Vitamins and Minerals in the Bible?
Vitamins and Minerals. Twenty plus years ago, I was helping coach my son Peter’s high school soccer team. One day after practice, he challenged me to a foot race. He was the captain of the team, but I thought I could still keep up with him (oh, the foolishness of midlife). So we lined up with the other players and coaches watching; someone yelled go, and off we went, male egos and all. We were neck and neck about halfway down the field when it felt like a giant hand grabbed my ankle and threw me to the ground. As I struggled to stand up, I looked and there was a huge indentation in my left thigh. That pulled muscle created a hole that is still there to this day.
Pulled muscles had always been a problem for me, but the problem got much worse after I had a physically traumatic experience climbing Pikes Peak in Colorado. When we began the climb, we were told that we had to make the summit by a certain time because there was increased lightning danger after that. So with very little air, and quickly trying to climb from 6,000 ft. to the 14,000 ft. summit, I evidently pushed myself too far. I just remember the last hour or so, it took every big of will power to just put one foot in front of the other. I now realize that that event had depleted my already low mineral levels. I just didn’t feel right for months. This is a common experience for people who have had any kind of trauma. Joel Wallach says, “Exercise without supplementation is suicide” When I finally realized what I was suffering from, I took massive amounts of vitamins and minerals. About two weeks later the symptoms were gone. I was my old self again; except for the pulled muscles.
If you have one or more of the following symptoms, you probably have a copper deficiency: chronic pulled muscles, gray hair, varicose veins, hemorrhoids, sagging skin, crow’s feet, to name a few. I had most of these, especially pulled muscles. It got to the point that every time I went to play soccer, I would warm up and stretch for at least 15 minutes and within five minutes I had pulled a muscle. Some of them were quite serious. It just about ended my participation in soccer, one of my favorite pastimes.
After listening to a lecture by Dr. Joel Wallach, I realized my problem was not old age, but a severe copper deficiency. So I followed Dr. Wallach’s advice and began taking 2 mg of copper a day. In only a couple of weeks, I was able play soccer with only a minimum amount of warming up and stretching. The pulled muscles were gone!
Copper is the necessary nutrient for elasticity in our tissues, muscles, skin, arteries and veins.
Now for the most important information about copper; the most permanent symptom of copper deficiency is a ruptured aneurysm, which usually ends in death. If your veins aren’t elastic, they, like your muscles, will break or rupture instead of stretching. If you have any of the above mentioned symptoms, get some copper today. It is cheap and the capsules are some of the smallest and easiest to take. They could literally save your life.
Otherwise healthy people who may only lack one or two vital vitamins or minerals die by the thousands each year; I could have been one of them. So, where in the Bible does it say we need to take vitamin or mineral supplements? It doesn’t but there are some instructions in the bible that could keep us from having so many vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
Leviticus 25:1-5 “The Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai. Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath to the Lord. For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. But in the seventh year the land is to have a Sabbath of rest, a Sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest.”
From a Report of Bureau of Soils, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1923.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture stated as early as 1923, that our soils were completely depleted of minerals and that they must be supplemented. They also stated that it only takes 5-10 years to deplete the soil.3 God said let it rest every seven years, which gives the soil time to release its minerals and allows needed minerals to be available again to plants. By the way, some people assume that organically grown food is always better. Not if it is grown in depleted soil; plants cannot manufacture minerals that aren’t readily available in the soil. Plants can only absorb minerals that have leached out of the larger rocks and that takes time.
Christopher Byrd, a bestselling author, had the idea that all you need to do is eat organically grown food. He wrote “Secrets of the Soil” and “Secret Life of Plants.”4 He practiced what he preached and lived on organically grown food. He did not supplement with any vitamins or minerals. He believed that organically grown food was the answer to long life. He died at the age of 68, seven years short of the average American couch potato. He had a ruptured aneurysm, and died of a simple copper deficiency. Either letting the soil rest every seven years or supplementing his diet with a few pennies of copper per day and he might have lived to be 100.
According to Harvard Medical School, there are 14 essential vitamins and 16 essential minerals that you need to be conscious of for good health. Essential means that you cannot live without them in your diet. According to Dr. Joel Wallach there are 60 essential minerals, 16 essential vitamins, 12 essential amino acids and 3 essential fatty acids that have been identified so far.1 These nutrients are necessary for our bodies to function properly. The normal way for us to get the 60 essential minerals is for the plants we eat to extract them from the soil. Also, the best way for the animals we eat to get those minerals is to get them from plants that live in soil rich with those minerals. To sum it up, if it’s not in the soil, or not in the soil in a form that is available to the plants, it won’t be in the plants and if it’s not in the plants, it won’t get into you!
