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Hello, and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com. And this episode is all about myth-busting things related to minerals and understanding how minerals start in the cell. And this has been a topic I’ve been fascinated by for a while, and I’m really excited for this episode with Caroline Alan, who they called the Mineral Geek. She’s a health survivor and came from a career in the corporate world, but when she found herself struggling mentally and physically and energetically, she researched her way back into health and really went deep on something called plant-based minerals, which we talk a lot about in this episode. These are much different than other forms of minerals, which she explains, and something I have been experimenting with and feeling the benefit from. So I wanted to have her on to explain why I’ve been noticing such a difference. So let’s jump in and join Caroline. Caroline, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.
Caroline: It’s super nice to be here. Thanks for having me.
Katie: I have been excited for this conversation for a long time because I have been talking about minerals for a really long time, ever since they changed my life. And then I learned a whole new depth about minerals just from following you online and talking to you at a conference. And I feel like this topic is so important, especially for moms and families and people who are raising kids. And I think there’s a million directions we could go, but I want to make sure we get kind of a good foundation for why this is so important to begin with. So can you start broad and explain to us why are so many modern humans experiencing mineral deficiencies? Because it doesn’t seem like this has maybe been the same type of problem for all of human history.
Caroline: You know, it is a sad fact that today you cannot get enough minerals from the foods you eat. And it’s really interesting, why is that? If you think about a plant, and when it grows in the soil, the way it creates all of the structure in that plant is by sucking the minerals out of the soil. If you think about your entire body, all of the structure in your body is made of minerals. In fact, if you look around the room that you’re in, all of the things, the chair, the table, everything that has structure is made of minerals. If you took all the water out of your body, you’d be a little pile of minerals. Isn’t that interesting?
So when a plant grows in the soil, it sucks the minerals out of the soil to grow the plant. And over time, if you continue to grow plants in the same soil, even if that’s your backyard organic garden, it’s sucking the minerals out of the soil. So over time, the plants continue to grow, but they create structure other ways using carbohydrates and other elements. So what you need to do, they actually say that a person, if you want to get the same nutrition out of an apple today that your grandfather got, you’d have to eat like six or seven apples.
Katie: Yeah, I know. And this is something that seems to be increasingly problematic in modern society because people like Chris Kresser, who I’ve had on here several times, used to really advocate for get as much from food as possible. And in our most recent episode, he even admitted it’s not possible anymore. Things have changed so drastically and like you just explained. And from a body level, you explain how plants need this for their growth and to even potentially a bigger degree, humans do as well. I know from following you a little bit, we have trillions of cells and they all essentially depend on minerals. So not getting enough is a pretty big problem. But can you walk us through the physiology of the body in relation to minerals?
Caroline: Yes. So the interesting thing about your body, you’re made of about 37 to 150 trillion cells. And inside your cells, you have these energy-generating units called mitochondria. They provide all of the energy in your body, every single bit of energy in your body that for all of the biosynthesis process to keep your heart beating, your eyes, for this voice, for my hands moving, every bit of energy is generated by the mitochondria.
And what fuels the mitochondria is minerals and amino acids. Now your body makes a lot of amino acids, but it doesn’t make any minerals. They all have to be ingested. Now the challenge is that we know that our food supply is lacking in minerals, but we’re also now all drinking bottled and filtered water as we should. But the problem is most of that water is devoid of minerals. So what’s happening is there’s this huge rise of mineral depletion symptoms. And in fact, modern humans, modern scientists believe that humans now are operating at maybe 40% of the minerals in their body that they need.
Now, if you think about minerals being the important, an important cofactor for generating energy in the body, imagine if you’re in a room right now and take the light that’s in the room and dial it down, dim it down to 40%. That’s how most people’s bodies are operating. And what happens when you don’t have enough energy generated, your body struggles to function. And it struggles at many different levels. Maybe, you know, there’s some sort of environmental toxin. It’s not able to remove it. Maybe there’s some inflammation. It’s not able to clear it. Maybe you feel that brain fog. You feel, you know, and what does a hungry cell crave? Sugar and salt. Isn’t that what we’re all craving?
Katie: That’s so interesting. And you touched on mitochondria, and I know there’s been a lot of research coming out really pointing to mitochondria kind of is everything when it comes to energy and aging and so many of these things that we’re talking about. What are some of the symptoms that we’re seeing of mineral depletion? Because that’s a pretty drastic number that we’re operating at, maybe only 40% of what we actually need. But how might that exhibit in the body or how might someone know if that’s what’s going on with them?
