Gyroscopic Investing

Gumby,

How long have you been using the drops?

What differences have you noticed (if any)?

MediumTex wrote: Gumby,

How long have you been using the drops?

What differences have you noticed (if any)?

About 4 weeks now. I can't definitively say I notice anything different. My finger nails seem to be growing more quickly. And I'd like to believe that it's helping the absorption of other vitamins, but there's no way for me to know for sure. What I do know is that I have been drinking very soft water for the past few years and I'd like my water to have some essential minerals in it. Supposedly our bodies can't utilize nutrition unless we are continuously absorbing minerals.

If nothing else, I've been feeling "good" these last few weeks, but that could be due to anything. I guess what I'm saying is that I have no idea if these drops are good for us or not. I'd like to think they are, but short of any impurities, my guess is they are relatively harmless and likely make up for a few deficiencies.

I've also been using the transdermal Magnesium (as you know) and I definitively notice that having an effect, within minutes. Very powerful stuff. Technically the drops and the magnesium oil are very similar in composition. You can rub some of the drops on your skin or squirt magnesium oil into your mouth. Your body just absorbs the magnesium chloride better through your skin than your stomach. But, I believe the drops ate too concentrated to be used un-diluted on your skin.

Am I being a heritic by saying that I presume all food suppliments are bunk? We evolved without them and people totday do fine without them. Eating a variety of foods that are not too far removed from the state they were in when they were growing ensures that you get life's requirements doesn't it?

stone wrote: Am I being a heritic by saying that I presume all food suppliments are bunk? We evolved without them and people totday do fine without them. Eating a variety of foods that are not too far removed from the state they were in when they were growing ensures that you get life's requirements doesn't it?

To pull a Clinton, I think it all depends on what your definition of "do fine" is.  I look around and do not see "do fine" as "do fine".

Biologically we're only supposed to live to about 30.  So nature hasn't been encouraged by evolutionary conservation to provide optimal sustenance to humans past that point (and our modern farming practices has made the situation even more dismal).  It took human intervention and technology to change this "fate".  Supplements are no exception.

stone wrote: Am I being a heritic by saying that I presume all food suppliments are bunk? We evolved without them and people totday do fine without them. Eating a variety of foods that are not too far removed from the state they were in when they were growing ensures that you get life's requirements doesn't it?

I happen to agree with you. However, the quality of our food is, in many ways, much worse than our ancestors. Our soils have been depleted of vital minerals (food used to actually have a lot more magnesium and other minerals in it). Additionally, politically correct "nutritionists" have us eating much less fat soluble vitamins (either found in or transported with fats). Our ancestors ate lots of organ meats, raw dairy, and fermented foods, all of which are loaded vitamins and nutrition. (Liver, for instance, has an enormous amount of Vitamin A. Hearts have lots of CoQ10).

Today, we eat a lot of produce from depleted soils, meat from animals that graze on depleted soils, and we are told to eat man-made foods that have very little nutrition in it.

Years ago, many people got their water from natural mineral springs (or water that travelled over various rock formations). Today, many municipalities have very soft water (hard water is bad for pipes and faucets) and we drink heavily processed and filtered water that tends to rob people of minerals. So, yes, it used to be possible to get everything from food and water, but today everything is processed or denatured and organ meats are no longer part of most people's diet. And even if you could unlock all of the nutrients in produce (we physically can't without some kind of assistance from lacto-fermentation, as herbivores naturally do) they would have far less nutrition than they used to due to depleted soils. So, yes, some supplementation is necessary to get all of the nutrients that people used to get from food and water.

MachineGhost wrote:Biologically we're only supposed to live to about 30.

That's only true if you include infant mortality. Otherwise, adults in the 1600s and 1500s lived into their mid 60s on average — meaning that many adults also lived into their 70s, 80s and 90s. You can easily prove this by looking at any family tree that extends back that far. Even well-documented historical figures of every century — including biblical figures — often lived into their 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.

