Why You Must Supplement Magnesium
There is an ancestral purist movement which promotes minimal supplementation, drinking spring water, bathing in spring water, earthing (or grounding), unlimited sun exposure and eliminating entire categories of food groups. When people put into practice those recommendations without respecting the context of their environment and the environment of planet earth as a whole, we can think we're living in balance when in reality we are being pushed out of balance everyday by our choices.
I will elaborate on each one of those recommendations in future posts, but for now we will focus on minimal supplementation.
Infographics on social media will list plant sources of magnesium: spinach, kale, cacao (chocolate), soybeans, pumpkin seeds, etc. What these infographics are completely leaving out is the context of the soil. If the soil is completely depleted of magnesium, how would these foods contain it?
Going further into it... if the farmers are giving the soil synthetic NPK fertilizer and dusting the crops with inorganic calcium, and the soil is poisoned and no longer contains fungi, bacteria or fulvic and humid acid, what happens to the plant?
Red pill: In the mid 1800s there was a famine in Germany. Chemist Justice Von Liebig loaded the NPK gun and a small group of people pulled the trigger and sent it around the globe.
Like humans, if a plant has a choice between life or death, it will usually choose life. This means that whether it likes it or not, its getting non carbon bonded inorganic minerals. What does that do to the plant's immune system? What does that do to the mineral composition of the plant?
Watch this lecture by Geoff Lawton to get the breakdown.
Summary: We aren't in Kansas anymore.
We now have over thirty different types of inorganic potassium and calcium in our produce. This means that the vegetables will turn you into a vegetable.
Calcium depletes magnesium. What's worse: Magnesium regulates calcium! What this means is that high calcium exposure (spring water, eating produce grown with hard tap water and synthetic fertilizer) decreases the tiny amount of magnesium that might be present in the food.
"Severe dietary Mg deficiency leads to diverse pathology in animal models: myocardial necrosis, neuromuscular hyperexcitability, arrhythmia, hyperirritability, erythema, hemorrhagic skin lesions, increased oxidative stress, and myocardial susceptibility to ischemia/reperfusion stress and significant systolic dysfunction" (Weglicki, 2010).
The RDA (recommended daily allowance) for magnesium is set at 500 milligrams per day. At least 50% of Americans consume half of the RDA or less from food, and I suspect that it is much closer to 99%.
Without the context that we're being exposed to insanely unnaturally high amounts of iron and calcium, it would make sense to live an "ancestral" lifestyle. But that kind of a lifestyle will lead to a slow and painful death, as that is what excessive amounts of calcium does to the body.
You can look like a superhero on the outside and shredded with muscle, but have deep issues on the inside. No amount of bodywork, yoga or stretching will reverse the damage unless the context of CALCIUM OVERLOAD is understood. You will become like "The ROCK", stiff as a board, because that calcium's job, to contract the muscles. No magnesium means no relaxation!
I'm ready for the sales pitch Matt! What supplement do you recommend?
NONE!!!
Click here to watch my video on how to make your own magnesium bicarbonate. All you need is a reverse osmosis water filter, a SodaStream carbonator and magnesium hydroxide. This is the best, most natural and most affordable form of magnesium available. It is only found in liquid form. It is what we used to receive in our drinking water prior to the industrial revolution.
Consuming magnesium bicarbonate can restore 43% of enzymatic function to your body, extend lifespan by 30%, improve digestion, increase energy levels, and more. Naturally we would have also received magnesium in the form of chloride in ocean water, but our primary means of ingestion would have been orally in bicarbonate form.
My favorite thing about magnesium bicarbonate is that it can actually increase carbon dioxide levels in the body, a deficiency of which starves the cells of oxygens and exacerbates issues like lipid peroxidation (the oxidation of polyunsaturated fats). The body can convert CO2 into HCO3 (bicarbonate) and vice versa!
I personally consume at least 32 ounces of home-made magnesium bicarbonate everyday. Do not buy it. Make it at home.
To your health,
Matt Blackburn