Chapter 3 - The Dying Ground: How Modern Agriculture Is Unmineralizing the Earth—and Ourselves

As we stripped the soil of its minerals, we unwittingly stripped vitality from our crops, our livestock, and the human body itself.

Mineral Month, Day #3: Good morning, my mineral minions, just bear with me, but I am still trying out my potential monikers for the month. I initially went with “Mineral Man,” moved to “The Mineral Maestro,” skipped “Mineral Moron,” and, for today, landed with “The Mineral Whisperer.”

Why This Is A Problem: Yesterday, I started a tradition of asking AI, before launching that day’s chapter, “What are the dumbest nicknames for the author?”

Out of the choices I got today, I chose “The Mineral Whisperer,” and that man is ecstatic. It will be my preferred identity for today—and just for today—it may —and almost definitely will —change by tomorrow.

My “mineral minions” are arriving in droves, my book is on fire, and “Mineral Month”, initially intended as a humorous (and feeble) promotional exercise, has become a real thing (who woulda thought?). I am beyond ecstatic. You guys are getting it so quickly!

Bobby and my MAHA friends, we haven’t talked in a while, but the minerals are coming —and coming strong. My non-profit, “Rebuild Medicine,” is reaching out for help with a systemic “mineral resurrection” across soils, water, livestock, and humans. I know, I know, it sounds very grand, but read the book and let’s talk.

CHAPTER 3

Problem: Soil is our natural source of more than 98% of human nutrition (and minerals). As land dwellers, our primary connection to minerals is through a diet of plants that extract and assimilate minerals from the soil as they grow, and secondarily through the meat of animals that eat plants. Minerals are essential for our well-being, yet they have long been taken for granted—overshadowed, in my view, by an obsessive focus on over-supplementing vitamins while only a small minority (to put it mildly) have given them the attention they deserve.

Again from Heinrich:

“Earth is a terrestrial planet, a solid sphere of rock with a metallic core. In the beginning, the terrain was all scalding rock, unbearable heat, and choking fumes. Since then, its surface has cooled, continents have drifted, mountains have risen and eroded, and life has emerged benign and green. Nearly all visible traces of the early planet have been wiped away. Plant and marine life emerged before land life evolved, and scientists believe that all land life in the beginning was vegetarian.There were at least eighty-four minerals (Ed: underestimate) everywhere near the earth’s surface, so plants from then were likely highly nutritious.”

Many geological models propose that, over what are believed to be millions of years, the Earth’s surface has been shaped by wind and rain erosion, along with the steady influence of continuous plant growth.

Yet one of the central tenets of this book is that, more recently— and more worryingly—modern farming practices over the past century, particularly the use of chemical fertilizers, have massively and precipitously depleted Earth’s surface minerals.

Now it is like a plague. The top three feet of soil (across the world, mind you), where our plants grow, is severely depleted of minerals compared to what they were a hundred years ago. When you test earth or volcanic ash from deep zones, you find anywhere from 60 to more than 100 minerals. But we don’t know what we don’t know. The majority of standard surface soil tests today, from anywhere in the world, assess no more than 20 minerals in our soils.

This mineral-poor soil, as you will learn, has serious repercussions on our well-being, and that is because, again, the mineral content of our plants and meat is directly related to that of the soil.

The Contribution Of Modern Agricultural Practices

Fertilizers and the Soil’s Natural Balance