If we are talking about Paleolithic ancestors, most of those ancestors died from infant mortality or accidental deaths (they found lots of crushed skulls, etc), so the data is skewed by preventable deaths and deaths of infants and children. So, I don't know how you can say that "biologically we're only supposed to live to about 30". The data for grown adults, who avoided fatal accidents, does not support that statement in any way.

Gumby wrote: If we are talking about Paleolithic ancestors, most of those ancestors died from infant mortality or accidental deaths (they found lots of crushed skulls, etc), so the data is skewed by preventable deaths and deaths of infants and children. So, I don't know how you can say that "biologically we're only supposed to live to about 30". The data for grown adults, who avoided fatal accidents, does not support that statement in any way.

Hormones, CoQ10, sperm quality, etc. peaks and starts declining after the brain is fully formed at age 25.  Since biology is only concerned with reproduction and passing on of genes, that's your "sell by" date and reproduction typically occured at about half that age anyway.  There is just not enough nutrition in all of nature to support large numbers of humans in an optimally reproductive state at "grandfather" age, i.e. 30.  That is the reality evolution has adapted the human body to.

There would have to be consistent data of long-lived, pre-agricultural ancestor lucky exceptions to diseases, accidents, being eaten, etc. back in an age of no technology to start to convince me otherwise.  Because any kind of technology, even stone flints, would upset nature's balance of natural selection and evolution.  Yet, despite hundreds of thousands of years of technological improvement to extend our average lifespans, the human body is still acting as if it has not occured.

Machine Ghost, I thought we were using technology such as flints etc from before we are the species we are now. Neanderthals had clothes and spears and fire etc etc. The thing Lone Wolf posted about a while back said that there was very good evidence that people used to die in large numbers from violent conflicts with other people. Much as lions have a population limited by fights with neighboring prides of lions.

It is a good point about organ meat being missing from the modern diet. I used to eat it as a child and in France it is still eaten a lot. My better half doesn't like it though.
I sort of think that avoiding too many empty calories from sweets, drinks etc probably helps a good deal.
I guess wild berries are probably much as they were 100000 years ago- there are lots of them around here at the minute .

MachineGhost wrote:Hormones, CoQ10, sperm quality, etc. peaks and starts declining after the brain is fully formed at age 25.  Since biology is only concerned with reproduction and passing on of genes, that's your "sell by" date and reproduction typically occured at about half that age anyway.  There is just not enough nutrition in all of nature to support large numbers of humans in an optimally reproductive state at "grandfather" age, i.e. 30.  That is the reality evolution has adapted the human body to.

Yes, but there's a big difference between prime reproduction age and maximum life span. You've confused the two.

Once a child is born, they typically need a number of years of provided guidance and nourishment in order for them to successfully pass on their genes. So, to imply that we are supposed to die after we reproduce is totally flawed. We aren't salmon, which often die after reproducing. In order to continue the passing of our genes reliably, we must typically stay alive long enough to see our children reach young-adulthood — and we must have many children to grow our gene pool.

MachineGhost wrote:There would have to be consistent data of long-lived, pre-agricultural ancestor lucky exceptions to diseases, accidents, being eaten, etc. back in an age of no technology to start to convince me otherwise.

The data is there. You're just interpreting it incorrectly.

Stone Agers were not so short-lived
Philip J. Goscienski, M.D.
February 2006

Conventional wisdom states that life expectancy prior to the Agricultural Revolution was about 18 years and that our distant ancestors rarely survived beyond the age of 30. The first figure is correct but the second is not. Life expectancy is an average, not a maximum. When infant mortality is high it drags down the average life expectancy. Lots of babies died back then for the same reason that they do now in undeveloped countries: no plumbing, vaccines or antibiotics. The presence of any one of those advances sends life expectancy soaring but it doesn't add as much to the length of adult life.
It's no surprise that lots of Stone Agers died of injuries early in life. A disabled hunter has a short future. We can never know how many of our distant ancestors ended up as some leopard's lunch, leaving not a morsel behind for future anthropologists to find.

