Chapter 4 - The Blind Spot in Mineral Science: What We Never Measured, We Never Knew

A forensic look at how bureaucratic definitions and technological limits erased dozens of potentially life-supporting minerals from nutrition science

Yesterday, I was gifted the moniker ‘Mineral Muse’ by a reader who goes by ‘Le Chevalier Vit.’ I think the title they granted has to be a keeper (note the name of my blog). Even though I am pretty sure “muses” were traditionally women, and I am a man, with gender identity being so fluid these days, I’m pretty sure I can pull it off.

For those who don’t speak French, the reader’s moniker above stands for “Chivalry Lives.” You figure it out.

Anyway, if you survived Chapter 3, you now know why your spinach has the mineral density of a friggin' Post-it note. Modern agriculture didn’t just strip our soil—it quietly starved the entire food chain of vitality.

Hey, can I take a moment to thank all of you for turning “Mineral Month” into a bona fide thing on Substack? You guys rock—literally and metaphorically. Lookie here, my friends:

Love it, love it.

Fun fact: I only learned of the above when my close, Covid-found friend and colleague — the now 2nd-place “AMD” — called me last night to congratulate me. My God, that bitch/bastard has been #1 on the list forever. Not anymore! My “mineral minions” have vaulted me into “top spot” (for now). Yeah baby.

So what does this all mean? The mineral matrix that sparked life on Earth is returning to relevance after 3.5 billion years? On Substack? With my help? So weird.

Anyway, today, in Chapter 4, I show how the long-ago bureaucrats of mineral science, armed with early-20th-century lab gear and mid-20th-century arrogance, decided which minerals were “essential” and which were “irrelevant.”

Spoiler: if a mineral was hard to measure, it didn’t make the list. For decades and continuing to the present day, entire categories of potentially life-supporting trace minerals were erased—not by malice, but by measurement limits and institutional inertia.

We’re heading into the forensic crime scene of mineral science, where the victims are the minerals themselves, the suspects are the gatekeepers, and the smoking gun is the ICP-MS machine that showed up 50 years too late.

If you’re just joining us (or skipped ahead), no shame—head to the Table of Contents page to catch up. The mineral mystery only gets deeper.

Elements vs. Minerals

OK, folks, let’s start with the basics:

If you remember the periodic table from grade school, Earth contains 118 elements. An element is a pure substance made of only one kind of atom. At the same time, a mineral is a naturally occurring, inorganic solid with a crystal structure, usually formed from two or more “elements” chemically bonded together.

Apropos of nothing but a fun fact: scientists discovered the last element, “oganesson” (element 118), in 2016. Researchers may find more, but apparently they will be “very heavy” and “short-lived.”

Categories of Minerals

When you try to categorize minerals, the options seem endless: major vs. trace, essential vs. non-essential, primary vs. secondary (solidification within magma vs. appearing from erosion), hydrophilic vs. hydrophobic (dissolvable/non-dissolvable), and so on.

Although I will not use this categorization scheme to group minerals, I do feel it is essential to understand the differences in behavior between “hydrophilic” (water-soluble) and “hydrophobic” (water-insoluble) minerals.

Rocks and soil contain “metallic minerals,” which are hydrophobic and hard for the body to absorb. In contrast, both sulfated and/or plant-derived minerals are hydrophilic—they dissolve in water, carry a negative charge, and the body easily absorbs them.

Hydrophilic minerals deliver much greater benefits and bioavailability. The body uses only a small percentage of metallic minerals from rocks; it absorbs them and expels the rest as waste. Foreshadowing again—although metallic minerals from rocks are difficult to absorb, if they are sulfated, then they can dissolve in water, be ingested, be absorbed by the body, and be transported into cells.

The point: again, minerals form the very source of physical life. Even metallic minerals play a crucial role in balancing and metabolizing bodily functions. However, you cannot live on soil or rock because they are not alive or enzyme-active, unlike sulfated or plant-derived minerals.

These hydrophilic minerals, unaltered by man-made chemicals, are often described in the literature as “active” or “living minerals.” In nutritional science, they’re considered to play supportive roles in a wide range of cellular and organ processes.

Categorization Of Minerals And The Needs Of The Human Body