- Hybrid crops are bred for production or disease resistance, rather than superior nutrition.
- Superphosphate fertilizers produce higher yields by stimulating growth, but do not provide all the trace elements.
- Monoculture, the growing of just one crop over and over on the same piece of land, eventually depletes the soil.
- Toxic sprays damage soil microorganisms needed to help plants absorb minerals from the soil.
- Food refining and processing almost always reduce the mineral content of our food. Whole wheat flour, when milled to make white flour, loses 40% of its chromium, 86% of its manganese, 89% of its cobalt, 78% of its zinc and 48% of its molybdenum. Refining cane into sugar causes even greater losses.
- EDTA may be added to frozen foods to retain their color. However, this chelating agent removes minerals that otherwise would cause the surface minerals to ‘tarnish’, discoloring the vegetables.
SOURCES OF TOXIC METALS
There are various sources of toxic metals. They are:
- Food Sources. Food grown near highways or downwind of industrial plants may contain lead and other toxic amounts of metals. Sprays and insecticides still often contain lead, arsenic, mercury and other toxic metals. Refining of food often contaminates the food with aluminum, as it is found in water supplies everywhere.Also, food refining removes the protective zinc, chromium and manganese from food and leaves the toxic metals in some cases, such as cadmium. This makes white flour even more toxic, as with white sugar, and is another reason to totally avoid these foods.
- Lead is considered the most widely distributed toxic metal due to its many uses in industry. Pesticides used on fruits, vegetables and many other foods may contain arsenic, lead, copper, mercury and other toxic metals.
- Mercury and others from the sea. Fish, especially those caught near the coast or in contaminated streams or lakes, are universally contaminated. Mercury is found today in ALL FISH, bar none. Even small fish, which used to be safe, are not any more. This is sad as fish is otherwise an excellent food.Large fish concentrate mercury a million times or more. The federal government recently issued a warning that pregnant and lactating women should avoid tuna, shark, king mackerel and other large fish.
- Aluminum and Drinking Water. This is the most important source of toxic metals for most people. Aluminum, copper, toxic chlorides and fluorides are added to many municipal water supplies.
- Airborne Sources of Toxic Metals. Most toxic metals are effectively absorbed by inhalation. Auto and particularly aircraft exhaust, industrial smoke and products from incinerators are among the airborne sources of toxic metals and other chemicals.
- Mercury and coal-fired power plants. Burned high in the atmosphere, aircraft fuel deposits everywhere and affects everyone on earth. Burning coal can release mercury, lead and cadmium among other metals
- Cadmium and mercury in papers. Cigarette and marijuana smoke are high in cadmium, found in cigarette paper. Pesticides used on these crops may contain lead, arsenic and other toxic metals.
- Medications. Many patented prescription and over-the-counter drugs contain toxic metals. Cipro (fluoquinolones) and Prozac (fluoxetine) are fluoride-containing chemicals, for example.
DETECTING TOXIC METALS IN THE BODY
Toxic metals are not easy to detect. They lodge deep within tissues and organs. The most common methods of detection include hair, urine and feces tests.There are various methods to detect toxic metals: blood tests, challenges and hair tests.
Hair testing is also used and can reveal some toxic metals that are deposited in the skin and hair at the time the hair grows. The United States Environmental Protection Agency reviewed over 400 studies of the use of hair for toxic metal detection and concluded that:
“Hair is a meaningful and representative tissue for (biological monitoring for) antimony, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, vanadium and perhaps selenium and tin.“
Removal of Toxic Metals
The following methods will help remove metals from the body.
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