It's certainly not true that Stone Age people rarely made it to what we would call old age. Anthropologists have known for decades that about 10 percent of humans lived beyond the age of 60 years during the Old Stone Age, the thousands of years that preceded the domestication of crops and animals. Modern-day hunter-gatherers that are untouched by the blessings of civilization also have a low life expectancy but about 20 percent of them do live past 60 years.
Source: http://www.stoneagedoc.com/Short_lived_Stone_Age.htm

See also: http://paleodiet.com/life-expectancy.htm

So, comparing us to salmon — who die after conception — is entirely flawed. The data shows that paleolithic ancestors had a maximum lifespan that was beyond 60 years of age. Admittedly, there weren't very many of them (only 10%).

MachineGhost wrote:Because any kind of technology, even stone flints, would upset nature's balance of natural selection and evolution.  Yet, despite hundreds of thousands of years of technological improvement to extend our average lifespans, the human body is still acting as if it has not occured.

You make it sound like old-age didn't exist before the Agricultural Revolution. That's not true. (Primitive tribal "elders" were responsible for early decision-making.) Again, you keep confusing average life span (which includes infant mortality and preventable accidents) with maximum life span. They are very different things.

See also...

Longevity Among Hunter-Gatherers: A Cross-Cultural Examination

The researchers have concluded that our pre-agriculture species had a maximum life span that averaged about 70 years of age — meaning that even older pre-agricultual life spans were possible. The paper also points out that grand-parents were instrumental to families before the agricultural revolution.

"While some important genetic changes may have occurred in populations after the advent of agriculture, the major distinctive features of our species (Wang et al. 2006), such as large brains, long lives, marriage and male investment in offspring, long child dependency on parents, and grandparental support of grandchildren, appear to have evolved during our preagricultural history (see Kaplan 1997 for reviews; Kaplan et al. 2000, 2001). Despite recent improvements in human survivorship, it is likely that the age-specific mortality pattern and the timing and pace of development and senescence evolved during our hunter-gatherer past as well."
Source: http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven ... 007pdr.pdf

It's also worth pointing out primates in the wild can live into their 60s, and beyond, without supplementation — indicating that "old age" is really just a part of the genetic blueprint. Tthe average life span of a primate is typically between 40 and 60 years of age. The maximum life span of a wild primate is longer than that.

Here is a photo of one of the oldest living primates...

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He is believed to be in his late 70s. You can read more about him here. Yes, he has access to modern medicine. However, it is well established that wild chimpanzees can live into their 60s.

Ok, I'm convinced.

Should have known it was "conventional wisdom"...

Heh.. I used be a firm believer "conventional wisdom".

Anyway, Stone, it appears that some supplementation is necessary in today's modern world because most people don't have access to the same nutrients that our ancestors had. Even modern refrigeration has changed our nutrition profile for the worse. It used to be that you had to lacto-ferment your harvest in order to preserve it through the winter. You typically did this right after harvesting your crop. When you lacto-ferment plants, it unlocks the nutrients in a way that ruminants naturally unlock those nutrients in their complex four-chambered stomachs (non-ruminanating herbivores have helpful fermenting bacteria in their stomachs and they have to eat tons of plants throughout the day just to keep up, since much of their food passes through their digestive track whole and undigested).

[align=center][/align]

Today, we don't really lacto-ferment vegetation, since we have refrigeration and world-wide shipping — so we eat fresh plants that are very difficult to digest. Cooking and Pasteurization can often denature some vitamins and nutrients, so that can be problematic too. It's far easier to just eat the reduced nutrient-rich organs of herbivores than to go through the trouble of unlocking the nutrients found in large amounts of plants. In any case, our modern diet (which comes from our depleted soils) is actually less nutritious than what many cultures were eating just a few hundred years ago.

I do believe that we can get a lot of nutrients from food, but the food and water supply is very different from what it used to be. So, some supplementation is necessary. As to what those crucial supplements are depends a lot on where you live and what you regularly consume. Nevertheless, there are some people who live to old age despite awful diet and inadequate supplement regimens. So, genetics clearly plays a big role. I would argue that improperly nourished individuals probably don't feel that great though.

One thing I've noticed is that once you increase consumption of a particular vitamin or mineral — even through food — you suddenly throw off the balance of another vitamin or mineral. Calcium and Magnesium are synergistic like that. And those minerals need to be balanced with other minerals and vitamins. It's extremely difficult — if not impossible — to get everything right.

