The Soil, The Food, Our Bodies and the Missing Link

Well I finally did it. I planted a garden last month. It marks the end of years of wistful thinking of “could haves”, “can Is?” endless reading, researching and questions. The biggest issue I had to overcome was the thinking that only expert gardeners can grow successfully. I came. I saw. I planted. And it grew. I am now officially a gardener. 

After years of sharing natural, holistic information on this site, I feel as though I’ve reached a circle of completeness, tying in the knowledge and now the experience of getting my hands dirty…planting a seed and watching it grow.

For the longest time, I felt it was imperative to learn how to tend and care for a garden. For one, to honor my mother’s legacy. She was a wonderful gardener, tending the earth to grow tomatoes, rhubarbs, strawberries, watermelons, grape and much, much more. Secondly, I desired a hands-on connection to understanding my food and nutrition.

We are all products of our environment. This is an elemental and basic principle of life. Teach a child the way they should go and they will not depart from it. Pressure makes diamonds and practice make perfect. When planting a seed, it is amazing to consider the life that is in the soil. It is teeming with purposeful activity. Tilling my garden for the first time ever, I saw worms, grubs, super small squiggly things, pale “baby” cicadas and other strange forms of life. Even smaller than that, microorganisms work hard to create enzymes for the plant life and foliage that we take for granted on a daily basis. They construct the habitat needed for the plants we consume for sustenance and nutrients. Each gram of healthy top soil has in excess of four billion microorganisms that manufacture biochemicals essential to plant and animal life.⁵ It is said that microorganism activity in preparing one acre of topsoil expends the energy equivalent to 10,000 people doing the same amount of work in the same amount of time.⁵ In order for soil microorganisms to be healthy, all minerals need to be present in the soil. Studies show that they (microorganisms) provide protoplasm compounds for every living organism above ground¹. What if those hard-working microorganisms don’t get all the elements needed for the perfect environmental setting?

Most of the elements in the soil are used by the microorganisms in making enzymes. A

shortage of elements means a shortage of enzymes. A shortage of enzymes means a shortage

of compounds catalyzed by the enzymes, and hence malfunction of enzyme systems in all the

life forms dependent on the soil mineral supply. The fact that Johnnie can’t read and that we

have a $200 billion annual national medical bill both stem from the same cause—a poor

delivery of elements from the soil in both quantity and balance¹.

The Age of Chemical Agriculture

Today most of our top and subsoil have been virtually stripped of elements save for a few. To create healthy soil organisms for quality foliage, re-mineralizing the soil back to health is extremely vital. Once it was believed and determined that NPK (chemical) fertilizers could stimulate plant growth, the age of chemical agriculture was born. Chemical agriculture espouses, a now debated, solution that exchanges ions with plant roots and clay particles. While chemical fertilizers release enough elements to grow sufficient microorganisms, once it is used up, the production of microorganisms die off. Soluble industrial chemical fertilizers, processed from mineral deposits, act selectively. Dissolving some stones while leaving others unaffected. A stone particularly unaffected, silicate stones, form the bulk of the soil and contain elements useful to plant life, in silicone dioxide, which is glass. Glass is not affected by chemical fertilizers.¹ The result? Some elements are removed from the soil and others are not made available.

Our Soil – An Incomplete Puzzle 

This unbalanced soil composition is also severely lacking in Humus, a black/brown complex of carbon-containing compounds, in other words, decomposed natural organic matter. Natural organic matter is basically decomposed plant and animal matter. This decomposition is made up of several essential components, made available by soil microorganisms; Humin, Humic Acids, and Fulvic Acids. The Humus provides a source of energy for soil microorganisms and soil animals. Healthy, fertile soil must contain carbon containing compounds to sustain the microscopic world that creates fertile soil and healthy plants. Fertile soil should have 28% of organic matter. That number has dwindled down to 2%.²  Modern, monoculture farming practices are said to have contributed to this breakdown, meanwhile, the residence time for these essential humic substances are:

• Humin – 1,140 years
• Humic Acids – 1,235 years
• Fulvic Acids – 870 years²

Fulvic Acids – The Missing Piece?

Fulvic acids are supercharged electrolytes, created by the soil microorganisms via microbial decomposition of the natural organic matter of ancient forests and ideal weathering conditions over generations. Fulvic acids are  a powerful electrochemical transporter of nutrients, chelators of metallic minerals, aids in the absorption of minerals and nutrients and many more important functions needed for healthy plant life. Because Fulvic acids are very low in molecular weight, smaller than humic acids, they are able to permeate cell walls, even mitochondria^3, Their low molecular weight, lends to their super function capacity. Because they can pass through cell walls, they are a super detoxifier, cleaning out cells. As more and more attention is being brought to this missing component in our soil, many scientists are calling it the missing link in our health. Millions of years prior to the existence of chemical agriculture, the earth was once rich with superlative soils and growing conditions. This is evidenced by the discovered humic deposits, opulent in fulvic acids. The vegetation then was also prosperous and affluent. We know this by the remains that formed into oil and coal deposits.⁵

Today our soil tells a different story in a different time. With our soil lacking in elements (minerals) and fulvic acids, it would explain why fruits and veggies purchased in the supermarket contain 5% to 40% fewer nutrients than they did 20 years ago ⁴.  It takes generations to create this refined and complex component. Simply composting our soils and gardens will not create the fulvic acids needed to optimize plant life.

