In 1978, Dr. Schubert and associates conducted experiments to determine safe levels of Lead and Mercury (<i>he tested other toxic metals as well</i>) in our homes, water and food. He fed a group of 100 rats just enough lead that one animal died. This is an LD1 (Lethal Dose) of Lead. He did the same thing with Mercury.
The really “interesting” part came when he fed an LD1 of Lead and 1/20 of an LD1 of Mercury. Every one of the 100 rats died. Similar is true for synergistic effect with other toxic metals like cadmium and arsenic, and with other toxic chemicals like PCBs and pesticides and tobacco smoke. The level of mercury thiomersal in vaccines has been shown to be highly neurotoxic, but the effect was found to be much larger due to the synergistic effect with aluminum, which is also in most vaccines. Studies using U.S. CDC data have found thiomersal from vaccines to be major factors in autism and ADHD.
This negative “synergism” of toxic substances is now compounded a thousand fold with all of the toxic, man-caused (Pesticides, Herbicides, acid rain, the oil volcano in the gulf of Mexico, etc., etc.) and nature caused (Fukashima) elements now floating in the air we breathe, water we drink, clothes we wear, houses we live in and the food we consume. <strong>Our responsibility to our animals</strong> as husbandmen and women is to ensure that they do not suffer the same effects we do as humans, and if we want to grow old with our animals…we should also pay attention. Toxins are the leading cause of up to 70% of every sickness known to man, and there is no escape from them.
I receive many calls from cattle owners wondering about the latest, greatest mineral mix they heard about. The reason they are inquiring is that they are usually having some kind of negative herd health problem on their farm. <strong>Why do we need such fancy minerals today when our grandparents could get by a lot of times on just plain salt?</strong> I see two things as the cause.
In the 1930’s, Dr. Weston A. Price found 15 groups of people around the world who were in perfect health for a number of reasons. They were not eating anything western, modern or processed in their diets. His book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration talked about how they grew and prepared their food. Across these varied diets, there was no rhyme or reason to the fat, protein, carbohydrate ratio. THE common denominator was the fact that they were all eating five to ten times the amount of vitamins and minerals the average American was eating in the 1930’s. Today, American diets are 70% lower than those figures. (Keep in mind that in the 1930’s we had not yet begun to pollute the planet with radiation, chemicals, pesticides, etcetera.)
As you can see, in the 21<sup>st</sup> century we are up-taking drastically fewer minerals with a significantly higher toxin load. Our livestock are in the same boat.
Fortunately Montmorillionite and Bentonite clays have an “affinity” for these toxic elements. The one that I use, because of availability and price, is Redmond’s “Conditioner.” It is a volcanic overlay on their ancient seabed salt deposit that was thrust up into a mountain in Central Utah eons ago.
On Redmond’s website they have a downloadable booklet called f"We eat Clay and Wear it too. It talks about the many human and animal uses for their product. One elderly lady soaked her feet in the clay to pull toxins out of her body and did not want to throw away the water. She decided to water her houseplants instead. This toxin-filled water killed every plant in her house.
I was telling someone at the farmers market a couple weeks ago to be careful where they poured this waste water. I suggested a crack in their sidewalk where the weeds were growing. They said, “Well that would be like putting Roundup on the weeds.” I said it would be exactly like that: they would have pulled the Roundup (and a number of other toxins) out of their bodies and put it on the weeds.
This same conditioner has been used with great success by Steve Swerczek in Nebraska to cure some pretty big livestock health issues for other ranchers in a five or six state surrounding area. One rancher had lost 87 out of his first 350 calves. Steve tested all of the inputs, including the water, and got rid of the offensive minerals and GMO byproducts (think grazing GMO cornstalks and protein tubs filled with Distillers Dried Grains from the ethanol plants) going into the animals. He also had the owners feed 4 ounces per day of the conditioner to each cow in a free choice tub. By simply changing these two inexpensive factors, and switching to plain white salt, the losses stopped within 36 hours.
It was not just a simple lack of the correct mineral mix going in, it was getting the toxins out of the animals that actually cured the problem.
I have been trying for years to find “the” mineral mix that would work and still be priced low enough that the average rancher in Wyoming could afford to use it. There have been, and currently are, a lot of very intelligent, well-educated people trying to figure out the mineral side of this equation. My premise is that, in our homes and on our farms, we need to address the toxins first and then see how “fancy” we have to get with our mineral program to have truly healthy cows and humans.