent of metallic minerals. Unfortunately, metallic and chelated metallic minerals are hydrophobic, or less water-soluble.
Plant-derived, minerals are far superior than the other types for total health = wholeness, because they are almost 100 percent assimilated into the body. These minerals come from plants which have absorbed the metallic mineral through its root system and the synthesis of plant growth and life. Plants convert large hydrophobic metallic minerals into microscopic hydrophilic (very water-soluble) colloidal minerals, which absorb directly into the blood stream without going through the 15-to-21-hour digestion period. Colloidal minerals are up to a thousand times smaller than the smallest metallic mineral — and about .001 or 1⁄6000 the size of a red blood cell.
In a typical day, you take in 1.5 grams of minerals and about 500 grams of all other nutrients. So, minerals make up about .3 percent of your total daily nutrient intake. But without minerals, you wouldn’t be able to utilize the other 99 percent of the food you eat.
The best form of plant bound minerals are from living sprouts, sprouted seeds and from raw vegetables especially root and sea vegetables.
Let me tell you a short story about the value of plant-derived minerals. My wife, Laurie, started to experience chronic, severe leg cramps. She had been taking chelated metallic minerals for years, and didn’t know why she was having these apparent mineral-deficient leg cramps. She increased her chelated mineral to twice the recommended amount, and nothing happened. This kept up for six months. Finally, she started consuming plant bound organic minerals in the form of sprouted seed milk , and a day later, her leg cramps were completely gone. Needless to say, we were impressed.

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