It's also important to understand that some nutrients are absorbed transdermally. Sun and seawater on the skin provide all sorts of essential nourishment for our bodies. It's one of the reasons we evolved to have thin skin! But, if you don't live in the right place, you'll have trouble getting those nutrients into your body.

Gumby wrote: He is believed to be in his late 70s. You can read more about him here. Yes, he has access to modern medicine. However, it is well established that wild chimpanzees can live into their 60s.

Wow, that was really surprising, touching and a little sad too about their plight.  C.H.E.E.T.A. Primate Sanctuary is going on my donation list for this year, maybe permanently.  The truest measure of a society is how it treats its elderly, its pets and its prisoners.

Gumby,

That animal eats a lot of leaves and not much meat.  My questions is, is our digestive system built more like the last few thousand years where (some) people (not Asian culture that are healthier than we are and ate barely any meat) ate meat, or the previous tens of thousands of years where our ancestors ate leaves.

Our digestive system is almost identical to that of an ape, and is closer to that of a cow than an aligator.

moda0306 wrote: Gumby,

That animal eats a lot of leaves and not much meat.  My questions is, is our digestive system built more like the last few thousand years where (some) people (not Asian culture that are healthier than we are and ate barely any meat) ate meat, or the previous tens of thousands of years where our ancestors ate leaves.

Our digestive system is almost identical to that of an ape, and is closer to that of a cow than an aligator.

Moda,

Are you eating enough meat? You appear to be having short term memory issues. We just had this conversation not three weeks ago!

See: http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/ht ... 874#p38874

To which you replied... "Apparently on our lineage & diet I was way off.  I was basing off of misconceptions I guess."

Where did you get this idea that meat-eating humans have been around for only the "last few thousand years"? I already showed you that timeline is incorrect. Our paleolithic ancestors were eating meat over 2 million years ago.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer

Meat eating humans is not a new phenomenon. Humans have been eating meat for millions of years.

Furthermore, there is evidence that neanderthals and early hominids practiced cannibalism against their enemies (much like primates, such as Bonobos, do):

http://www.monkeyday.org/2005/01/prehis ... gered.html

Herbivores use fermentation to digest plant cellulose — which is far more complex than our digestive system. We do not. Ruminant herbivores have four stomachs to break down cellulose — done through various bacterial and regurgitation actions. A cow with four stomachs is nothing like our digestive system. Non-ruminant herbivores (the kind you are referring to) pass quite a lot of undigested food out of their bodies. They have to spend about three quarters of the day feeding and rely on fermentation to digest plants. We are not related to those kinds of herbivores either. Our digestive system uses acid to break down food — very similar to that of a dog — which is designed to be carnivorous.

Your reference to primates is a good one, but you're forgetting that primates have gall bladders too (which allows them to digest animal fat). Many primates have been known to practice cannibalism (as documented by Jane Goodall, in 1976). However, primates — particularly those with larger brains — get a good deal of nutrition from insects (which are technically classified as animals) that happen to be on the plants they are eating. And primates also have much more bacteria in their digestive tracks than we do — they have some symbiotic bacteria that helps them break down plant fibers — though it's not nearly as efficient as ruminating herbivores with four stomachs. So, if you want to mimic the diet of a primate, better start eating a lot of insects to get your nutrition so that you are getting all of your vitamins. You will be deficient if you try to get all your nutrition from plants.

See: http://www.monkeymaddness.com/articles/naturaldiet.html

Many monkeys also have multi-chamber stomachs..

http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentof ... -chew-cud/

It's also worth mentioning that our brains are far more advanced than primates — and therefore, require more fat soluble vitamins. About two to four million years ago, our species became more advanced and required more nutrition than leaves and insects. Hence, the development of early paleolithic tools to hunt meat. In fact, the prehistoric migration out of the African continent was done to follow animal migrations and hunt them. Furthermore, our large brains are mostly composed of fat. You can't nourish your brain — or a child's brain for that matter — without lots of fat in your diet.