Caroline: One of the first ways you can tell that you’re mineral deficient is cramping. So let’s say you get those foot cramps, you know, when you, you know, sit on your foot, maybe you cross your legs and sit in a cross-legged position or do some stretching in yoga class, suddenly you get a foot cramp. That’s mineral deficiency. So if you tend to get hand, foot cramps or leg cramps at night when you’re sleeping, there’s a really clear sign that you are mineral deficient. In fact, I speak with a lot of parents and parents are really struggling now because their kids are coming off the sports fields with cramping. You have athlete kids. Do they, any of them experience, have they experienced cramping?
Katie: In the past, yeah. Not now, actually, thanks to you, which I know we’ll get to, but they have in the past.
Caroline: Yes. And this is a lot because people are now drinking the bottle of filtered water. So it was one thing when you could get enough minerals from the foods you eat, even if you were drinking filtered water. But now the whole thing together is equaling depletion. The other kinds of things that can be, that are surprising to people when I say those are symptoms of mineral depletion, anxiety. So if you think about your nervous system, which is all built of cells, and all of those cells are like hangry. How do you feel when you’re hungry? You feel a little on edge. So people’s nervous systems are also amped up. And when we are able to replenish people’s minerals, like the full spectrum of minerals the body needs, what happens is the whole nervous system starts to relax. People sleep better. Also, often we hear about brain fog, and this is huge in young kids as well who are going to school and really struggling to learn because they have this brain fog. That can be mineral depletion.
Katie: Yeah, that makes sense. And I think back to when I was pregnant with all of my kids, and especially the first few, I would sometimes stretch in bed and wake up with those leg cramps that just feel like you’re absolutely dying. They’re so urgent and painful and not knowing then what I know now. I love that you also brought up the nervous system aspect, because this is an area I’ve been touching on a lot more on the podcast since seeing in my own life how much regulating my nervous system impacted sleep and physical health so drastically. And this is certainly an area we know statistically a lot of modern humans have trouble with. I know you also have personal experience with mineral depletion. And if you’re willing, I would love for you to share that to give an example of how drastically this can impact someone.
Caroline: Yeah. So this was about 2010. I knew nothing about minerals. And I was a person who eats really healthy. I have a lot of sensitivities. I was gluten-free for seven years. And I worked in the corporate world. I was kind of one of the super moms, had kids and also worked a big job. And I burned out of that. And I had flatlined adrenals. I had really bad inflammation in my gut and elimination issues. I had really bad inflammation in my mouth with receding gums and bone loss in my teeth. I had recurring sinus infections. Every six weeks, I would get another sinus infection. It was terrible. I had lots of hormonal imbalance issues. I also had low thyroid headaches all the time, of course. So I was really struggling.
And at that time, I was introduced to plant-based minerals and I changed nothing in my diet or the way I was living. I just started taking these plant-based minerals. And after two months, I went to my dentist. And at that time, to have my teeth cleaned, I had to have novocaine because my teeth were so sensitive. I went, I had my teeth cleaned. There was no sensitivity. There was no bleeding. A dentist looked in my mouth. She was exclaimed like, what has changed? The tissue in your mouth is really healthy. It’s no longer inflamed. And I, you know, I didn’t really, I was like, well, maybe it’s these minerals I’m taking. She’s like, well, just keep taking them.
After four months, I went to my naturopath. I’d been working with her for two years, trying to get my adrenals back to some healthy function. And they had been flatlined, completely flatlined or below flatline. So, and after four months, I went, we did the adrenal test. She was looking at the, at the results and she was exclaimed again, like what’s happened. They were one-third of the way up the chart and with their natural sawtooth pattern that they’re supposed to have. And over the space of about eight or nine months, most of these symptoms that I was telling you about, the elimination, the bloating, the discomfort in my gut, the digestive problems that I was having resolved. As a result, I was left with this huge curiosity. Like how could just these minerals make such a difference?
Katie: And I know we’re going to get to do a whole second episode that goes really deep on, you mentioned the term plant-based minerals, and I’m really, really excited to explore that. And for this conversation, maybe touch on that briefly, but also explain, we’ve established there’s this huge problem where we’re operating at a much lower mineral level than we need in our bodies. And I know that can be a big deficit to overcome. And like you just explained, it took you months. But how do we get the minerals back in our cells and support our mitochondria? What does that process look like?