The good news is fulvic acids are found in deposits in varying places. It is extracted to be consumed orally and it can be added to your garden for super organic gardening. I’ve been using fulvic acids in my garden. Here are before and after pictures of my cucumber plants.

Fulvic Acids’ History as a Treatment

“Re-mineralization of soils would be of little benefit without microbes, the fulvic acid they produce, and return to better farming practices. Re-mineralization of our bodies without the fulvic acid that should be contained in the plants we eat, has proven just as useless. People are sick with degenerative and deficiency related diseases now more than ever. With fulvic acid supplementation and return to proper diet and farming practices these situations have the potential to be remedied.”⁵

The amazing benefits of fulvic acids is not a new discovery. Its uses towards health have been documented in the 15th century Ming Dynasty by Li Shi Zhen, a famous medical doctor. Using humic and fulvic acids as an active ingredient, Li Shi Zhen, applied treatment to infectious ulcerous growths.⁵ Prior to the 70’s, China used humic and fulvic acids in hospitals with success. Hundreds of studies and research papers have been published nationally in China and Chinese doctors now use fulvic-related medicine as a treatment.⁵ Doctors of the Himalayans have long claimed the benefits of shilajit, a humic substance rich in fulvic acids. The peoples of this region are known to live 100 years and beyond. The infamous, longevity of the people of the Himalayan belt is documented and now substantiated by leading medical hospitals and pharmacologists around the world.

The Marketing Hype

We live in a day and age where commercialism greases the wheels of our society. Because fulvic acids are super complex and refined, science is not able to duplicate nature’s elixir into a synthetic form and therefore it offers little opportunity for capitalistic gain. Fulvic acids are instead extracted from ancient deposits. As empowered consumers of a commercialistic society, we would be wise to understand HOW these substances are extracted to avoid falling prey to inferior products. The importance of quality cannot be overstated. Many of us that depend on products to maintain health, often times go for the least expensive, easily attainable, supplement. Typically inferior products lack the desired results and may even have an opposite effect…and we end up losing the very money we’re trying to save. The quality of a product…not the branding…will speak for itself.

Naturally, as investors in our own health, we want something as close to the natural as possible. Ninety-nine percent of manufacturers use the acid extraction process which leaves a lot of salts, thereby creating an acidic product with low Ph levels. To combat low Ph levels, bases and acids are often added, adding further containments to the final product. Other companies use the water extraction method as an alternative. This method, while more ethical, is not any more effective. Ultimately, vitamins and minerals are added to provide a “benefit” and mask an inferior product. The International Humic Substances Society produces fulvic acids at a ratio of 14-15. A new product, Miessence Fulvic Acids, recently released in June 2015, measures at a ratio of 17-20, currently the highest at this time. Miessence uses a patented extraction method that extracts the fulvic acids by molecular weight, rendering this a pure and concentrated product without the containments and a Ph level of 5.5. To learn more about Miessence Fulvic Acids go to www.miessence.com/theoliveparent or contact me. New customers can receive a 5% discount on 2 bottles of fulvic acids. Simply contact me and mention this article.

Final Thoughts…

If I can get on my soapbox for one minute and implore those reading, to go outside today and dig into the soil. Get it underneath your nails and ponder the wondrous life that works for YOU, your family and loved ones. It saddens me to no end, how we, as a people are thoughtless, carelessly destroying the life within the soil…which can easily be considered the “soul” of the earth. Allow me to leave you with one thought-provoking quote from Justus Von Liebig, the father of chemical agriculture (PNK fertilizer).

“I had sinned against the wisdom of the Creator, and received my righteous

punishment. I wished to improve his work, and in my blindness believed that,

in the marvelous chain of laws binding life on earth’s surface and keeping it

always new, a link had been forgotten which I, weak and powerless worm,

must supply.”

—Justus von Liebig, late in life quoted from Encyclopedia Britannica , 1899;

removed from subsequent editions.¹

Sources:

1. The Survival of Civilization – www.soilandhealth.org

2. ORGANIC MATTER, HUMUS, HUMATE, HUMIC ACID, FULVIC ACID AND HUMIN: THEIR IMPORTANCE IN SOIL FERTILITY AND PLANT HEALTH, Dr. Robert E. Pettit, Emeritus Associate Professor Texas A&M University – www.humates.com

3. Miessence Fulvic Acids Fact Sheet

4. Eating Your Veggies: Not As Good For You? – Time.com, M.J. Stephey, Wed. Feb. 18, 2009

5. Fulvic Acids: Nature’s Perfect Medicine – InsidersHealth.com