This is NOT (puhLEEZ) meant to start a debate...but is IT meant to give folks solid information for consideration.

As well as the information below, I would like to add: My husband and I are rockhounds; my husband is metaphysically 'certified' by Melody and knowledgable in all aspects of rock energy & synergy. We cut/sell/import rocks for a living. Calcium (in the form of coral, shells or rocks) does NOT dissolve in ACV or lemon juice...and very seldom will they dissolve in CLR completely. They NEVER dissolve in ACV or lemon juice completely...at least not for the weeks/months we have soaked the various forms). I know how much that most of us prefer to get our minerals from 'nature' in the most natural form available. Plants DO assimilate calcium from rocks/shells/coral and that calcium from plants is readily available for use and assimilation by the human body. Eating rocks, shells, and coral? Not so "natural" and there's ample research & information that shows (in the long term) it can be VERY damaging to the cells, tissues, joints, ligaments...and especially the blood. (It is reported to cause the blood to thicken, hence lowering the flow of blood to every cell & organ in the body). For those that are knowledgeable of Zeta Potential...calcium (especially in the form of rocks/coral/shell) is THE Anti-Zeta.

Here's more information taken from a learning debate/discussion here:
//www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=750125#i

(Note: I posted this information BEFORE I knew anything about iodine; I would PREFER to get my Iodine from a plant or other 'natural source', but since the levels of arsenic/poison/pollutants in seaweed are a MAJOR consideration for me, I use another form of iodine. In the case of calcium this is not an issue, because clean/non toxic sources of plant-based calcium are READILY available).

READ ON!
Uny

--It has been tested & proven many times over that the rock-based forms of Calcium have an absorption rate of approximately 12% or less (depending upon age of the person ingesting them). The body MUST remove the unabsorbed portion (88%) from the bloodstream. It ends up in the joints of the bones, the bones themselves, the arteries, the lungs, eyes, kidneys (or anywhere else the body chooses to put them), causing states of dis-ease such as osteoarthritis, bone spurs, cataracts, brittle arteries, kidney stones, emphysema (and other conditions that are caused when the tissues become ‘non-elastic’ and coated with ground-up rocks).

--Ingesting inorganic minerals also results in a condition known as Leucocytosis (the white blood cell count immediately rises because it treats the inorganic mineral as an invading organism, germ, infection or other foreign material).

--“…Only plants can directly absorb and utilize inorganic minerals during photosynthesis. For humans, INORGANIC MINERALS ARE METABOLICALLY UNUSABLE...” This article is fantastic!
Biological Adaptations

http://www.iol.ie/~creature/BiologicalAdaptations.htm


--To me, there is no such thing as an “acceptable level” of an unnatural, chemically based toxin or inorganic mineral to be ingested into our precious bodies for healing “naturally”. ALL minerals needed for healing, restoring the body and living in a state of health ARE available from natural plants.

-----



INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HOLISTIC HEALING
Aundrea Adams, Naturopathic Nutrition Consultant
ANMA Board-Certified Naturopath, Washington, DC
Registered Naturopath

http://www.doctorajadams.com/CalMagCrystals.html


Plant-derived nutrients are far superior to metallic minerals which come from ancient sea beds and ground up rocks [found in most mineral supplements]. The body only absorbs about 8% of metallic supplements. A chelated mineral is nothing more than a metallic mineral which has been wrapped with a protein or amino acid which helps dissolve the metallic substance; however, it is still a metallic mineral which requires digestion before providing nutritional benefit. Calcium lactate, calcium hydroxyapatite, and DL-calcium-phosphate are poorly absorbed. Calcium in the form of metallic minerals (oyster shell, egg shell, dolemite, bone meal, limestone, calcium carbonate, clay, mount moruninite, sea bed minerals, Tums and other antacids) are ground-up rocks that are poorly absorbed. Such antacids are also poorly absorbed because they neutralize the hydrochloric acid that is needed for its absorption. If you are under age 35, you only absorb 8-12%. Those over 35 absorb only 3-5%. When metallic minerals are chelated, 40% is absorbed. The worst calcium is calcium carbonate [from rocks]. Calcium citrate from oyster shell is better, but it is not acidic enough to dissolve well in the body. Some forms of coral calcium do not break down in water. The best calcium is Calcium gluconate, which is 90% vegetable, and is the purest injectable grade.

Cows' milk has no significant amount of nutrients such as iron, vitamins, complex carbohydrates, or fiber. It has calcium, but very little is absorbed from cows' milk because pasteurized milk is enzyme-dead, its high-protein content interferes with the absorption, and actually disrupts your calcium metabolism. The excess calcium that you fail to absorb is not entirely eliminated. It gets stuck in various parts of your body and causes serious disorders and diseases. Harvard studies show that milk-drinkers do not have any less frequency of osteoporosis or bone fractures. Instead, they actually had slightly more fractures than those who drank little or no milk at all. Even organic milk exposes you to an unhealthy byproduct of homogenization. During homogenization, a natural hormone found in cows'bovine milk, xanthine oxidase (BMXO), is broken down into small particles that survive our digestive process. It is suspected that these tiny particles cause internal inflammation in humans, because BMXO antibodies are significantly elevated in patients with cardiovascular disease.