Moda, 2 to 4 million years of meat eating evolution is a long time. Meat eating is not some recent event. And as I explained three weeks ago, there is evidence of primate ancestors scavenging some small scraps of meat nearly 4 million years ago.

I get the feeling like you've been reading The China Study. You might want to Google "criticism of The China Study." Almost every aspect of it is flawed.

Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride — a medical doctor and nutrition specialist — explains how the human digestive system is better suited to digesting meat than plants:

Contrary to popular belief it is meats and fish and other animal products that have the highest content of vitamins, amino acids, nourishing fats, many minerals and other nutrients we humans need on a daily basis. All this nutrition in meats and fish also comes in the most digestible form for us humans.

...

The richest sources are liver, fish, egg yolks and butter. We are talking about the real Vitamin A, which is ready for the body to use. You will see in many publications that you can get your Vitamin A from fruit and vegetables in the form of carotenoids. The problem is that carotenoids have to be converted into real Vitamin A in the body, and a lot of us are unable to do this, because we are to toxic, or because we have an ongoing inflammation in the body. So, if you do not consume animal products with the real vitamin A, then you may develop a deficiency in this vital vitamin despite eating lots of carrots.

...

As plant foods are hard to digest and as they contain a list of anti-nutrients, which can damage the gut...

...

Apart from causing malnutrition through the damage to the digestive system, plant foods are a very poor source of nutrients to start with. But what about those tables published in popular nutrition books, which show that plants are full of nourishment, you would ask? All those B vitamins, proteins and carotenoids? Yes, when we analyze different plant foods in a laboratory, they show good amounts of various nutrients. This information is then published in common nutritional literature, luring vegetarians into a false sense of security. Unfortunately, these tables of the nutrient content of plants are deceptive. Why? Because, in a laboratory we can use all sorts of methods and chemicals for extracting nutrients from plants: methods which our human digestive system does not possess. The human gut has a very limited ability to digest plants and to extract anything useful from them. Nature has created herbivorous animals (ruminants) to eat plants and in order for them to be able to digest these plants, Nature has equipped them with a very special digestive system: it is very long with several stomachs full of special plant-breaking bacteria. The human digestive system is similar to the gut of predatory animals, such as wolves and lions: our digestive system is fairly short and we have only one stomach with virtually no bacteria in it. In fact our human stomach is designed to produce acid and pepsin, which are only able to break down meat, fish and eggs. In short, our digestive systems have been designed to cope best with animal foods. People knew this fact for millennia. They knew that the best foods for them come from animals; they would only eat plants as a supplement to meat or when animal foods were short in supply. People knew that plant foods are hard for humans to digest, that is why all traditional cultures have developed methods of food preparation to extract more nutrition from plants and to make them more digestible, such as fermentation, malting, sprouting and special ways of cooking. Unfortunately, in our modern world these methods are largely forgotten.
Source: Natasha Campbell-McBride: Gut and Psychology Syndrome

Exactly how do you suppose our digestive system can extract all of the nutrients from plants if we only have acid and pepsin to break down food with? The answer is that we can't — we don't have the bacteria needed to fully break down plants. So, we need more than plants to get our nutrients. Either you need to introduce fermenting bacteria into your food preparation (to mimic what happens in an herbivore's stomach), or you need to start eating a lot of insects with your meals (as many primates do). Far easier to just eat nutrient-dense organ meat (with fats for fat-soluble vitamins) and let your gall bladder and stomach acids to their job.

Moda,

The following Wikipedia entry is the most concise explanation of the difference between a primate's digestive system and a human's digestive system...

Monogastric

A monogastric organism has a simple single-chambered stomach, compared to a ruminant organism which has a four-chambered complex stomach. Examples of monogastric animals include omnivores such as humans, rats and pigs, carnivores such as dogs and cats, and herbivores such as horses and rabbits. Herbivores with monogastric digestion can digest cellulose in their diet by way of symbiotic gut bacteria. However, their ability to extract energy from cellulose digestion is less efficient than in ruminants.

