Trace Elements

Trace elements

The body, which works on the minimum of anything it requires, needs only minute quantities (or traces) of certain other elements, which, for that reason, are called ‘trace’ elements. The richest source of all trace elements is seaweed – its other name is kelp.

One of the most important trace elements is iodine. It is required by the thyroid gland for its efficient functioning. Harmful germs are killed as they pass in the blood through the gland, one of whose functions is to deal with such germs. So we see that, in this way, iodine is related to the body’s ability to resist disease. It is also related to the amount of energy and endurance the body possesses, and it’s the match that starts the fire that burns up our daily food to make energy and heat. If not properly burned up, food is stored as fat.

Another function of iodine is to help the brain to work better. Clear thinking is impossible without a trace of iodine in the blood. Still another function of iodine is to calm the body and relieve nervous tension, irritability, and insomnia.

Iodine is extracted from the blood by the thyroid gland which stores it. If we drink water to which chlorine or sodium-fluoride has been added – or if we eat too much sodium-chloride (common salt) – the thyroid gland may be made to lose its stored iodine. This is because iodine, which has a heavier ‘atomic’ weight than sodium-fluoride and chlorine, is displaced (as are other substances) by things whose atomic weight is lighter.

You can eliminate chlorine from water by boiling it but there is nothing much you can do about sodium fluoride, except move to a district where the water is not fluoridated, or buy a distilling plant, or drink only filtered rain or spring water.

You can step up the iodine content of your blood as follows:

1. By eating foods rich in iodine. These are: sea-fish, sea-weed (it is called kelp), carrots, potatoes, peas, spinach, cabbage, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, bananas, and egg-yolk.

2. By taking 1 drop (or 2 drops if you weigh more than 150lb) of Lugol’s Solution, twice a week; this is medicinal iodine, and it can be purchased at any chemist’s shop, together with a small glass dropper for measuring the does exactly. It is best taken in vegetable juices about  15 minutes before the main meal.

Unless there is an epidemic of colds or ‘flu’ or other infectious things going around, the iodine need not be taken more than twice a week.

3. By using kelp-powder instead of table-salt, on salads and vegetables. Kelp is the perfect answer to the problem of how to obtain all the ‘trace elements’ we need for health. The soil in which our foods are grown is being depleted of these all-important elements and minerals by floods, heavy rains, and bad farming methods; they get washed away and carried into the seas and oceans where they get absorbed by sea-weeds and other sea-plants. Thus the sea becomes the richest soil (in minerals and trace elements) in the world.