Caroline: Well, this is so interesting, you know, because we are kind of taught to think about our body kind of like a car, you know, and we also all look at the nutritional facts section on the back of labels, you know, and it says, you know, this gives you X percent of a particular minimum RDA of, you know, some particular element, nutritional element. And, and what that tells us is, oh, you know, it’s like, if as a car, if I need gas, I go fill up the tank. If I need oil, I fill up the oil reservoir or whatever, you know, but the way that the replenishment system in the body works is completely different than that. And you can’t just say, oh, I need minerals.
You know, one of the things I’ve done, Katie, is I’ve spent a lot of time at health food stores and grocery stores in the aisle where all the mineral bottles are talking to people as they go and select their minerals. Like, oh, my doctor told me I need calcium or magnesium or zinc or selenium or chromium or, you know, fill in the blank, right? There are a lot of minerals that your body needs. We call it the full spectrum of minerals. And the way that the mineral replenishment system works in your body, you can’t just fill up the tank. Because minerals work in these balanced pairs and in triumvirates. So what you want to do, which plant-based minerals do so well, is you want to put the minerals into your body in trace, balanced ways. So that your body can actually absorb and assimilate them.
Katie: And I know there’s a million different mineral options out there right now. Can you compare and contrast and explain some of the different categories or types and how they’re handled by the body?
Caroline: Yes. And it’s a really important fact. So, you know, again, standing in the aisle at the supermarket or, you know, where people are choosing their calcium, their potassium, etc. And I would ask them, well, how long have you been taking this? They say, oh, you know, whatever. And I said, well, do you notice a difference? They’re like, no. And why is that? Okay. So the thing about most pills, powders, flavored drinks, or mineral supplements that are measured in what I call megadose or milligrams, is that they’re mostly made from rocks, shells, and bones. Now, if you think about the human digestive tract, how well do you think it breaks down rocks, shells, and bones? Not very well.
So you might fill up the tank by taking 320 milligrams of magnesium. And it might go down into your gut and sit there. And what do we know about the gut microbiome now? What we know is that it’s a lush, in a healthy state, it’s in a lush, beautiful place where all the microbiota grow and they’re healthy. And there’s a particular balance that makes everything thrive, like a beautiful forest. So if you think about a beautiful forest that’s growing and it’s really healthy, and now take a wheelbarrow of magnesium and throw it on the ground in that forest, what happens is the plants in that area do not thrive. They say, oh, this is too much of a concentration. And they now have to go through a process of removing it and coming back into what we call homeostasis or balance. So that’s how you have to think about your body. And you need to think about what form is a mineral that you’re taking? How well is your gut going to break it down? And are you creating concentrations that are too much for the body at any given moment?
Katie: And I know terms that we’re going to use a lot in our next episode are fulvic and humic. And I feel like these, perhaps people have heard of these terms maybe, or perhaps a lot of listeners aren’t even familiar with the terms. So can you define what those are and where they come from?
Caroline: Yes. So let me, to talk about fulvic and humic, it’s really good to think about what are plant-based minerals. So it’s kind of an oxymoron for somebody who grew up with animal, vegetable, mineral. I’m like, well, wait a minute, plants aren’t minerals. But actually, again, as we said, when the plant grows and it creates all of the structure in the plant by pulling the minerals out of the soil, well, when that plant then decomposes and goes back into the soil, all of that mineral content goes back into the soil. Okay. So fulvic and humic are two molecules. And they are the result of the decomposition or decomposing of freshwater plants, only freshwater plants. That’s an important discernment.
Katie: And these, from my basic understanding from working with you or talking with you, is that these are able to get into the cell more effectively, essentially. But can you explain the interaction of how they’re able to get into the cell much more easily and how they affect our mitochondria?
Caroline: Yes. So fulvic and humic are a technology. And when I describe it, you’re going to begin to understand what I mean by a technology. It’s a technology that was evolved on the earth, along with cellular systems to support the nutritional uptake of nutrition into the cells, and also the detoxification of any concentrations of substances that were not going to help that cell thrive. So the fulvic is a very small molecule, it’s much smaller than a cell. And it’s what is called a flavonoid. We’ve all heard that term. Well, what is a flavonoid? It’s an intercellular transporter. So it’s literally, like if you’re in a room and there’s a door, and outside the door there’s a guy with a backpack, and he fills it full of all the good stuff you need today and he brings it into your room, and he dumps it out on your table, now you have available, or your mitochondria inside your cells have available all the nutritional elements that it needs in that day to generate the energy that you need in your body. So it’s an intercellular transporter. It actually carries nutrients in. It also carries bio-waste and toxins out of the cell.