Herbivores digest cellulose via microbial fermentation (biochemistry). Monogastric herbivores who can digest cellulose nearly as well as ruminants are called hindgut fermenters, while ruminants are called foregut fermenters. These are subdivided into two groups based on the relative size of various digestive organs in relationship to the rest of the system: colonic fermenters tend to be larger species such as horses and rhinos, and cecal fermenters are smaller animals such as rabbits and rodents. The great apes (bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans), in contrast to humans, derive significant amounts of phytanic acid from the hindgut fermentation of plant materials.

Monogastrics cannot digest the fiber molecule cellulose as efficiently as ruminants, though the ability to digest cellulose varies amongst species.

A monogastric digestive system works as soon as the food enters the mouth. Saliva moistens the food and begins the digestive process. After being swallowed, the food passes from the esophagus into the stomach, where stomach acid and enzymes help to break down the food. Bile salts stored in the gall bladder empty the contents of the stomach into the small intestines where most fats are broken down. The pancreas secretes enzymes and alkali to neutralize the stomach acid.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogastric

Hindgut fermentors, such as apes, have a large caecum located after their stomach. The caecum is where fermentation happens in an herbivore. Humans have a very tiny caecum and it has very little fermenting bacteria in it. Therefore, we can only digest a small amount of cellulose per day. In fact, humans really just have an appendix, which resembles the tip of a caecum. As you know, the appendix is practically useless to our digestive system. Charles Darwin believed that the appendix may have devolved from what was once a larger caecum (which is still present in apes).

And here is another explanation...

An adult human's digestive tract is approximately 6.5 meters long and consists of the pharynx, oesophagus, stomach, small intestine and large intestine. Digestion in humans is similar to that of other monogastric animals. However, unlike most herbivorous animals, humans have a relatively small caecum with a vermiform appendix. The appendix is a blind-ended tube connected to the caecum near the point where the small intestine joins the large intestine. The appendix appears to be a vestigial structure, reduced in size and function when compared to the same structure in other animals. One explanation for this is that the human appendix was once much larger and served a similar function to the caecum of hind gut fermenters.  Over time, the diets of early humans changed to include more meat and less high-fibre plant material. This meant that there was no selective advantage in having a large appendix (and in fact there would be an energy cost in maintaining it), and individuals with a smaller appendix became more common over time. Modern humans would have difficulty extracting enough nutrients if they were restricted to a diet similar to that of ruminant animals. While we are encouraged to eat a diet high in vegetables and fruit, that diet is generally restricted to easy-to-digest material that is relatively low in cellulose: fruit, flowers and new stems and leaves. In other words, our diet is restricted by our inability to extract sufficient nutrients from high-cellulose plant material.

Source: http://sci.waikato.ac.nz/farm/content/a ... cture.html

So, there you go. We humans don't have the ability to ferment within our digestive system (as apes do). We just aren't very good at digesting plants.

And yet my long term vegan friend won mountain marathon ultra distance running events without ever eating food suppliments unless you count having some Vecon spread on his sandwiches

http://www.goodnessdirect.co.uk/cgi-loc ... _225g.html

stone wrote: And yet my long term vegan friend won mountain marathon ultra distance running events without ever eating food suppliments unless you count having some Vecon spread on his sandwiches

http://www.goodnessdirect.co.uk/cgi-loc ... _225g.html

Bet he did it by eating insects.

Vegans who don't supplement their diet with vitamin B12 will eventually get anemia (a fatal condition) as well as severe nervous and digestive system damage. Some vegans believe that B12 is naturally present in some algae, tempeh and Brewer's yeast. This is false, as B12 is only found in animal products. Brewer's and nutritional yeasts do not contain B12 naturally, and are always fortified from an outside source. There are B12 analogues in plants, but they are not bioavailable and cannot prevent a B12 deficiency. In fact, many B12 analogues interfere with vitamin B12 absorption and can cause a deficiency of vitamin B12. The human colon can produce some vitamin B12, but it is not bioavailable either since vitamin B12 is only absorbed by the small intestine. You'd have to eat your own feces to absorb the vitamin B12 from your colon (some animals do this intentionally).

