[Melissa L]

...food and nutrition)? why is it important?

[Sheraton B]

minerals - silicia gel, magnesium, zincsilicial gel helps supplement hair, skin, and nails and joint health.magnesium & zinc - helps maintain male gland functions.

[Cister]

http://www.answers.com/topic/dietary-mineral

[Bunitão]

Eighteen different minerals (not counting C, H, N and O) have been identified as essential to human nutrition. In our regular diets, we absorb a lot of the requirement from our foods. However, often the food is inadequate at supplying all our needs and we need to supplement our diets to stay healthy. Traditionally, these supplements have been in the form of inorganic minerals, mined from the ground. Research has shown that the body only absorbs a few percent of what we take in, excreting the rest as waste. Perhaps it should not be surprising that the human body does not want to absorb chunks of powdered rock. A modern fad is the use of colloidal minerals. A colloid is a suspension of very fine insoluble particles in water. These colloidal minerals, too, are essentially particles of insoluble rock mined from the ground. There is no scientific research to validate the fantastic marketing claims for these colloids. Certainly these are "natural minerals" if eating the dirt out of the ground can be considered "natural food". The true natural form of minerals in foods is bound to organic (biological) materials, including carbohydrates, lipids and proteins. Examples are iron in heme, cobalt in vitamin B-12 and magnesium in chlorophyl. This usually is in the form chemists call a chelate (pronounced key-late from the Greek word chele meaning claw, the organic molecule holds onto the mineral like a lobster claw). Unlike the pieces of rock, this organic form of mineral is much better absorbed, up to 95%. These chelated forms of minerals are now produced commercially and are available as over the counter nutritional supplements. The most effective form is as chelates of amino acids, peptides and/or proteins, called proteinates. Unlike colloidal minerals, much scientific research has been carried out on the nutrition of chelated minerals, especially proteinates. Their efficacy is well proven. Not all chelates produced are of the same quality.