Silicon: The Overlooked Nutrient

Silicone is one of the most abundant minerals on the planet. Sand is primarily composed of silicon dioxide (Si02), which is also known as silica. Horsetail is the richest herbal source of silicone of which I’m aware. It's also a major component of most crystals, including amethyst, citrine, rose quartz, agate, onyx, jasper, and tiger’s eye. Glass is also composed primarily of silica. When you look at the properties of sand, glass, and the aforementioned crystals, they provide signatures as to the properties of silicone-rich plants and herbs.

You'd think that a mineral that is this abundant in nature would not be deficient in people's diets, but it is. The reason is that silica imparts a flexible strength to tissues in both plants and people. In foods, it's primarily found in the chewy parts of plants, such as skins, bark, and seeds, and these are the parts we tend to remove by peeling and coring our fruits and vegetables.

Here’s what the Australian naturopath Dorothy Hall said about this in her book, What’s Wrong with You?

“The rougher and coarser the food we eat, the greater the silica content we gain. Unpolished grains, fibrous, raw vegetables, the skins of fruits, nuts, and vegetables; silica is found in all these unrefined foods. Anything which needs chomping and chewing is a better source of silica than those smooth, bland, refined, foods which slide down the rather more ‘refined’ throats of civilized populations.”

Although there's no RDA for silica the fact that modern people suffer from lackluster skin, fraying hair, brittle fingernails, joint damage, and so forth suggests we aren't getting enough of this mineral. 

Learn more about the benefits of silica and the plants that are rich in this mineral in this month's Sunshine Sharing hour.

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