Many Hindu vegans, living in rural parts of India, do not suffer from vitamin B12 deficiency. The only reason those Hindus are able to avoid B12 deficiency is because insects, their feces, eggs, larvae and/or residue, are left on the plant matter that they consume, due to inefficient cleaning methods. That's how they obtain their vitamin B12. When those vegan Indian Hindus moved to England, they came down with megaloblastic anaemia after a few years. In Western countries, plants are washed before they are eaten, and insect residues are removed from plant foods.

All vegans need to avoid anemia by taking supplemental vitamins or fortified foods, such as "Vecon spread". Attempting to live as a vegan over a century ago — before those fortified products were available — would have resulted in death without regular insect, insect residue, or feces consumption.

Not only are we humans physically unable to digest lots of unfermented plant cellulose — due to the fact that we lack a large caecum — but we require vitamin B12 only found in animal products. Insects are classified in the Kingdom "Animalia", not "Plantae".

stone wrote: And yet my long term vegan friend won mountain marathon ultra distance running events without ever eating food suppliments unless you count having some Vecon spread on his sandwiches

Probably all the MSG in it fired up his arse!

A lot of militant vegans are hypocrites.  They'll sneak out to Dunkin' Donuts or McDonald's late at night when no one is around.  Resistance is futile.

MG, back to MT's question... What are your thoughts on concentrated mineral drops in water? Do you take them? I assume so if you are drinking RO water. Good or bad?

From what I can tell, the impurities in mineral drops are generally minuscule (similar to the impurities in most air and water) and can easily be tolerated by the body. The question, I suppose, is whether or not they should be consumed over the long term.

Gumby wrote: MG, back to MT's question... What are your thoughts on concentrated mineral drops in water? Do you take them? I assume so if you are drinking RO water. Good or bad?

Those things are kind of overpriced for what you get, but they certainly won't harm you if theres not too much toxic elements.  I'm happy enough relying on Himalayan sea salt for trace minerals like gold, platinum, rhodium, etc..  There's not enough quantity of the macro-minerals to have a big effect though, but its been documented that even hard water with inorganic magnesium easily lowers the risk of heart attacks vs soft: http://www.mgwater.com/

Beyond trace minerals, one starts going in the PH / ORP territory which is minefield of pseudo-science (http://tinyurl.com/yqzgoq).  Essentially, enough macrominerals will lower the PH of water, but it will be completely negated after drinking by the stomach's acid.  ORP is something worth considering, however, but I don't find the high cost and poor continous performance of water alkalizers to be cost effective compared to drops that allegedly raise the ORP to -1000 (http://tinyurl.com/8txgql5) or supplements such as MegaHydrin (http://tinyurl.com/9sbrgqk) which allegedly replicates the allegedly pure glaical water the allegedly long-lived, allegedly raw apricot eating Hunzas allegedly drank.  Need to get an ORP meter someday to separate the wheat from the chaff.  One way MegaHydrin could be proven to actually work is to take it before lifting weights.  Since H+ are what really cause muscle soreness and not lactic acid, if the H- MegaHydrin really mops up the H+ baddies, the soreness will be dramatically decreased or gone.  I don't notice that effect on any of the 35 38 supplements I take.

Gumby, how many sprays of that Life-Flo magnesium oil did it take before you noticed the sleepy effect?

HANOI, Vietnam — Alleged victims of Agent Orange in Vietnam are set to receive a “detoxification”? treatment developed by the Church of Scientology.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html

The below article is painful to read, but most of it is true.  Of course, it is written by a surgeon who has a vested pecuniary interest with sunk-costs and a certain worldview, so take it with a grain of salt.

If there’s a law that I view as a horrible, horrible, law, it’s the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA of 1994). It is a law that blog bud and former ScienceBlogs blogger Dr. Peter Lipson has rightly called a travesty of a mockery of a sham, and, quite frankly, I think he has been too easy on it. Clearly, if there is a single instance of a massive triumph of the forces of quackery in the U.S. that I could point to, the DSHEA of 1994 would be it. This particular misbegotten law in essence opened the floodgates for the sale of dubious supplements and turned a relatively small industry into a huge industry.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/ ... onditions/