The humic molecule is very different. It’s much larger than a cell. I imagine it like a Velcro ball. It’s very sticky on the outside. It gathers bio-waste, toxins, heavy metals, free radicals, so it’s incredibly effective as an antioxidant in your system. At a certain point, this ball gets so heavy at a molecular weight, it falls out of solution, and it leaves your body through all of the elimination channels. So the fulvic, being that very small molecule, is about nutrient uptake into the cells. And detoxification of this intercellular detoxification, we should say. And the humic molecule is about full system detoxification.
Katie: And I know this could be its own topic for hours and hours, but what are some of the other myths that are pervasive when it comes to minerals and especially which ones our body needs?
Caroline: Well, so one of the things that people are doing now, which I want to caution people, is they’re using our macro minerals. So there’s a lot of focus on what we call our macro minerals, you know, the electrolytes, magnesium, potassium, calcium, and sodium. And people are using these in mega dose formatted ways. And one of the things that I’m trying to mythbust is your body is not a car. You can’t just throw a whole bunch of minerals in and expect your body to know what to do with them.
So when you’re using salt-based megadosed, meaning measured in milligrams, minerals on a daily basis, what you’re actually doing in your gut is continually creating mineral imbalance. You’re creating more work for your body. I had a really interesting conversation with a cellular biologist who said, if people only knew how much work they were making for their body by using these megadose minerals, they would stop. So I know that as an example, many people contact me because they’re like, well, I take my magnesium because it keeps me regular. Well, here’s the interesting thing. Do you know why it keeps you regular? Because your body says there’s too much and I need to eliminate a lot of magnesium. And so it gives you it, it makes you go more. Okay. And it’s the same with like magnesium. I mean, excuse me, potassium and calcium and sodium. When you use megadose salt-based electrolytes, it’s actually irritating, like when you do it daily, if you do it once in a while, that’s fine. But if you use these daily, like as a flavor for your flavoring your water and that kind of thing, it creates irritation in the lining of the bladder and kidney. It will make you urinate more. So now you’re flushing your system. You’re what we call irrigating. Not hydrating.
Katie: And what about colloidal minerals? Because people often mention that like colloidal minerals or trace minerals when they’re talking about mineral supplementation.
Caroline: Oh, yeah. So great question. So colloidal minerals are also plant-based. If you can stomach them, they’re great, but they taste horrific, first of all. They are plant-based humic and fulvic that are extracted using hydrochloric acid. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just that it renders, the result is a, an acid molecule. And that just means that your body has to break it down before it can absorb it. It’s not, again, if that’s all you had available, I’d say you should do that. But there are more effective ways to get your humic and fulvic.
Katie: And I know we’re going to do, like I said, a whole second episode entirely on plant-based minerals and go really deep on that topic. But for people wondering in this conversation, I know you have both a tremendous amount of educational information available online and also very specific things that you’ve created that help with exactly what we’re talking about. So can you let people know where to find those?
Caroline: Yeah, you can find a lot of educational material at beamminerals.com. And you just click on the education link at the top of the page. We’ve got a whole bunch of different articles that will be specific to particular, whether you have an interest in bone density or hormone health or thyroid, or you’re an athlete and want to know how to utilize minerals better as an athlete and replenishment. You can also find me, I’m the Mineral Geek people call me and you can find me on YouTube. You can find me on, you know, we have a website for Mineral Geek as well. And there’s lots of information there.
Katie: And I will make sure those are linked at wellnessmama.com in the show notes, as well as I’ll link to the specific minerals that I get from you that I’ve noticed a huge difference from, and that’ll all be in the show notes. And if you are listening to this, please stay tuned and check back for the next episode where we really kind of pull apart and understand plant-based minerals at a deeper level. But Caroline, for this episode, thank you so much for what you’ve shared. Like I said in the beginning, I was so excited for this conversation and I’m so grateful.
Caroline: Thank you, Katie. It’s super nice to be here with you.
Katie: And thank you for listening. I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of The Wellness Mama Podcast.
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