So, what did the Agriculture Department recommended to farmers in order to solve the problem of soil depleted of available minerals. They suggested adding nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. These three nutrients will make the plants grow big and green. But, if you have done your math lately, you will realize that three minerals are 57 minerals short of the 60 essential minerals that we need. I believe that had we followed God’s advice of allowing the land to rest every seven years, we would still have mineral rich land. Just a thought! And for you Bible history buffs. The people who followed these instructions lived long healthy lives. The Caleb. mentioned in the bible, was 85 and still strong enough to fight in hand to hand combat, with heavy swords.
“and now behold, I (Caleb) am eighty-five years old today. “I am still as strong today as I was in the day Moses sent me; as my strength was then, so my strength is now, for war and for going out and coming in.” Joshua 14:10b-11
What a stud, at 85 he was still as strong and healthy as he was when he was 40. He was also ready to prove it by physically taking on 20 to 40-year old’s who were in their prime.
Another interesting fact is that pre-flood mankind, according to the Bible, lived a lot longer than post flood mankind. Some excavations of preserved pre-flood vegetation have produced amazing findings. Unlike our present vegetation, this pre-flood vegetation had all 60 essential minerals.5 This would suggest that the crust of pre-flood earth had an even mixture of minerals whereas post flood mineral deposits are not nearly so uniform. If pre-flood vegetation had all 60 essential minerals and in the proper ratios. Wow, you don’t suppose that might be one of the reasons that pre-flood men and women lived to be 800 plus years old.
Woman with severe iodine deficiency goiter on her neck. and the tell-tale eyes.
My family lives in what is referred to as the goiter belt. It includes Oregon and Washington and extends across the top of the United States to the Great Lake region. This area has virtually no iodine in the soil. Doctors made the correlation between low iodine and goiters, so in response, our salt is almost all iodine enriched, (iodized salt). Before Iodine was added to salt, people living here were plagued with goiters. Unfortunately, Goiters are not the only problem with low iodine consumption. My wife does not get goiters but she often has a hard time maintaining a comfortable body temperature. She will be too cold or too hot. Taking Iodine supplements gives her body back it’s natural ability to adjust to temperature changes. Are you often too hot or too cold? You might need more Iodine.
The main point I am making is that we need all 60 essential minerals to live comfortably and healthfully past 100 years of age. If the soil has been depleted of minerals by overuse or the soil simply never had all 60 essential minerals, then you will either suffer or you will have to supplement your diet with minerals.
Next week I will share with you some very helpful resources, that you can use to find out what minerals and vitamins you may need in order to solve any lingering ailments you may have. I will also share with you some more common minerals and vitamins that you may need. I will also show you what to look for when buying vitamins and minerals, so can get the maximum benefit from them.
If you have any questions or comments about this or any other Wellnessgospel article, please feel free to contact me at chrisschauermann@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you.
If you believe God knows best, join us and the Wellness Gospel team and spread the word, share this with your friends on social media and may God bless you richly.
If you want to keep improving your health and like this kind of biblical, scientific information, then I would like to recommend three must-read books.
- “None of These Diseases” by S. I. McMillen, M.D. and David E. Stern, M.D.
- “Let’s Play Doctor” by Dr. Joel Wallach
- “God’s Guide To Biblical Health and Healing” by Rev. Chris & Shary Schauermann
You can get all these books at Amazon,com
- Wallach essentials http://nomdforme.com/faq/what-are-the-90-essential-nutrients/
- Harvard essentials http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/listing_of_vitamins
- Gray, L. C., O. E. Baker, F. J. Marschner, B. O. Weitz, William Ridgely Chapline, Ward Shepard and Raphael Zon
The Utilization of Our Lands for Crops, Pasture and Forests
InAgriculture Yearbook, 1923. Washington DC: United States Department of Agriculture; Government Printing Office (1923), p. 415-506. - https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Soil-Solutions-Restoring-Planet/dp/1890693243
- http://youngevity.com/index.cfm/plant-derived-minerals/
We lost all our baby goats our first kidding season due to low iodine in the mother goats. Now we take liquid minerals and organic vitamins, we learned that just because food looks good it may not have the vitamins and minerals we need!
Thanks for the great comment, I just recently had someone tell me that they were giving up on vitamins and minerals. They had decided to work harder at eating real food that gave them everything they needed. I agreed with their idea to eat well but suggested one caveat; if you come down with a vitamin or mineral deficiency disease, please get the book Nutritional Healing or Let’s play doctor. These two books list diseases and the vitamins or minerals that are lacking in your diet that created those diseases. If you can’t get it in your food then you must supplement, it is that simple. You have proved that with your goats. Thanks again.