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Selenium? Yes, selenium |
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It seems that selenium helps the body’s anti-oxidants fight disease and also detoxifies the waste products our cells create from normal bodily functions. These baddies are free radicles, chemical and not political, and cause skin problems amongst other things. It seems that we used to get most of our selenium from bread made with wheat imported from Canada and the US where selenium levels in the soil are higher. But as almost all our wheat consumption is now of domestic or EU origin, we have been isolated from our traditional selenium supply. Before we imported Canadian and US wheat, we were no doubt less blemish free and not as pretty as we are now. Promoting beauty must be a more certain bet than nutrition with diet fashions seeming to change as frequently as the calendar. But enhancing our selenium intake will, it seems, require rather more than popping appropriate pills. Selenium itself is poisonous, but plants convert it into selenoproteins which is how it is good for us. One would suppose that dairy farmers will use fertilizers which contain some selenium which will in turn show up in the grass as selenoproteins, which will be harvested by cows which will finally produce milk with selenium in the right form and quantity for us. Then the promoters take over. But dairy industry almost certainly does not have a monopoly on this one. Any food derived from livestock or plants grown on land rich in selenium would likely fit the bill. Milk, however, has a health image that most other foods have yet to develop. It has an advantage to build on. One cannot, for instance, see the Canadian Wheat Board, American Wheat Associates and the like, who have no doubt been suffering from the “low carb” fad, making much progress in promoting high selenium wheat. But can the promoters get the population worked up about selenium, or rather an absence thereof, and its impact on skin quality? Sounds like a job for the cosmetics industry. David WalkerApril 14, 2005 top of page Maintained by:David Walker . Copyright © 2005 David Walker. Copyright & Disclaimer Information. Last Revised/Reviewed: 050414 |