Colloidal Minerals
Summary: Use a chelated multimineral
supplement and use Real Salt on foods instead.
Colloidal minerals are low-dose mineral supplements, supposedly
made more effective by being dissolved in water. I have never actually
seen a "colloidal mineral" product exhibit the Tyndall effect, which
colloids do, but I guess the name sounds fancier than "Dissolved
Minerals."
They can be helpful for those with marginal mineral
deficiencies, but they are never worth the cost in my opinion.
There are two types. The first is pretty much just Real Salt (see Salt)
dissolved in water with flavoring and sweetening added to cover the salt
taste. And not even a lot of Real Salt - probably around 1/16tsp per dose
or less - a cent's worth. The second type has the sodium removed
most likely using a toxic extractant. This is also not a good
choice.
Another problem with colloidal minerals is that they do not contain enough minerals.
They typically contain mostly sulfur, sodium, and chloride, which are quite easy to
consume in the diet. An entire $20 bottle contains less calcium and magnesium thanone 10 cent tablet of highly absorbable chelates. Add a kelp or other seaweed capsule per day and you will get
many of those trace minerals that washed into the sea from farmland, or use Real
Salt on food. Take a multimineral with a meal or use an
acidic form of cal-mag like Enzymatic Therapy's Acid-A-Cal if there is poor acid production.
Colloidal mineral advertisements are also misleading. They
state that because of their much higher absorbtion, that taking tiny amounts of
minerals is sufficient. A claim often bandied about is that colloidal
minerals are absorbed at 90% efficiency while non-colloidal minerals are
absorbed at 10%. This may be true for the worst absorbed forms of
minerals, e.g., calcium carbonate, but the figure is closer to 40% or more for
chelated products like calcium citrate. However, assume the 90% / 10%
ratio assertion is true. A whole liter of colloidal minerals will usually
contain less than 50mg of calcium (and 10 mg of magnesium) and costs $15 to
$20. You could drink a liter of this, or take a 500mg calcium
magnesium tablet,
which costs less than a dime.
My recommendation is to take just a chelated cal-mag supplement and
use a
mineral rich salt like Real Salt on foods and in cooking.
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