If calcium is not taken with magnesium, or it if it is not highly absorbable, it will cause much more harm than good. The unabsorbed calcium can lodge anywhere in your body and mimic practically any disease. For instances, if it lodges in your bones and joints, it mimics arthritis; if it lodges in you heart, it mimics arterial lesions; it mimics respiratory problems if it lodges in your lungs, etc.

Minerals in your food, not supplements enrich youhttp://www.rawfoods.com/articles/minerals.html

…Balance is the key to all our systems purring along optimally. It's not what you take in, it's how balanced it is. When we eat or drink anything unbalanced, like a calcium tablet, we upset the balance and synergy every cell is striving for….
…Only living foods are fully balanced -- food still growing when you eat it. Then raw foods and rawfood concentrates are pretty well balanced.
Minerals are the most sensitive of all to Balance. They will work only in proportion to each other. Nancy Appleton in "Lick the Sugar Habit" reports that dentist Dr. Melvin Page found if he could get his patient's calcium/phosphorus ratio to be 10 to 4 -- that's 2.5 times more calcium than phosphorus -- their tooth decay and bone loss would stop.

Sugar causes phosphorus to plummet. Say there's 4 molecules of phosphorus and 10 of calcium in your blood. Then you eat sugar, and a poor osteoblast (bone-cell) can get only 2 phosphorus to build bone, because the other 2 were conscripted into the GI tract to digest the Sugar (GI = gastro-intestinal).

Now your bone-cell can use only 5 of calcium, with its 2 phosphorus. So 5 molecules of calcium are left useless in the blood, while your bones cry out in desperate need of more calcium. There you have it -- an excess and deficiency of the same mineral at the same time!

Excess is another word for toxic. Now what happens to this toxic calcium? Our body plops it down into knobbly arthritic joints, bone spurs, brittle arteries, kidney stones and cataracts.

This is how a person can have joints swollen hard with calcium, and osteoporosis at the same time. She's not eating her minerals in balance, e.g. eating yogurt or cheese (excess calcium with no magnesium). And she's eating foods that unbalance the minerals even further, like sugar.

Excess calcium in a cell leads to fatigue too. Enzymes needed for the Krebs energy cycle have to leave their job and rush to bail out some of the calcium, like too much water in a canoe (when they should be busy rowing the canoe). I read that in "Molecular Biology of the Cell" by ruce Alberts et al. Please don't drink animal milk. Drink SEED milks!

THREE TYPES OF MINERALS

On offer at the food buffet are minerals in three forms:
(1) metallic minerals derived from oyster shell, calcium carbonate, limestone, dolomite, clay, ground-up rocks and soil, crystals, Sea Salt s and salt lakes; this class includes the laboratory-made chelated minerals, where protein is wrapped around the metallic minerals to help the body absorb them;
(2) dead plant minerals derived from prehistoric plant deposits or humic shale;
(3) living plant minerals in raw and living foods.

The colloidal and crystalloid liquids and gels are made from (1) or (2) -- metallic minerals or dead humus.

Do you want dead rock, dead plant, or living plant in you? The more raw foods in your diet, the more quickly you evolve into choosing LIFE. The colloids and caplets fall away.

Ann Wigmore wrote that mineral supplements are okay short-term (for three months) to correct an obvious imbalance. In the late 90's I took MSM and the dents in my nails went away. Today I get sulfur from cabbage juice in my daily green drink, and bean sprouts, no MSM.

The difference between living plant minerals and colloidal minerals is huge. A plant mineral is anywhere from several thousand to a million times smaller than the smallest metallic mineral. The average plant mineral is less than 0.00001 micron in size (a micron is a millionth of a meter or yard). Ten thousand plant minerals fit into one red blood cell, and three million red blood cells are in a single drop of blood.

One red blood cell contains more than 200 million molecules of
hemoglobin, each of which need one atom of iron. Our bone marrow produces about 100 billion red blood cells every hour. Iron is in so many raw foods -- leafy greens, beets, sprouted grains and beans, nuts and seeds, dried fruit with pips, and seaweeds, that I've never yet met an anemic raw foodist! Indeed we have dynamite energy.

The small size of plant minerals gives them a huge surface area, so you get billions of tiny electrically-charged minerals when you eat one raw fig bar.
Plant minerals are water-soluble and negatively charged, which makes for easy absorption through the intestinal membrane.

Metallic minerals are hydrophobic (water-insoluble) with a positive charge. If you drink 2 grains of free iodine, it will kill you. But in its plant form in sea vegetables, Iodine is essential for a purr-along metabolic rate.

Plant minerals are in fact so different from metal elements that it's about time Science gave them a different name.


Vitamin Vigilante, Overcoming Osteoporosis

http://www.lamasbeauty.com/lifestyle/july01/Inner_Well_Being.htm


…The most effective way to get calcium and other nutrients for our bones is from a balanced, whole food diet. Since your diet is probably less-than-perfect, you will most-likely need a mineral supplement to get all the nutrients you need to maintain healthy bones. For maximum benefit, find one that has minerals and vitamins like those in food.

The problem is, most calcium supplements are not at all like food. They contain ground up rocks. Food is good for your bones; rocks are not. You may not know the difference when you buy it, but your body can easily tell food from rocks.

If someone took a chunk of the sidewalk, ground it up, put it into pills and said, "Eat this to nourish your bones," you would think they were crazy. But have you looked at the label of your calcium supplement lately? Most likely it contains rocks mined from the ground. To help you read what is probably a confusing label, here are some examples of what ordinary calcium supplements contain: limestone (calcium carbonate), chalk (calcium phosphate), plaster (calcium sulfate), salts (such as calcium citrate), and chelated calcium. These are all unnatural forms of calcium not found in any food. The same is true for other minerals in supplements such as magnesium which is usually magnesium oxide (rust)!

Both common sense and Science tell us we can't effectively nourish our bones with ground up rocks and pharmaceutical chemicals. They are poorly absorbed; they have no food value; they upset your stomach and have other side effects. Nature designed our bodies to get nourished by whole food.

Fortunately there are calcium supplements that are whole food. They are produced by feeding minerals to friendly micro-organisms (baker's yeast and yogurt culture) that turn them into food.

As whole food, they have maximum absorption and utilization in the cells of the body without the upset stomach and other side effects of ordinary calcium supplements.

It is usually recommended that we consume 1,000 to 1,200 mg of calcium per day.

We get about half of that in our diet. Ordinary calcium supplements often contain large amounts of calcium per tablet, but only a small amount is absorbed into the body….




http://www.parazap.com/absolutecalcium/about%20absolute%20calcium.htm


There is a big difference in forms of calcium. Nearly all are rock forms of calcium, in other words, its simply ground up rock! It is hard to get people to understand how difficult it is for animals to absorb ground up rocks... calcium carbonate is the worst... only two percent of it is absorbed. Calcium citrate is a little better but not much.

Calcium derived from rock creates several problems within the body. Among them are the following: The kidneys try to eliminate the calcium that is not assimilated and it over works them. The blood becomes saturated with it but because the body does not recognize it as calcium in its molecular structure, it deposits it on the joints as bone spurs.

So what is the answer? Where do animals get calcium? It is the plants job to absorb the mineral form of calcium and change the molecular structure of the calcium molecule so that animal’s bodies can absorb it. Man has been able to change the molecule somewhat by a process called chelated and has got the absorption rate up to seventeen percent, but still can't do what nature does.
Animals don't get their calcium from licking rocks or chewing them up.

Is “Mineral Water” Good For You?

http://www.aquatechnology.net/frame4751007.html

The human body can tell us which minerals, liquids, foods or other materials it will accept, and those which it recognizes as alien or foreign matter--and thus proceeds to reject.

The pathological character of inorganic minerals such as those found in highly mineralized water is easily demonstrable. Take your white corpuscle (blood cell) count about six hours after you've last had any food or water. It should be about 6,000 per milliliter.

Then, drink a normal glass of hard, mineral water. The white blood cell count will shoot up until it often more than doubles!

Inorganic chemistry doesn't lie.

This phenomena is called Leucocytosis and is our body's defense mechanism responding (via an increased white cell count) to an invading organism, germ, infection or foreign material. When pure water, fruits, vegetables and other naturally-grown materials are eaten, the white blood cell count stays level.

However, when materials such as processed or junk foods, and heavily mineralized drinking water are consumed, the body's defense mechanism springs into action, increasing the white blood cell count which prepares the body to do battle with and subsequently dispose of or dispense with the unwanted "invader"---in the present case, heavy doses of inorganic salts and minerals from drinking water.

Water is a cleansing agent, foods are nutrients. Dr. Moller-Racke's statement that "water is probably our most valuable nutrient" is therefore complete nonsense as any fourth grade life Science textbook tells us. Water is our most valuable cleansing agent, flushing toxins and byproducts of metabolism from our body while furnishing pure hydrogen and oxygen to cells and tissue.

The cleansing attributes of pure water are impaired when it contains large doses of dissolved dirt and stone(mineral water)---and the body organs which must eliminate these unwanted materials are continually stressed and unnecessarily overworked.

Many individuals who experience a "rush" when they drink mineral water probably misinterpret this apparent therapeutic feeling as simply the body organs (skin, kidneys, lungs, intestines) working overtime to eliminate excess minerals which the body cannot use.

So, Trapper, What is your experience with Coral Calcium? Share it with us.